Chris Wiegman
Picking a good WordPress plugin or theme can often be more difficult than picking a good used car. They look great on WordPress.org but as soon as you download them you feel like you’ve been swindled. That said, when I look for for plugins or themes these days there are 3 folks I look at first as they really stand out as producing top quality products that get the job done without causing a huge headache.
Joost de Valk
First up is Joost de Valk of yoast.com. Yoast produces some big plugins such as WordPress SEO, and Google Analytics for WordPress. His code is top-notch, the feature sets are complete, and to date I haven’t had a single compatibility problem with anything I’ve used of his. Even if you’re already using the competition’s plugins check out what he has to offer and you won’t be disappointed.
John Lee Saddington
Strangely as I write this I realize I don’t have any of John’s plugins on this site at the moment but that is most definitely not indicative of their quality. His Standard Theme is an excellent and clean blog theme and his Optimize WordPress Database plugin takes a lot of pain out of maintaining your database for peak performance. I’ve used nearly everything he has on one project or another and will use his work first should a need arise for the right feature.
Automattic
Automattic is the parent company of WordPress.com and the developers of plugins such as Akismet and VaultPress. There work tends to be more functional behind the scenes than many other developers but none-the-less provides quality services to keep your site going over the long haul.
While these 3 are the top of my first-check list when I am looking to incorporate a new theme or feature they of course aren’t the only excellent developers in town. Have a favorite developer? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.