Social sharing buttons and network tags
Share buttons form the most visible cluster among the leading Social plugins. AddToAny Share Buttons, Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons, and Ocean Social Sharing are all prominent entries by active installs.
Related tags reinforce that focus: share appears alongside 98 plugins in the category, while twitter appears with 78 and facebook with 69. The sharing tag overlaps with 38 plugins, pointing to a sizable group centered on making content easier to share.
Social login, feeds and publishing tools
The leading names also point to login, counters, feeds and other social functions beyond share buttons.
- Wp Social Login and Register Social Counter: Its name indicates a focus on social login, registration and counters; it has 70,000 active installs.
- Feed Them Social: A feed-oriented tool by name, with 20,000 active installs.
- Metricool: One of the most-installed plugins in this category, with 90,000 active installs.
- XPoster and Open Graph: Their names suggest social publishing and metadata functions; each has 10,000 active installs.
- Simple Like Page: A like-page tool by name, with 10,000 active installs. Related tags include social-media (46 plugins), widget (43) and media (21).
How social plugins are distributed and maintained
The category is broad, but only a small group reaches substantial install counts, while recent updates are concentrated among several leaders. Of 439 plugins, 18 have at least 10,000 active installs and just 2 have at least 100,000; 19% were updated in the last year.
Both plugins at the 100,000-install threshold have recent update records: Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons was updated this month, while AddToAny Share Buttons was updated five months ago. Several other leading plugins were updated this month, including Metricool and Wp Social Login and Register Social Counter. That contrasts with the category-wide figure, suggesting the most-installed group has seen more recent activity than the broader collection.