Is there a "popular-content" macro that works for large installations?

[Veracode]

According to Atlassian Confluence Documentation and according to our experience, the "popular-content" macro has performance problems in large installations.

Is there any other method for providing that functionality?  We'd like to use it, but a 30 second load time makes it a bad idea.

[James Dellow]

Have you looked at Brikit's Pinboards add-on as a way to surface popular content?

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.brikit.pinboards/server/overview

[Veracode]

That looks like it might work, but for us that's an additional $4,800 for functionality that we thought was built into Confluence.  Still hoping for a more cost-effective option.