display wordpress posts sorted by post view count

Steps:

1. Paste the code below into your current theme’s function.php file. Try to use child theme if you are not already having one.(Child theme is optional though)

/**
 * To display number of posts.
 *
 * @param $postID current post/page id
 *
 * @return string
 */
function subh_get_post_view( $postID ) {
	$count_key = 'post_views_count';
	$count     = get_post_meta( $postID, $count_key, true );
	if ( $count == '' ) {
		delete_post_meta( $postID, $count_key );
		add_post_meta( $postID, $count_key, '0' );

		return '0 View';
	}

	return $count . ' Views';
}

/**
 * To count number of views and store in database.
 *
 * @param $postID currently viewed post/page
 */
function subh_set_post_view( $postID ) {
	$count_key = 'post_views_count';
	$count     = (int) get_post_meta( $postID, $count_key, true );
	if ( $count < 1 ) {
		delete_post_meta( $postID, $count_key );
		add_post_meta( $postID, $count_key, '0' );
	} else {
		$count++;
		update_post_meta( $postID, $count_key, (string) $count );
	}
}

/**
 * Add a new column in the wp-admin posts list
 *
 * @param $defaults
 *
 * @return mixed
 */
function subh_posts_column_views( $defaults ) {
	$defaults['post_views'] = __( 'Views' );

	return $defaults;
}

/**
 * Display the number of views for each posts
 *
 * @param $column_name
 * @param $id
 *
 * @return void simply echo out the number of views
 */
function subh_posts_custom_column_views( $column_name, $id ) {
	if ( $column_name === 'post_views' ) {
		echo subh_get_post_view( get_the_ID() );
	}
}

add_filter( 'manage_posts_columns', 'subh_posts_column_views' );
add_action( 'manage_posts_custom_column', 'subh_posts_custom_column_views', 5, 2 );


2. Open single.php file which is responsible to display each post in WordPress and paste this single line of code inside the loop

<?php subh_set_post_view( get_the_ID() ); ?>

3. You can display the post view count by using this line of code inside the WordPress loop on any page.

<?php echo subh_get_post_view(get_the_ID()); ?>

4. We can display posts sorted by Post view counts by using the code below.

<?php
$args    = array(
	'numberposts' => 4,  /* get 4 posts, or set -1 to display all posts */
	'orderby'     => 'meta_value',  /* this will look at the meta_key you set below */
	'meta_key'    => 'post_views_count',
	'order'       => 'DESC',
	'post_type'   => 'post',
	'post_status' => 'publish'
);
$myposts = get_posts( $args );
foreach ( $myposts as $mypost ) {
	/* do things here */
}
?>

WordPress plugins for post view counts are good but those provide extra functionalities which are not really needed for most of the cases; so why to bloat the setup and add to the response load of the website. Fastness of website matters !!