ThemeRuby

Light Views Counter is a professional, high-performance WordPress plugin that tracks post views using intelligent scroll detection.
It is specifically designed for high-traffic websites and large databases, where other plugins often slow down or fail to perform efficiently. It delivers reliable view tracking without adding query overhead or slowing down your site’s performance.
Designed for news sites, magazines, bloggers, and content creators, this plugin helps you filter popular posts and show views that truly resonate with your audience.
<h4>🌟 Why Choose Light Views Counter?</h4>
Looking for a lightweight, reliable, and high-performance post views counter for WordPress? Light Views Counter is designed with precision and efficiency in mind, built to track genuine user engagement without slowing down your site.
Tracking
<ul>
<li>Scroll Detection Technology: Only counts views when visitors actually read your content (configurable scroll threshold)</li>
<li>Bot Protection: Automatically filters out search engine crawlers and automated traffic</li>
<li>Duplicate Prevention: Prevent counting the same user multiple times within a configurable time window</li>
<li>Short Content Smart Detection: Intelligently handles posts that fit in viewport without requiring scroll</li>
</ul>
Lightning Fast Performance
<ul>
<li>Zero Impact on Page Speed: Asynchronous REST API ensures counting happens in the background</li>
<li>Built-in Caching: caching system reduces database load</li>
<li>sendBeacon API: Fire-and-forget counting for maximum performance (enabled by default)</li>
</ul>
Easy to Use
<ul>
<li>Automatic Tracking: Works immediately after activation, no configuration required</li>
<li>Flexible Shortcode: Display views anywhere with <code>[lightvc_post_views]</code> shortcode</li>
<li>Popular Posts Widgets: Ready-to-use WordPress and Elementor widgets</li>
<li>Auto-Display Option: Automatically show view counts at the end of posts</li>
</ul>
Developer Friendly
<ul>
<li>Clean Public API: Simple functions: <code>lightvc_get_post_views()</code>, <code>lightvc_get_popular_posts()</code></li>
<li>WP_Query Integration: Sort posts by views: <code>'orderby' => 'lightvc_views'</code></li>
<li>Hooks & Filters: Customize everything: <code>lightvc_post_views_count</code>, <code>lightvc_views_html</code>, <code>lightvc_exclude_user</code></li>
<li>REST API Endpoints: HTTP access for external integrations</li>
</ul>
Enterprise Ready
<ul>
<li>High Traffic Optimized: Tested on sites with millions of views per day</li>
<li>Cache Plugin Compatible: Works perfectly with WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, Cloudflare</li>
<li>GDPR Compliant: No personal data collection, no cookies, privacy-focused</li>
</ul>
<h4>Perfect For</h4>
<ul>
<li>Bloggers: See which posts your readers love most</li>
<li>News Websites: Track trending stories and breaking news engagement</li>
<li>Magazine Sites: Identify top-performing content and popular topics</li>
<li>Content Marketers: Measure content performance and reader engagement</li>
<li>E-commerce: Track product page views and customer interest</li>
<li>Publishers: Understand content performance across categories</li>
</ul>
<h4>🗝️ Key features:</h4>
Every feature is carefully engineered to ensure accuracy, speed, and seamless integration with your WordPress site. From smart counting logic and flexible widgets to detailed analytics and developer-friendly APIs.
Smart Counting System
<ul>
<li>Scroll-based view detection</li>
<li>Automatic short content detection and handling</li>
<li>Configurable time window to prevent duplicate counts</li>
<li>Admin user exclusion (don’t count your own views)</li>
<li>Bot and crawler filtering</li>
</ul>
Widgets & Integration
<ul>
<li>Standard WordPress widget for popular posts</li>
<li>Display options: thumbnails, view counts, dates</li>
<li>Fully customizable layouts</li>
<li>Works in any widget area</li>
</ul>
Analytics & Reporting
<ul>
<li>Admin dashboard with statistics</li>
<li>Total views across all posts</li>
<li>Most viewed posts list</li>
<li>Average views per post</li>
<li>Views column in posts list (sortable)</li>
</ul>
Performance Features
<ul>
<li>Custom database table with optimized indexes</li>
<li>WP cache support</li>
<li>sendBeacon API for fire-and-forget requests</li>
<li>Conditional script loading</li>
<li>No external dependencies</li>
</ul>
<h4>Translations & Compatibility</h4>
<ul>
<li>Translation ready with .pot file included</li>
<li>Works with any WordPress theme</li>
<li>Deep integration with Foxiz News theme</li>
<li>Cache Plugins: WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, Autoptimize</li>
<li>CDN Services: Cloudflare, StackPath, KeyCDN, BunnyCDN</li>
</ul>
<h4>🔒 Privacy & Security</h4>
<ul>
<li>No personal data collection</li>
<li>No cookies used</li>
<li>No cross-site tracking</li>
<li>localStorage is client-side only</li>
<li>Complete transparency</li>
<li>Rate limiting to prevent abuse</li>
<li>Admin capability checks</li>
</ul>
<h4>Configuration (Optional)</h4>
After activation, you can customize settings:
Navigate to Settings > Light Views Counter 
With Foxiz Theme: Navigate to Foxiz Admin > Light Views Counter
The plugin features a modern admin interface with toast notifications, and organized sections.
Available Settings:
Easily customize how Light Views Counter works on your site. Every option is designed to give you full control while keeping things fast, and easy to manage.
Tracking Settings:
<ul>
<li>Scroll Threshold (default: 50%) – How far users must scroll before counting a view</li>
<li>Time Window (default: 1800 seconds / 30 minutes) – Prevents duplicate counts from same user</li>
<li>Supported Post Types (default: Posts) – Select which post types to track (Posts, Pages, Custom Types)</li>
<li>Fast Mode (default: Enabled) – Uses sendBeacon API for maximum performance</li>
</ul>
Performance Settings:
<ul>
<li>Enable Caching (default: Enabled) – Cache view counts for better performance</li>
<li>Cache Duration (default: 300 seconds / 5 minutes) – How long to cache data</li>
<li>Query Method (default: Subquery) – Choose Subquery (<100k posts) or JOIN (100k+ posts) for orderby queries</li>
</ul>
Display Settings:
<ul>
<li>Show Views on Content (default: Disabled) – Auto-display view count at end of posts</li>
</ul>
API Settings:
<ul>
<li>Enable GET Endpoint (default: Disabled) – Allow public REST API access to view counts</li>
</ul>
<h4>Getting Started</h4>

