The week's largest handover: Zero Spam for WordPress, at 20,000+ installs, moved from Ben Marshall to Highfivery Studio on 23 Oct 2026. The record carries the full transfer evidence.
Other hands changed too: a 2-plugin portfolio led by Custom Icons for Elementor and WPBakery (10,000+) moved from gdprcompliancewp to Mortgage Calculator on 21 Oct 2026; Wp-Insert (9,000+) moved from Namith Jawahar to Broadstreet on 22 Oct 2026; a 4-plugin portfolio led by Smart Archive Page Remove (6,000+) moved from Peter Raschendorfer to WP User Manager on 23 Oct 2026. In all, 53 plugins changed hands across 28 handovers this week.
69 plugins left the directory this week. The largest by last recorded installs: HuCommerce | Magyar kiegészítések WooCommerce webáruházakhoz (9,000+), WP PageNavi Style (8,000+), Participants Database (7,000+). wordpress.org removes a closed plugin's page the same day it closes; each last good record is preserved in the registry.
18 plugins returned to the directory, led by Hyyan Integration for WooCommerce and Polylang (8,000+) and Checkout Files Upload for WooCommerce (7,000+).
After long silence: HTML Editor Syntax Highlighter, at 60,000+ installs shipped a release on 22 Oct 2026, at least 540 days after its previous one. 104 more did the same; the dormancy record has each.
The week in numbers
| Ownership transfers | 53 |
|---|---|
| Closures | 69 |
| Returns | 18 |
| Dormancy breaks | 105 |
The record, in full
- The rolling transfer record: every handover of the trailing 90 days, with evidence.
- The dormancy record: plugins past 540 days without a release, most widely installed first.
- Closed in 2026: every plugin removed this year, last good record preserved.
This brief is assembled from the registry’s event records for the seven days shown. Every claim links to the record that carries its evidence.