Pretty Links vs Royal Links – Affiliate Link Cloaking, Shortener & Tracker
Two WordPress plugins head to head: ranking, active installs, downloads and ratings, from our daily tracking of the WordPress.org directory.
These aren’t all alternatives to each other — they do different jobs — so this page compares popularity only, not features.
At a glance
Pretty Links ranks #226 on the popular list; Royal Links – Affiliate Link Cloaking, Shortener & Tracker is outside the top 500 we capture daily. Pretty Links has the largest install base, roughly 5000× the next: 200K+ active installs against 40+ for Royal Links – Affiliate Link Cloaking, Shortener & Tracker. Downloads this week: Pretty Links 66,964 and Royal Links – Affiliate Link Cloaking, Shortener & Tracker 196.
| Metric | Pretty Links | Royal Links – Affiliate Link Cloaking, Shortener & Tracker |
|---|---|---|
| Popular rank today | #226 ▼ 1 | outside top 500 |
| Active installs | 200K+ | 40+ |
| Downloads, last 7 days | 66,964 | 196 |
| Rating | 4.8★ (1,321) | no ratings |
| Last updated | Oct 15, 2026 | Sep 27, 2026 |
| Current version | 4.0.17 | 2.0.15 |
| Best rank on record | #209 | #20,577 |
| Days in the top 50 | 0 | 0 |
| On WordPress.org since | Mar 2009 | Jan 2026 |
Highlighted cells mark the strongest figure in each row. Rank and installs are from the latest WordPress.org capture; downloads are the last seven captured days.
Ranking history Lower is better
Active installs
Downloads per day
More comparisons
Frequently asked questions
Which is more popular, Pretty Links or Royal Links – Affiliate Link Cloaking, Shortener & Tracker?
By active installs, Pretty Links: 200K+ sites run it against 40+ for Royal Links – Affiliate Link Cloaking, Shortener & Tracker, according to WordPress.org figures captured on October 19, 2026.
Are Pretty Links or Royal Links – Affiliate Link Cloaking, Shortener & Tracker alternatives to each other?
Not all of them. Some of these plugins do different jobs and many sites run more than one. This page compares their popularity, not their features.
Where do these numbers come from?
WordPress.org publishes each plugin’s active install count and its position on the popular list. This site records both every day, along with per-day downloads and ratings, so the charts above show how the plugins have moved over time rather than a single day.