Adam Greenwell

The Hits List keeps post view tracking on your own WordPress site and gives you block, widget, and template-tag tools for displaying popular content.
Key features:
<ul>
<li>Local view tracking stored in WordPress database tables</li>
<li>Overall and daily popular-post counts</li>
<li>Popular Posts block and widget support with public post type selection</li>
<li>WordPress dashboard cards for daily top posts, all-time top posts, and views over time</li>
<li>Top 10 migration compatibility with resumable rerun-safe imports, WP-CLI tools, legacy widget support, native widget conversion, cleanup for old Top 10 leftovers, and optional Top 10 plugin removal</li>
<li>REST-based tracking with AJAX fallback</li>
<li>Privacy-policy integration for site owners</li>
</ul>
<h3>Privacy</h3>
The Hits List stores post view counts locally in the <code>hits_list</code> and <code>hits_list_daily</code> database tables (table prefix may vary).
It does not send tracking data to a third-party analytics service.
Daily tracking buckets are retained for 180 days by default and older rows are removed automatically.
You are responsible for describing your use of visitor analytics on your own site as needed.
<h3>Source Code and Build Tools</h3>
The compiled block assets in <code>blocks/popular-posts/build/</code> are generated from the human-readable source files included in <code>blocks/popular-posts/src/</code>.
To rebuild the block assets:
<ol>
<li>Go to <code>blocks/popular-posts/</code>.</li>
<li>Run <code>npm install</code>.</li>
<li>Run <code>npm run build</code>.</li>
</ol>
The block build uses <code>@wordpress/scripts</code>. Runtime PHP, vanilla JavaScript, and CSS assets outside the block build are maintained directly in the plugin source.

The Hits List

Track post views locally, display popular posts, and migrate Top 10 data into a completely free, drop-in replacement.

ducntnz

Mostify is a fast, no-bloat popular-posts plugin that turns your WordPress views and comments into ranked lists you can drop anywhere via shortcode, widget, or Gutenberg block.
It uses a pre-aggregated bucket schema (one row per post per time bucket) so ranking queries stay snappy even on sites with millions of pageviews — no on-the-fly aggregation, no JOIN fan-out, no slow <code>wp_postmeta</code> scans.
<h4>Highlights</h4>
<ul>
<li>Page-views counter — AJAX tracking with bot detection, per-visitor cookie deduplication, and a <code>mostify_should_track_view</code> filter for custom rules.</li>
<li>Comments counter — counts approved comments (auto-approved + admin-approved transitions).</li>
<li>Time-period rankings — <code>today</code>, <code>yesterday</code>, <code>past_24_hours</code>, <code>this_week</code>, <code>last_week</code>, <code>past_7_days</code>, <code>this_month</code>, <code>last_month</code>, <code>past_30_days</code>, <code>this_year</code>, <code>last_year</code>, <code>past_12_months</code>, <code>all_time</code>.</li>
<li>Custom periods — build any window via <code>custom_hours_N</code>, <code>custom_days_N</code>, <code>custom_months_N</code>.</li>
<li>4 list styles — simple, bars, cards, medal (top-3 medal emoji).</li>
<li>Multi-tab layouts — show several time periods side by side in one block, each tab with its own period and sort order. Choose from 4 tab styles: horizontal tabs, vertical tabs, horizontal accordion, vertical accordion. Leave tabs empty to render a single period exactly as before.</li>
<li>10 color presets — ocean, sunset, forest, berry, fire, midnight, coral, arctic, earth, neon — plus theme inheritance and custom CSS.</li>
<li>Views migration — one-click import of lifetime view counts from popular counter plugins so you can switch to Mostify without resetting your rankings to zero. Supports WordPress Popular Posts, Post Views Counter, WP-PostViews, WP Statistics, Top 10 — Popular Posts, and Jetpack Stats. Runs as a batched background job with live progress.</li>
<li>Display surfaces — shortcode <code>[mostify]</code>, classic widget, server-rendered Gutenberg block, post-editor meta box, auto-insert into the_content.</li>
<li>Admin chart — per-post hourly / daily / monthly histogram with period switcher.</li>
<li>Performance — 3-tier cache (request memo + object cache + transient), optional batch-write buffer for high-traffic sites.</li>
<li>Capabilities — role-based access via the <code>mostify_edit</code> and <code>mostify_view</code> capabilities.</li>
<li>Privacy — no third-party tracking. View tracking happens entirely on your own server.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Privacy</h3>
Mostify stores anonymous, per-post view counts on your own database. No personal data, no IP addresses, and no third-party services are involved. The view-tracking AJAX endpoint sets a single first-party cookie (<code>mostify_v_<post_id></code>, default 3-hour TTL) used solely for deduplication; cookie name and TTL are filterable. The plugin makes no outbound HTTP calls.

Mostify

Lightweight popular-posts engine. Track page views and comments, display top posts by today, this week, this month, or all-time.

The Hits List vs Mostify