<ol>
<li>Verify Tracking – Visit any post on your site, scroll down, then check the admin dashboard statistics</li>
<li>Add Widgets – Go to Appearance > Widgets and add “Popular Posts (Light Views Counter)”</li>
<li>View Statistics – Check the Views column in your Posts list (admin area)</li>
</ol>
That’s it! Your site is now tracking post views intelligently.
<h4>💻 For Developers</h4>
Light Views Counter provides a complete developer toolkit:
PHP Functions:
<ul>
<li><code>lightvc_get_post_views( $post_id )</code></li>
<li><code>lightvc_get_popular_posts( $args )</code></li>
</ul>
WP_Query Integration:
<ul>
<li><code>'orderby' => 'lightvc_views'</code></li>
</ul>
Hooks & Filters:
<ul>
<li><code>lightvc_post_views_count</code></li>
<li><code>lightvc_views_html</code></li>
<li><code>lightvc_exclude_user</code></li>
<li><code>lightvc_views_counted</code></li>
</ul>
REST API:
<ul>
<li><code>GET /wp-json/lightvc/v1/views/{id}</code></li>
<li><code>POST /wp-json/lightvc/v1/count</code></li>
</ul>
<h4>🔗 Useful Links</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://themeruby.com/lvc-documentation/" rel="nofollow ugc">Documentation</a></li>
<li><a href="https://themeruby.com" rel="nofollow ugc">ThemeRuby Website</a></li>
</ul>

Light Views Counter – Fast, Scalable View Counter for High-Traffic Sites

Lightweight and fast post view counter with smart tracking, built for high-traffic sites and large post databases.

