As always, I tested again 8 featured plugins from WordPress.org. September's batch number 1.
Here is what I think;
PressPrimer Certificate (4.9/5)
Certificate generator for your courses that works with most(?) LMS plugins.
Nice onboarding, a simple interface, and it supports custom meta fields with certificates showing right in the user profile.
The token/sample preview only works with the plugin's own dummy data instead of actual user data, but that's a minor issue.
AllTerrain Photo Editor for OpenStation (4.5/5)
A surprisingly full photo editor that, despite the name, also works outside of OpenStation (Desktop Mode).
Great design, tons of adjustment options, and it even has layer support.
A few bugs though, layer opacity doesn't actually work, there's no way to edit after saving, and it's fairly GPU intensive, but that was to be expected.
Icon Indexa (4.8/5)
Icon library plugin with a block editor integration.
Tons of icons, easy to use, and the icons are still showing, even if you deactivate it.
You'll get a fatal error if SQLite isn't installed, the main menu feels unnecessary, and custom SVGs just get filled with one color instead of rendering properly.
AI Search for WooCommerce β Semantic Search (4.8/5)
Smart search plugin that works fine with or without WooCommerce.
Search history is pretty useful, there is a forever-free tier. It falls back to normal search once you run out of credits, so thats nice.
You have to upload your content to their service and the free plan's sync interval is 30 days, which might be too slow for a more dynamic site.
LocalForm (4.6/5)
Form builder styled like Google Forms.
Easy and intuitive to use and the responses page is nice. Also webhook support is a handy feature.
Only one submit button label across all your forms, the design isn't very flexible, and the form block itself just redirects to your homepage instead of working.
Circumflex Booking (4.9/5)
Appointment and booking plugin with practitioners, services, and availability management.
Detailed availability settings, a awesome time debugger, and a clean dashboard with multiple calendar views.
The settings menu is a lot, there's just a walls of text everywhere.
neo Rename (4.1/5)
Media renamer with batch processing and AI-powered image texts generator.
It has a free built-in AI option, works quite well and it shows you model usage and cost.
It won't work on localhost, always forces filenames to lowercase, and there's no bulk or automatic alt text generation.
Milo Subscriptions (4.6/5)
Recurring payments and subscriptions, technically standalone but it really wants WooCommerce.
WordPress-native UI, fast and responsive, and you can put subscriptions on hold.
The standalone onboarding didn't work for me at all, only WooCommerce mode did. Too bad, I really wanted to see what it offers without the WC overhead.
See the full breakdown with all the details on YT:
https://youtu.be/G3_euIYEZyA
What do you think about this selection? Will you install any of those?