by Alex Kirk 5 (7 reviews)

Friends

Name: Friends
Rating: 5.0 (7 reviews)
Author: Alex Kirk

A self-hosted social reader for WordPress: follow people via RSS and ActivityPub, with multiple themes and a plugin ecosystem.

Friends ranks #7,103 among WordPress.org plugins with 900+ active installations, is #187 of 1,726 in the User Management category, a 5/5 rating from 7 reviews, and was last updated Sep 15, 2026. Data from WordPress.org, refreshed twice daily — see methodology.

Tested up to WP 7.0.5 (Current: 7.1)

v4.3.2 Current Version v4.3.2

Updated 2 days ago Last Update on 15 Sep, 2026

Refreshed 8 hours ago Last Refreshed on

#187 of 1,726 in User Management Top 10% by installs Downloads -55.3% this week Actively maintained

View on WordPress.org

Rank

#7,103

— No change

Active Installs

900+

-9.1%

KW Avg Position

24.6

0.2 worse

Downloads

94.7K

+6 today

Support Resolved

— No change

Rating

100%

Review 5 out of 5

5 (7 reviews)

Next Milestone 1K

Total Progress 83%

900+ 1K+

100

Ranks to Climb

Growth Needed

8,000,000

Active Installs

Pro

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Need 17 more installs to reach 1K+

Rank Changes

Current #7,103

Change

Best #

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Active Installs Growth

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Active Installs 0,000,000+

Growth +0.0%

Peak 0,000,000

Downloads Growth

Downloads

Growth

Peak

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Reviews & Ratings

5.0

7 reviews

Overall 100%

7 (100%)

0 (0%)

Support Threads Overview

Resolved

Unresolved

Total Threads

Resolved

Unresolved

Resolution Rate

Security History

Source: WPVulnerability

3 known vulnerabilities on record · 2 in the last 24 months · checked 1 month ago

Jul 11, 2025

Friends [friends] < 3.5.2

CVE-2025-7504 · Fixed in v3.5.2
Dec 5, 2024

Friends [friends] < 3.2.2

CVE-2024-12028 · Fixed in v3.2.2
Feb 28, 2024

Friends [friends] < 2.8.6

CVE-2024-1978 · Fixed in v2.8.6

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Plugin Details

Version: 4.3.2
Last Updated: Sep 15, 2026
Requires WP: 0+
Tested Up To: 7.0.5
PHP Version: 7.4 or higher
Author: Alex Kirk

Support & Rating

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5
Reviews: 7
Support Threads: 1
Resolved: 0%

Keywords

decentralized friends own-your-data rss social network

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TL;DR

AI summary of the plugin's readme

This plugin is for WordPress site owners who want to follow people and read their posts from RSS feeds and the Fediverse (Mastodon and similar platforms) directly on their own site. It solves the problem of needing separate social media accounts by turning WordPress into a self-hosted social reader with feed aggregation, filtering, and multiple viewing themes.

Follow via RSS and ActivityPub
Multiple themes (Mastodon-style, Google Reader-style)
Dark mode support
Organize subscriptions into folders
Multiple feeds per person
Filter incoming content with rules
Full-post email notifications
Browser extension for one-click subscribe

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Friends

No, all the functionality is achieved with standard WordPress means. Followed people are stored as taxonomy terms, and their posts are cached in a custom post type.

That's exactly the point — with WordPress you own your data and decide where to host it. You get all the benefits of open source software without depending on a third party.

Cached posts are stored as the custom post type friend_post_cache. When you unfollow someone, their cached posts are removed with them.

Yes — install it for Chrome or Firefox. It adds a toolbar button that lets you subscribe to the site you are currently visiting with one click. Pair it with the API key on the Friends → Browser Extension page to also expose quick actions from other Friends-aware plugins (saving to a collection, sending to your eReader, etc.).