WordPress Plugin Monitor — Track New Plugins, Releases & Rating Changes

Snapshot scrapers tell you what the WordPress.org plugin directory looks like right now. This Actor tells you what changed since your last run: new plugins in your niche, version releases, rating and install-base movement, compatibility updates — as structured change events ready for Slack, sheets, or your pipeline.

Built on the official WordPress.org plugins API. No HTML parsing, no login, no proxies — which also makes it unusually stable and cheap to run.

What it does

• Watch a niche — give it search terms (e.g. woocommerce email) or official plugin tags (seo, backup, forms). Every run diffs the result set against the previous run: new_plugin, removed_plugin, and plugin_changed events with field-level before/after.
• Watch the global new-plugins feed — every brand-new plugin published to wordpress.org, useful for ecosystem watchers and lead generation (new plugin authors are fresh leads).
• Watch specific plugins — track competitors by slug: version releases, tested up to bumps, required PHP/WP changes, rating trends, active-install growth, tag and homepage changes.

Who uses this

• Plugin developers — know the day a competitor ships a release, changes requirements, or starts losing rating.
• Agencies — track the plugins your client sites depend on: releases and compatibility signals without reading changelogs.
• Security & maintenance teams — a version change event is your trigger to review and update.
• Data & BD teams — the new-plugins feed is a steady source of fresh WordPress-ecosystem leads.

Output example

{
  "type": "plugin_changed",
  "source": "watch",
  "slug": "contact-form-7",
  "name": "Contact Form 7",
  "url": "https://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/",
  "changes": [
    { "field": "version", "before": "6.1.5", "after": "6.1.6" },
    { "field": "tested", "before": "6.8", "after": "6.9" }
  ],
  "detectedAt": "2026-08-04T10:00:00.000Z"
}

Input

Field	Description
searchTerms	Search queries watched as result sets
tags	Official plugin tags watched as result sets
watchNewPlugins	Watch the global new-plugins feed
pluginSlugs	Specific plugins tracked with detailed field diffs
maxPagesPerList	Pagination depth (100 plugins per page)
monitorId	State namespace shared between runs

Reliability

Data comes from the official api.wordpress.org JSON API — the same one wp-admin uses — so there is no markup to break. Every item is validated against a strict schema and the run fails loudly rather than silently storing garbage. Noisy counters (review counts) are smoothed so you only see meaningful changes.

Scheduling

Run it daily with an Apify Schedule and pipe change events to Slack, email, or Google Sheets via Apify integrations. Quiet days produce no change events and cost almost nothing.

FAQ

Does it need credentials? No — the WordPress.org API is public.

Can I watch several niches separately? Yes, use different monitorId values per schedule.

First run? It stores a baseline (optionally emitted as baseline items); real change events start from run two.