Maturity chart

Last updated Jan 10, 2012 regarding V3.1.3

This chart represents the author's honest opinion on the maturity of the various plugins.

Meaning of the terms stable, beta, and alpha in the context of this project.

stable - Extremely well tested, reliable, and API changes would be unlikely. Very high confidence rating.
beta - Lots of testing has occurred, and the plugin has had a significant user base for several months.
alpha - Either (a) the plugin has a very small user base (AzureReader, BatchZipper, PsdComposer), or (b) the plugin is fewer than 2 months old, and therefore hasn't endured enough real-world usage for long enough to be classified as beta or stable.

You shouldn't worry about using alpha plugins on production servers; even alpha-rated plugins have undergone extensive security assessment and memory usage profiling. It's very unlikely an alpha plugin will cause external issues - at worst, it may simply not function properly in certain usage scenarios. Also, remember... Free Support! Alpha plugins get the same level of support that the rest do.

Core & Free plugins

Core framework - beta (likely to have API refinements, but otherwise very stable)
DefaultEncoder - stable
NoCache - stable
Diagnostics - stable
ClientCache - stable
SizeLimiting - stable
DropShadow - stable
Gradient - stable
FolderResizeSyntax - stable
Image404 - beta
VirtualFolder - beta
ImageHandlerSyntax - stable
MvcRoutingShim - stable
AutoRotate - stable
Presets - beta
SpeedOrQuality - alpha
Logging - alpha
DefaultSettings - alpha
IEPngFix - alpha
PdfRenderer - alpha

Performance Bundle

PrettyGifs - stable
AnimatedGifs - stable
DiskCache - stable

Designer Bundle

PsdReader - beta
Watermark - beta
AdvancedFilters - beta
SimpleFilters - beta
SeamCarving - beta
WhitespaceTrimmer - beta
FreeImageDecoder - alpha
FreeImageEncoder - alpha
FreeImageResizer - alpha
FreeImageBuilder - alpha
WicDecoder - alpha
WicEncoder - alpha
WicBuilder - alpha

Cloud Bundle

S3Reader - stable
SQLReader - stable
CloudFront - stable
RemoteReader - beta
AzureReader - alpha
MongoReader - alpha

Intense Bundle

BatchZipper - alpha
PsdComposer - alpha