WP-UserOnline is the #33 ranked widget app on WordPress, with a 4.6 average rating from 38 reviews, as of Aug 31, 2026.
WP-UserOnline is a WordPress Plugin Directory app by Lester Chan. With a rating of 4.6★ from 38 reviews, it currently ranks #33 in the Widget category.
AppRanks data: WP-UserOnline ranks #33 in Widget on WordPress Plugin Directory, placing it in the top 5% of that category.
AppRanks verdict
Generated from live marketplace data — refreshed daily
WP-UserOnline is a highly rated WordPress app with a limited review volume. It is listed in the Widget category on WordPress Plugin Directory, which AppRanks treats as the canonical taxonomy node for ranking and competitor comparison. 38 reviews put it in the early-traction tier — useful for early-stage stores willing to be on the leading edge. Early-traction review counts are sensitive to single launch periods or feature events, so a 30-day re-check before bigger commitments often resolves whether the trend is sustained. Paid-only pricing means evaluating fit on the marketplace listing or via the developer's documentation before installing. AppRanks tracks rating, review count, pricing tier, and category position daily — the figures on this page reflect the most recent scrape from the canonical WordPress Plugin Directory listing.
Pros
- +High average rating (4.6★) signals consistent merchant satisfaction
- +Published by Lester Chan — established developer track record
Cons
- −Limited review base (38) — ratings can shift significantly with new feedback
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How WP-UserOnline works
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WP-UserOnline shows how many people are on your site right now, and where they are. Members are named, guests and search bots are counted, and the whole thing refreshes itself in the background without a page reload.
Features
A counter, a “who is browsing this page” line and a “who is browsing the site” line, each usable on its own.
A full users online page, listing every visitor with the page they are on, where they came from and when they arrived.
A sidebar widget offering any of those five combinations.
Every string is a template you can edit, so the wording is yours rather than the plugin’s.
Around three hundred search bots recognised by user agent, and a filter for adding your own.
One admin screen with three tabs — who is online now, the settings, the templates — plus a line in the Dashboard’s At a Glance panel.
A section on the WP-Stats page when that plugin is installed.
Donations I spent most of my free time creating, updating, maintaining and supporting these plugins, if you really love my plugins and could spare me a couple of bucks, I will really appreciate it. If not feel free to use it without any obligations.
Usage The simplest way is the widget. Go to WP-Admin -> Appearance -> Widgets, add the UserOnline widget to a sidebar, and pick which of the five statistics types it should show.
A classic theme can call the template tags directly instead, anywhere in sidebar.php, header.php or a template part:
<?php if ( function_exists( 'users_online' ) ) : ?> <p>Users online: <span id="useronline-count"><?php users_online(); ?></span></p> <?php endif; ?>
The element ids matter: useronline-count, useronline-browsing-site, useronline-browsing-page and useronline-details are what the refresh script looks for. A figure printed outside one of them is correct when the page loads and then stays where it is.
To give visitors a page of their own listing everyone online, create a page and put the shortcode in it:
[page_useronline]
Everything the plugin has is at WP-Admin -> WP-UserOnline, on three tabs: Users Online for who is here right now, Settings, and Templates for the wording of everything the plugin prints.
Showing Users Online In A Block One block is available in the editor, under Widgets:
Users Online — everyone on the site right now, grouped into members, guests and bots, with the page each of them is reading and the most-ever-online record underneath. The same listing [page_useronline] produces.
It renders on the server, so the preview in the editor is the real listing rather than an approximation, and the page updates itself while a visitor is reading it exactly as the shortcode’s does. Only one goes in a post: the listing carries its own useronline-details element and the refresh script finds it by that name.
Rendering it records nobody. Previewing the block in the editor does not add you to the figures you are previewing, however many times the preview refreshes — visitors are recorded when a page is loaded, not when the listing is drawn.
The shortcode still works and is not going anywhere. [page_useronline] behaves exactly as it always has, and a page already containing it needs no change. The block calls the same code the shortcode calls, so the two render identically — use whichever suits the page.
WP-CLI wp useronline list wp useronline list --format=count wp useronline count
The command reads and never writes. The table maintains itself — every visit purges rows that have timed out — and the admin screen offers no destructive action, so neither does the command.
REST API GET /wp-json/useronline/v1/count POST /wp-json/useronline/v1/visit
count reports how many are online now, the record and its date, and records nobody — so a monitoring script polling it does not appear in the figure it is reading. `visit` is the heartbeat: it records the caller and answers with one of the four views, given a `mode` of `count`, `browsing-site`, `browsing-page` or `details`, plus the `page_url` they are on.
Neither route takes a nonce, and that is deliberate. A nonce cannot authenticate a logged-out visitor: anonymous nonces come from one session every such caller shares, so requiring one would prove nothing while breaking every visitor who is not signed in. A page_url that does not resolve to this site is ignored, and a heartbeat writes nothing but the caller’s own row.
These routes are an addition. The admin-ajax.php wp_useronline action is unchanged and still supported.
Category rankings
As of Sep 5, 2026- Widget#33of 781Top 5%
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Competitors & alternatives
WP-UserOnline doesn't have curated competitor matchups yet. Other tracked widget apps on WordPress:
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Where WP-UserOnline stands in the Widget category
WP-UserOnline ranks #33 of 781 apps in the Widget category, placing it in the top 5% of the listing.
Frequently asked questions
What is WP-UserOnline?
WP-UserOnline is an app for WordPress. It currently holds a 4.6-star rating from 38 merchant reviews, and AppRanks has been tracking its public marketplace data on the refresh cadence published in our methodology. It is listed under the Widget category on AppRanks, where you can see its current category position, review-velocity trend, and how it compares against the top alternatives in the same space. Developed by Lester Chan.
Who uses WP-UserOnline?
Currently around 10,000 active stores have installed WP-UserOnline. Its review base is still building, which usually maps to early-stage merchants and stores piloting a new workflow. It is part of the Widget category on WordPress.
Where does WP-UserOnline rank on WordPress?
WP-UserOnline currently sits at position #33 in the Widget category on WordPress. That places it in the top 4% of 781 apps tracked in the same category. Category positions are read from the live marketplace ranking and refresh on each scrape, so the number you see here reflects the most recent crawl rather than a long-running average.