The WordPress plugin review queue has cleared from a peak of more than 1,050 pending submissions to near zero — the result of three new volunteer reviewers completing a two-month onboarding process and joining the team in May. Plugin submission volumes on WordPress.org have climbed sharply throughout 2026, putting serious pressure on the volunteer team responsible for reviewing every plugin before it enters the official directory.
Three new reviewers — Marcel Tannich (@mardroid), Shiva Shanker (@shivashankerbhatta), and Shameem Reza (@shameemreza) — came through a recruitment drive launched in March and are now actively reviewing submissions and corresponding with plugin authors each week.
In February, the backlog grew from 301 plugins to 580 as submission rates doubled year-over-year. By March, authors were submitting around 500 plugins per week. In the weeks that followed:
- Mid-April peak of roughly 1,050 plugins in the queue, falling to near zero within weeks of the new reviewers joining
- May submissions reached a new record of around 700 per week — 2.7 times the 2025 rate and five times the 2024 rate
- Nearly 3,000 initial reviews completed in May alone, representing about 5% of the entire plugin directory
- The comparable figure for May 2024 was around 1,100 reviews
Automated tooling and AI-assisted checks contributed to handling that volume, but the Plugins Team is clear that these tools support reviewers rather than replace them. The team notes that judgment calls, author conversations, security context, and guideline violations all require experienced humans — work that cannot be reduced to pattern matching.
The added capacity also frees up existing team members to work on longer-term projects, including Plugin Check, the official tool that helps developers identify issues before submission, and internal scanner tooling.
With submissions continuing to climb, the team is opening a second round of applications. There are two ways to get involved: as a volunteer reviewer, who would receive roughly two months of guided training before taking on reviews independently, or as a sponsoring organization contributing staff time or financial support for volunteers. Organizations without specific candidates can ask the team for help finding people to sponsor.
The deadline for this round is 26 June 2026. Anyone who applied during the March round does not need to reapply — those submissions are already on file.
