Embedly

71 Quality Score

Active Installs

15/30

Only about 2,000 active installs puts this in niche territory, well below the alternatives in its category that range from 100,000 to 300,000 installs.

Update Freshness

23/25

Updated recently and tested against WordPress 6.9.4, which is a strong signal that the developer is actively keeping pace with core releases.

User Rating

11/15

A 70 out of 100 from 20 ratings is middling and based on a small sample, so the average is not very reliable.

Support Health

8/15

Zero support threads and zero resolutions give no track record to lean on if something goes wrong.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Tested with the latest WordPress and requiring PHP 7.4 covers the vast majority of current hosting environments.

Scores higher than 25% of indexed plugins

About

The Embedly Plugin extends WordPress's auto-embed feature to give your blog more media types and style options.

Active Installs 2k+

Rating ★★★½ 3.5/5

Last Updated 2026-02-20 6:02am GMT

Requires WordPress 5.0+

Tested Up To 6.9.7

Requires PHP 7.4+

✓ No known vulnerabilities

What It Does

Embedly extends WordPress's built-in oEmbed feature so that pasting URLs from a wider range of providers automatically renders rich previews, including cards, photos, videos, and PDFs. It routes embed requests through Embedly's third-party service, which means an active Embedly account and API key are effectively required for full functionality. The plugin also adds styling controls for how those embeds appear on your pages and posts.

Who It's For

This plugin suits bloggers, content curators, and editorial sites that regularly link out to a variety of third-party media sources and want consistent, styled previews rather than plain URLs. It is a reasonable fit for news, magazine, and educational sites that need PDF and video embeds from providers WordPress does not natively support. Small sites that only embed YouTube or Twitter links will get little benefit.

Who Should Skip It

If your embeds are limited to the providers WordPress already supports natively (YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo, etc.), this plugin adds an external dependency for no real gain. Anyone uncomfortable routing embed traffic through a third-party SaaS, or who does not want to manage an Embedly API key, should skip it.

The Bottom Line

Embedly scores 72.78 out of 100, with strong maintenance and compatibility numbers undermined by a tiny install base, no public support history, and dependency on an external service. It is a reasonable pick for publishers deeply tied into Embedly's ecosystem, but most WordPress users will find native embeds or a category alternative like PDF Embedder a safer bet. The 0 percent support resolution rate is a real risk for anyone relying on it in production.

Related Plugins

PDF Embedder 86/100

Pick this if your main goal is displaying PDFs inline rather than general media embeds, as it handles that one job extremely well with 300,000 installs.

Firelight Lightbox 86/100

Choose this if you want polished image and gallery lightbox presentations rather than third-party media embeds.

Responsive Lightbox & Gallery 85/100

Choose this for a broader gallery and lightbox toolkit with far larger install numbers and community vetting.

Imsanity 86/100

Pick this if your real pain point is oversized uploaded images, not embedded third-party media.

PDF Invoices & Packing Slides for WooCommerce 90/100

Only relevant if you run a WooCommerce store and need PDF invoices, which is unrelated to Embedly's use case.