If you are new to the world of WordPress, you may be wondering what purpose its collection of plugins serves since there are more than 50,000 plugins to select from.
Think of them as software apps, each of which was designed and developed to serve a specific role or purpose when used in website design or added to a website.
You might choose a plugin that will allow your website to perform a specific task such as booking appointments, enhancing the SEO of your website to improve traffic and sales, or simply to make it more attractive in the eyes of its visitors.
Having so many plugins from various sources to select from it’s understandable that the quality can vary. You need to choose regularly updated and well-coded plugins from reliable sources to ensure peak website performance, reliability, and security. This article contains 7 top WordPress plugins for 2024, each of them enjoys widespread popularity and usage in its specific niche.
Table of Contents
What You Should Consider Before Selecting A WordPress Plugin?
1. Plugin Purpose and Requirements
It is critical that you have clearly defined what you require of the plugin, that you have identified its must-have features and, if you wish, some nice-to-have features.
2. Reviews and Ratings
Take time to read some reviews and check the ratings. Pay special attention to problems users encountered, and the support given for resolving them.
3. Compatibility with WordPress
The plugin must be compatible with the WordPress version you are using and also with a theme or with other plugins you may be using.
4. Frequency of Updates
A history of frequent updates indicates a plugin has been kept up to date and any bugs encountered have been eliminated.
5. Documentation and Support
Look for plugins that provide support materials and offer timely user support. Reviews will often provide insight with respect to the latter.
6. Security
Stick to reputable developers.
7. Impact on Site Performance
A free trial can be of help here.
8. $$
Free is nice when it gives you what you need. Purchasing a premium plugin can occasionally be the better option to pursue.
7 Top WordPress Plugins For Your Website Projects
1. Amelia: Booking for Appointments and Events Calendar
TL;DR: Amelia is the top WordPress plugin in 2024 for use by any services-oriented business in need of streamlining its appointment booking process.
Click the video to see this plugin in action.
Amelia enables service-oriented businesses such as fitness centers, spas, and salons to provide their customers and employees with an intuitive and effective online appointment booking service. Amelia’s fully customizable Illustrated Yoga Studio template for example makes it easy to set up appointments while giving potential customers a wealth of information on available classes and instructors.
With Amelia, a business can service an unlimited number of appointments at various locations from a one platform.
Client Feedback: “We bought Amelia Booking Plugin for WordPress, which works and looks great. After having some issues with properly setting up everything their support team took no time to assist us in resolving everything. These guys are awesome, and a great example to all IT development companies.”
Client Avg. Score: 4.8 on Capterra
Support Material: Documentation, YouTube videos
2. wpDataTables – WordPress Data Table, Dynamic Tables & Table Charts Plugin
TL;DR: wpDataTables’ excellent reputation is based on the power it gives its clients to easily manage and visualize large amounts of data.
Click the video to see this plugin in action.
wpDataTables is feature rich, well documented, and a real time saver. Users can not only manage massive amounts of complex data with relative ease, but with the new Multiple Database Connections capability they can work with data even when it is distributed among numerous servers.
This plugin also makes data visualization ever so simple. In spite of wpDataTables’ responsive Catalog Table with Books minimalistic appearance, it is actually packed full of information; making it useful for virtually any product line.
Client Feedback: “This amazing plugin helped me a lot in my website, the developers regularly release new very useful updates. The support team are highly responsive and helpful (specially Milos), they give us detailed responses, and they don’t hesitate to ask for admin credentials to better investigate and fix problems.”
Client Avg. Score: 4.83/5
Support Material: Documentation, YouTube videos
3. Classic Editor – WordPress plugin
TL;DR: Classic Editor is a highly popular plugin that allows administrators to manage a site’s default editors on a post-by-post basis.
Click the video to see this plugin in action.
Classic Editor is an open-source software application (plugin) that is now replaced with the Gutenberg block editor. Because of Classic Editors extreme popularity, as borne out by its voluminous user comments, it is still maintaining.
With Classic Editor –
- Users can be allowed to choose which editor for which post.
- Administrators can select the default editor for all clients or allow them to manage their default editors.
- Classic Editor hides all features available in recently released block editor (“Gutenberg”).
Client Feedback: “I absolutely LOVE this plugin! I don’t know what I will do when you stop maintaining it 🙁”
Client Avg. Score: 4.9/5
4. LayerSlider: #1 WordPress Slider Plugin
TL;DR: The LayerSlider plugin is an ideal choice for adding popups, creative sliders, and rich content to a website’s design.
Click the video to see this plugin in action.