WebberZone

Ajay

WordPress doesn’t have an in-built system to track page views or displaying popular posts. <a href="https://webberzone.com/plugins/top-10/" rel="nofollow ugc">Top 10</a> is an easy to use, yet, powerful WordPress plugin that will count the number of page views of your posts, pages and any custom post types. You can then display the page view counts as well as display your most popular posts.
Top 10 adds two widgets that you can use to display a list of popular posts and the counta cross all your blog posts.
Although several similar plugins exist today, Top 10 is one of the most feature-rich popular post plugins with support for thumbnails, shortcodes, widgets, custom post types and CSS styles. The inbuilt caching system also helps reduce server load by caching your popular posts output. The tracking uses ajax and is thus compatible with most popular caching plugins.
Top 10 also has powerful API and is fully extendable with WordPress actions and filters to allow you easily extend the code base to add new features or tweak existing ones.
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Page counter: Counts page views on single posts, pages and custom post types on an hourly basis which can then be easily displayed automatically, using shortcodes or functions</li>
<li>Popular posts: Display a list of popular posts either for total counts or for a custom period. You can choose how many posts are to be displayed along with loads of other customisation options</li>
<li>Gutenberg / Block Editor support: You can find a block called “Popular Posts [Top 10]” with its own configurable set of options</li>
<li>Widget ready: Sidebar widgets available for daily popular and overall popular posts. Highly customizable widgets to control what you want to display in the list of posts</li>
<li>Shortcodes: The plugin includes two shortcodes <code>[tptn_list]</code> and <code>[tptn_views]</code> to display the posts list and the number of views respectively</li>
<li>Thumbnail support
<ul>
<li>Support for WordPress post thumbnails. Top 10 will create a custom image size (<code>tptn_thumbnail</code>) with the dimensions specified in the Settings page</li>
<li>Auto-extract the first image in your post to be displayed as a thumbnail</li>
<li>Manually enter the URL of the thumbnail via <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Custom_Fields" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress meta fields</a>. Specify this using the meta box in your Edit screens.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Exclusions: Exclude posts from select categories from appearing in the top posts list. Also exclude posts by ID from appearing in the list</li>
<li>Styles: The output is wrapped in CSS classes which allows you to easily style the list. You can enter your custom CSS styles from within WordPress Admin area or use the style included.</li>
<li>Admin interface: View list of daily and/or overall popular posts from within the dashboard. Top 10 also adds two sortable columns to your All Posts and All Pages pages in your WordPress Admin area</li>
<li>Export/Import interface: Export the count tables and settings to restore in the same site or on other installs</li>
<li>Works with caching plugins like WP-Super-Cache, W3 Total Cache or Quick Cache</li>
<li>Extendable code: Top 10 has tonnes of filters and actions that allow any developer to easily add features, edit outputs, etc.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Features in Top 10 Pro</h4>
<ul>
<li>
Advanced Blocks and Widgets
<ul>
<li>Top 10 Query Block: Query and display popular posts directly from the block or site editor.</li>
<li>Enhanced Top 10 Featured Image Block: Supports multiple image sources for more flexibility.</li>
<li>Popular Posts Block Enhancements: </li>
<li>Save and clear default block settings with a single click.</li>
<li>Auto-insert default and global settings attributes with an option to disable.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Improved Admin Tools
<ul>
<li>Admin Bar Integration: New admin bar menu item to view daily, total, and overall post counts, access admin pages, and clear the cache quickly.</li>
<li>Dashboard Access Control: Control which user roles can view the Top 10 dashboard.</li>
<li>Display Settings: Choose which post type screens display admin columns.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Custom Display Options
<ul>
<li>Taxonomy-Specific Displays: Use the <code>display_only_on_tax_ids</code> parameter to restrict popular post displays to specific taxonomy terms.</li>
<li>Category Inclusion: Include popular posts from specific categories using a new option in the Edit Post meta box.</li>
<li>RSS Feed Filtering: Enhanced RSS feeds with category and post type filtering, available via URL parameters (?category=news, ?post_type=product) and dedicated settings.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Enhanced Tracking and Performance
<ul>
<li>Fast Tracker: A new, faster tracking method to improve post view speed.</li>
<li>Query Filters: Enable parent term inclusion in post queries for more accurate filtering.</li>
<li>Query Optimization: Add MySQL MAX_EXECUTION_TIME directive to prevent long-running queries from consuming excessive server resources. Configurable via settings and the <code>top_ten_query_max_execution_time</code> filter.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
Developer-Friendly Features
<ul>
<li>Filters and Hooks: New filters like <code>top_ten_query_exclude_terms_include_parents</code>, <code>top_ten_query_include_terms_include_parents</code>, and <code>get_tptn_short_circuit</code> for greater customisation.</li>
<li>Custom Post Type Sortable Columns: Display columns on post types and make them sortable.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h4>GDPR</h4>
Top 10 is GDPR compliant as it doesn’t collect any personal data about your visitors when installed out of the box. You can see the data the plugin stores in the <code>wp_top_ten</code> and <code>wp_top_ten_daily</code> tables in the database. Note: the prefix <code>wp</code> might be different if you have changed it from the default.
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ENSURING THAT ALL GDPR REQUIREMENTS ARE MET ON YOUR WEBSITE.
<h4>Translations</h4>
Top 10 is available for <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/top-10" rel="nofollow ugc">translation directly on WordPress.org</a>. Check out the official <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/handbook/rosetta/theme-plugin-directories/" rel="nofollow ugc">Translator Handbook</a> to contribute.
<h4>Contribute</h4>
Top 10 is also available on <a href="https://github.com/webberzone/top-10" rel="nofollow ugc">Github</a> 
So, if you’ve got some cool feature that you’d like to implement into the plugin or a bug you’ve been able to fix, consider forking the project and sending me a pull request. Please don’t use that for support requests.
<h3>Other plugins from WebberZone</h3>
Top 10 – Popular Posts is one of the many plugins developed by WebberZone. Check out our other plugins:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/contextual-related-posts/" rel="ugc">Contextual Related Posts</a> – Display related posts on your WordPress blog and feed</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/add-to-all/" rel="ugc">WebberZone Snippetz</a> – The ultimate snippet manager for WordPress to create and manage custom HTML, CSS or JS code snippets</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/knowledgebase/" rel="ugc">Knowledge Base</a> – Create a knowledge base or FAQ section on your WordPress site</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/better-search/" rel="ugc">Better Search</a> – Enhance the default WordPress search with contextual results sorted by relevance</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/autoclose/" rel="ugc">Auto-Close</a> – Automatically close comments, pingbacks and trackbacks and manage revisions</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/popular-authors/" rel="ugc">Popular Authors</a> – Display popular authors in your WordPress widget</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/where-did-they-go-from-here/" rel="ugc">Followed Posts</a> – Show a list of related posts based on what your users have read</li>
</ul>

Top 10 – WordPress Popular posts by WebberZone

A very good plugin that helps to display top 3 popular posts via shorcode.

Good Plugin

Track daily and total visits on your blog posts. Display the count as well as popular and trending posts.

Light Views Counter – Fast, Scalable View Counter for High-Traffic Sites vs Top 10 – WordPress Popular posts by WebberZone