Idea Factory
Front end submission and voting system.
Consider an alternative
Idea Factory shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 100+ sites, is rated 4.4/5 and was last updated 11 years ago, and scores 35/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (100+ active installs)
- No update in 11 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 4.3 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Idea Factory stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| feedback | >100 |
| idea | >100 |
| user submission | >100 |
| vote | >100 |
| voting | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 from 12 reviews
About Idea Factory
From the official readme · v1.2Description
Idea Factory was born out of necessity, and the frustration of the lack of plugins that did exactly what I wanted it to do. This plugin allows users to submit new ideas from the front-end, and vote on them. Currently it allows a user to vote once per idea, then locks them out. It’s also currently limited to logged in users, for now.
- AJAX powered front-end submission and voting
- Works for both logged in and logged out users
- 1 vote allowed per user per idea
- Emails the admin of a new submission
- Automatic setup or use anywhere with a shortcode
- Optionally set a threshold where each idea will be given a status based on total votes and emails the admin
- Automatic status grading
- Extensible with hooks and actions on events
- More ideas loaded with AJAX on front-end
- Mobile friendly
Installation
Uploading in WordPress Dashboard
- Navigate to ‘Add New’ in the plugins dashboard
- Navigate to the ‘Upload’ area
- Select
idea-factory.zipfrom your computer - Click ‘Install Now’
- Activate the plugin in the Plugin dashboard
Using FTP
- Download
idea-factory.zip - Extract the
idea-factorydirectory to your computer - Upload the
idea-factorydirectory to the/wp-content/plugins/directory - Activate the plugin in the Plugin dashboard
Changelog
Initial Release
1.2
- NEW – Added an option to enable public voting
- NEW – Added a reset button to reset public votes
- NEW – Added “Author” to the Ideas
- FIXED – Fixed strings that were not translatable
- FIXED – Fixed minor security that would allow vote spoofing
- FIXED – Added capability checks to reset events
- FIXED – Only show the Idea Status if threshold is “on” in the ideas list
- FIXED – Fixed broken check for admin notification
- FIXED – Frontend UI improvements
- FIXED – Added high priority to load the plugin styles after the theme styles to avoid CSS override and to not use !important.
1.1
- NEW – Added a “threshold” option where, when set with a numerical value such as 10, each idea will then be automatically approved or declined based on reaching 10 or more total votes and will send the site admin an email with the status update
- NEW – Added a dropdown box on all ideas to manually change the status
- NEW – Added an option to manually reset all votes on all ideas back to zero
- NEW – Added a status column within the edit posts screen to show the status of each idea
- NEW – Added a shortcode [idea_factory] to show the ideas and voting form with options to hide the form, votes, or voting
- NEW – Added an option to disable the automatic archive
- TWEAK – Instead of posts being put into draft when the option is selected, they are put into “pending” allowing proper review
1.0
- Initial Release
Screenshots
For developers
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FAQ
Idea Factory: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 4, 2026
Is Idea Factory free?
Yes. Idea Factory is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Idea Factory safe to use in 2026?
Idea Factory shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 100+ sites, is rated 4.4/5 and was last updated 11 years ago, and scores 35/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Idea Factory?
Idea Factory is active on 100+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 12,390 times since it launched in December 2014. It was downloaded 88 times in the last 30 days.
Does Idea Factory work with WordPress 7.1?
Idea Factory is officially tested up to WordPress 4.3.34, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Idea Factory last updated?
The latest version, 1.2, was released on August 19, 2015 (11 years ago).
Who makes Idea Factory?
Idea Factory is developed and maintained by Nick Haskins.
What are the best alternatives to Idea Factory?
The most popular alternatives to Idea Factory are UserFeedback (200K+ installs), kk Star Ratings (70K+ installs) and Survey Maker by AYS (5K+ installs).
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