77
Simple User Avatar
A lightweight Gravatar replacement that begs for donations with relentless persistence.
HealthyGrowing
77/100
It provides a simple Gravatar alternative but the donation popup is quite intrusive.
Active installs
~27,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 20k+
Rating
4.4★
19 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
+79%
Growing fast
38 → 68 installs/day
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Growing fast · +79% in the last year
38/day a year ago→68/day today
Reviews
what people actually saySimple User Avatar is well-regarded as a lightweight, no-fuss alternative to Gravatar-based avatars, but a recurring complaint about an intrusive donation popup that ignores user dismissal undermines the experience for some.
What people like
- +Easy to set up and works out of the box with no configuration needed×5
- +Lightweight and minimal code footprint×3
- +Removes dependency on Gravatar, using the WordPress Media Library instead×2
- +Responsive support noted by users
Common complaints
- −Donation popup appears persistently in the admin area and does not stay dismissed — the 'Hide for 1 month' button resets on every page refresh or cache clear×2
- −Avatar upload appears limited to admin users; regular logged-in users cannot upload their own avatar
Review trustMostly organic
- 4.33★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.40★
- 5%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
- past spikeReview timing — up to 33% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2024-05-152025-06-092026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 19 total
Latest reviews · 19 analyzed
- 2024-10-14★★★★★Impressed! | Unequaled Performance and Supportgenerosus
- 2024-06-10★★★★★Simplenaturohair
- 2024-04-21★★★★★As loged inredgdk
- 2023-06-02★★★★★Easy to use.Sunny
- 2022-01-29★★★★★Great, light pluginŁukasz
- 2022-01-17★★★★★Great Little Plugin – Clean Codebistromatic
- 2021-06-17★★★★★Enough with the donation requests!neuroticartist
- 2021-06-10★★★★★Irritating popup on admin asking for donation on every refresh or cache clan.Sprintally ®
- 2021-04-20★★★★★not workingjuanhs12
- 2020-11-01★★★★★Works greathrsms
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
64
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
66
Prior 7-day baseline
66
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
4,065
Mean release-day peak (30d)
266
Latest day · 2026-06-03(spike)
-3.0%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
33%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
2.77
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
84%
5★ share in analyzed sample
5%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.37 → 4.33★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered