As the name suggests, WordPress Review Plugins enables you to quickly and effortlessly put good looking reviews on your wordpress enabled websites. In this review we are going to compare two of the best wordpress review plugins providers out there wpReviewSite and wpReviewEngine. (ReviewOfWeb tried contacting MyReviewPlugin folks but the queries went unanswered, hence it is not included in the review]

As always, we will try to bring an unbiased opinion for the two products so that readers can take an informed decision before choosing to purchase a wordpress review plugin.

Here is a detailed comparison and review for both these plugins

 

wp-review

wpReviewEngine

wpReviewSite

wpReviewSite

Files Included
    You get 4 folders with the plugin

  1. re – Main Review Engine
  2. Linkcloaker – Plugin to cloak your affiliate links
  3. CSV2WP – Plugin to import your content database to wordpress
  4. Themes – Two wordpress themes are included.
    You get 3 folders with this plugin

  1. wpReviewSite – Main Review Engine. It also has a sub-plugin included which says “Companion plugin to WP Review Site, allowing automatic updates to WP Review Site and related products.” I didn’t really understand the need for this sub plugin.
  2. wprs-my-ratings – To set own ratings on page/posts (available at an extra cost)
  3. wprs-theme-pack – Two wordpress themes are included
Ease of Install Quick. You need to upload the first 3 folders above and activate them and then upload the themes folder Quick. Need to upload wpReviewSite, theme folder and optionally wprs-my-ratings plugin
Ease Of Use Good for noobs. Easy to follow instructions available. Good for noobs. Easy to follow instructions available. (They hand hold you with detailed screenshots to install the plugin)
Quick images Feature Simply include the URL of the site under review and you get thumbnail from Thumbshots.com. Not really. You can insert a link to an image which you have already uploaded on your server.
Affiliate Link Dedicated box to provide an affiliate link for site under review. Thumbshot and “visit site” link is automatically linked if you fill this box. Dedicated box to provide an affiliate link for site under review.“Visit Site” link is automatically linked if you fill this box.
Rating Categories – You can create your own rating categories.
They can be applied per “wordpress category” or for all posts/pages

Yes

Yes

hReview support
Good to have feature to “stand out” in Google results.

Yes

Not Available

Post Sorting Options
  1. WP default posts ordering
  2. According to number of comments
  3. By various ratings from rating categories
  1. WP default posts ordering
  2. According to number of comments
  3. By average user rating
3rd party theme support Yes, using “Auto embedding” option. Yes, using plugin settings
Auto comment generation – Allows you to automatically generate comments(Well, personally we stay clear of using such features on our sites.) Yes. Not Available
Affiliate URL cloaking – Use this to hide those ugly looking affiliate links Support included with Linkcloaker plugin ( at no extra cost) Not Available
CSV To WordPress – Use this to quickly fill your site with entries from your database Support included with CSV2WP plugin ( at no extra cost) Not Available
Google Maps Support – In case reviewing a business, you can show its location using Google Maps

Yes. Goes one level up to include a US zip code radius search

Yes

Cost
  1. Single Site License – $99.95
  2. Unlimited/Multi Site License – $169.95
  3. Developer License – Same cost as unlimited/multi site license
  1. Single Site License – $97
  2. Unlimited/Multi Site License – $199
  3. Developer License – $299
  4. MyRatings plugin – $24
  5. Premium Theme Pack comprising of 5 themes – $29
Discount? Follow these exact steps to avail discount.
  1. Go to wpReviewEngine
  2. Click “Get It Now” on top right side
  3. During checkout, enter the code reviewofweb to avail 35% discount on this plugin
Not Available

 

ReviewOfWeb’s View

Both plugins are just fine if you are looking for a basic review system in your wordpress enabled website.
However, we see wpReviewEngine folks have done a great job of including many helpful features to make reviewers life easy. Also, wpReviewEngine plugin has many more customization options available when compared to wpReviewSite. Given the good set of features, ease of customizations and nearly the same cost our vote goes to wpReviewEngine plugin

Over to readers, have you tried any of the plugins listed above? How would you rate them?

PS: Thanks Bob and Dan for agreeing to face the challenge.

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