LayerSlider’s Project Editor helps new users get off to a great start with a guided product tour that explains key parts of the user interface. Everything is always where you would normally look for it or where you are used to finding it in most other applications.
LayerSlider smoothly integratesspectacular animations, seldom or never-before-seen graphics, and effects into your website, while templates that are available for download from the plugin’s template collection can easily be customized.
The responsive Luxury Resorts template, for example, can easily be customized to fit exactly your needs. You may be reluctant to change any of its attractive images, but that is what LayerSlider is all about.
LayerSlider can be used with any WordPress website, regardless of its content, making it a universal multi-purpose solution for improving all types of websites
Client Feedback: “So impressed with this plugin. It added such a dynamic feel to my website. Plus customer support was super helpful when i had questions.”
Support Material: Help in LayerSlider’s Project Editor, product manual, ticket system, and email.
5. Slider Revolution – Responsive Slider for WordPress
TL;DR: Developers, web designers and anyone else seeking to build jaw-dropping animated sliders and page sections can rely completely on Slider Revolution.
Click the video to see this plugin in action.
Slider Revolution has evolved over time from a rather straightforward slider builder to one that can add “wow” effects to any part of a website and even an entire website using special effects, cool graphics, animations, and even video.
Packed with a large assemblage of sleek features, Slider revolution can turn static and uninspiring websites into visually grabbing responsive websites with just a few drag and drop clicks. Oh what fun you and your site’s visitors will enjoy scrolling through your one-page website created from this Surf Scroll Based Story template. It’s a game changer for sure.
Client Feedback : “One of the best plugins I’ve ever seen, in fact I think it’s actually the best slider creation plugin I’ve ever used, it’s incredible, I highly recommend it!!”
Client Avg. Score: 4.2/5 on Trustpilot
Support Material: YouTube videos, Support manual
6. Brizy – Best Website Builder for Non-Techies
TL;DR: Free, fast, and fun to work with are but three of the qualities of Brizy’s non-technical friendly website builder for WordPress.
Click the video to see this builder in action.
Brizy excels in creating small business, freelancer, and agency one-page or small to medium websites. A website design experience is not necessary. Neither is coding.
Take Brizy’s Halbor Business template for example. With your content at your fingertips, you can customize it to create a compact, highly informative website in no time at all. Users also love Brizy’s more than 500 pre-made blocks, its smart text editor, and the lack of clutter.
Client Feedback: “A great website builder for beginners and those who love a fast workflow and easy to use, hassle-free tools
From the get-go, it’s obvious Brizy cares about providing a good user experience. It’s a no-code page builder whose amount of advanced and interesting features surprised me. Their cloud platform makes building a website easy, fast and intuitive. I would recommend Brizy to beginners and to those looking for a good website builder that’s simple and easy to use.”
Client Avg. Score: 4.4/5 on Trustpilot
Support Material: Academy with Video Courses, Written Documentation, Ticket Help-desk, YouTube videos, Facebook Community
7. Essential Grid Gallery WordPress Plugin
TL;DR: Essential Grid and its customizable grid skins library give users everything they need to create spectacular galleries.
Click the video to see this plugin in action.
Essential Grid’s 50+ unique grid skins give you plenty to work with, but everyone has different needs and requirements, and it is what you do with them that counts. In any event they give you the ability to build a jaw-dropping gallery that can feature still images, animated images, special hover effects, and even videos.
Not all grid skins are “wild”. The “Team” template for example gets right to the point. It lets you showcase your team members with the help of a new Essential Grid premium Add On.
You can also choose from customizable boxed, full screen, and full-width, grid layouts, and your content can come from anywhere, e.g., posts, pages, social media, WooCommerce.
Client Feedback: “Immediate help – solved it quickly.”
Client Avg. Score: 4.8/5 on Trustpilot
Support Material: YouTube videos, Support manual
Conclusion
When searching for a plugin for WordPress that can improve your website’s performance or add to its functionality, you need to make sure you have your very specific requirements in mind before you begin your search. Bear in mind that there will likely be several plugins that would appear to be good candidates, and that some make better candidates than others.
Check a plugin’s compatibility with your WordPress version and other plugins or themes you may already be using. And review what its users say about it, including the level of support they received from the plugin’s developer.
Whether you choose Amelia’s multi-featured booking system, wpDataTables’ extensive data management and table and chart building capabilities, Slider Revolution or LayerSlider for their brilliant content presentation capabilities, or the specific features Classic Editor or Essential Grid offer, you can significantly upgrade your website’s functionality and your clients’ experience.
When choosing one or more of the plugins featured here, you can rest assured that they are the best WordPress plugins for 2024 in their respective niches.
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