73
Hide Dashboard Notifications
It hides the clutter and sometimes your entire login screen too.
HealthyGrowing
73/100
The plugin cleans up dashboard clutter but has a history of breaking site access through critical update bugs.
Active installs
~25,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 20k+
Rating
3.9★
33 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
+203%
Growing fast
34 → 103 installs/day
What to watch out for
- MINORreviews unevenly distributed over time
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 · +203% in the last year
34/day a year ago→103/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayHide Dashboard Notifications is well-liked for cleaning up WordPress admin clutter, but has a serious reliability problem with multiple updates introducing a login-breaking bug that locked all users out of their sites.
What people like
- +Effectively hides unwanted plugin notices, ads, and review requests from the WordPress dashboard×6
- +Lightweight and simple, with minimal settings and no unnecessary extras×3
- +Supports user role-based control over which notifications are hidden
- +Developer is responsive to feature requests and quick to implement them
Common complaints
- −Multiple updates introduced a critical bug that locked all users (including admins) out of the WordPress dashboard with a 403 error or permissions error (since 1.3.1)×7
- −The same login-breaking bug was reintroduced in a subsequent update after already being fixed, causing further mass lockouts (since 1.3.4)×3
- −The bug caused significant lost time for developers managing multiple client sites, requiring manual deactivation via hosting providers×2
- −Support was slow or unresponsive during the critical login bug incidents
- −The plugin adds its own settings tab rather than integrating into the existing WordPress Settings menu, adding clutter contrary to the plugin's purpose
- −At least one install resulted in a 'plugin does not have a valid header' error
Review trustMostly organic
- 4.07★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 3.90★
- 9%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
- past spikeReview timing — up to 80% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-09-182025-02-092026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 33 total
Latest reviews · 33 analyzed
- 2026-03-05★★★★★Helpful Feature Request ResponsePcosta88
- 2024-07-08★★★★★Horribledesign
- 2024-07-07★★★★★Bug: latest update 1.3.4 locks out all users from logging into your own siteJob van Harn
- 2024-06-29★★★★★Error after last updateJan_Siev
- 2024-06-29★★★★★You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.d4zza
- 2024-06-23★★★★★breaks login of wordpresstelemarker
- 2024-06-23★★★★★1.3.4 last update broke loginincafra1-shot
- 2024-06-23★★★★★I loose access to my website !Pierre236
- 2024-06-16★★★★★Lightweight plugin – perfectalamea
- 2023-08-21★★★★★Get rid of the clutterneilgee
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.
95
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
95
Prior 7-day baseline
68
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
414
Mean release-day peak (30d)
82
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
0.0%
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.
80%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
4.63
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
70%
5★ share in analyzed sample
9%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
3.91 → 4.07★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered