Introduction
When selecting a WordPress plugin that enhances the user experience on the front end, there’s an ocean of options to dive into. It’s easy to find yourself overwhelmed, spending countless hours comparing, and testing to find the best fit.
To streamline your plugin selection journey, we’ve curated a comprehensive list of our top recommended frontend plugins, especially curated for those who use Elementor Pro. Here at Snug Site, our mantra is optimizing website aesthetics, functionality, and cost. We tap into the power of the Elementor Page Builder to its full potential, allowing us to often reduce the need for redundant plugins. After all, the age-old wisdom of “fewer plugins means a better site” still stands true.
These plugins are Snug Site’s cream of the crop for frontend enhancements, chosen for their reliability and exceptional features. While different plugins serve diverse purposes and might vary, we have strived to list those that offer a strong foundation to start. And remember, if you feel a notable frontend plugin is absent, it might be under our scrutiny, as our relentless quest to identify the best never stops.
Note: The ‘Paid’ option is displayed only if it’s superior to the ‘Free’ option or belongs to a different developer.
Let’s dive into the frontend plugins that transform your website visitors’ experience.
Note: You are currently viewing the “Frontend” plugins list which are plugins that are primarily designed to add things that a visitor will see and interactive with.
There are seperate Articles available for:
Recommended WordPress Backend Plugins: Are plugins that a visitor doesn’t need to know are humming along in the background.
Recommended WooCommerce Plugins: To add extra functionality to your WordPress online store.
Recommended WordPress Frontend Plugins
Custom Code Snippets
Free: Code Snippets
Instead of editing functions file, use this plugin.
Comments
Free: wpDiscuz
A full comment suite that includes social login, threads, and much more.
Conditional Menu Items
Contact Form
Free: JetFormbuilder
Crocoblock offer this amazingly powerful plugin for free. Paid Addons are available. This might be a Gravity Forms killer.
Paid: Elementor Pro
Includes everything you need to make a simple Contact Form.
Cookie Consent
Free: CookieYes
Very easy to set up, and a generous amount of Free visitors allowed.
Custom Taxonomy and Post Ordering
Free: Post Types Order
Reorder Posts using Drag and Drop on the native Post and Taxonomy List screens.
Custom User Avatars
Free: One User Avatar
Simple way to add User Avatars when you don’t use Gravatar.
Events Calendar
Free: The Events Calendar
This is a huge plugin with everything you will ever need to publish an Event Calendar on your site.
Advanced Forms
Free: JetFormbuilder
Crocoblock offer this amazingly powerful plugin for free. Paid Addons are available. This might be a Gravity Forms killer.
Galleries
Paid: Elementor Pro
The Widgets that come standard with Elementor Pro are great for most Site Gallery needs.
Google reCAPTCHA
Free: Advanced Google reCAPTCHA
A great all-in-one reCaptcha implementation plugin.
Google Reviews
Free: Widgets for Google Reviews
This “Freemium” plugin is great, although limited with the number of reviews shown, it has some great features, and is a breeze to set up.
Instagram Feed
Free: Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed – Best Social Feed Plugin for WordPress
LMS
Free: LearnDash
Simply the best Learning Management Suite you can get for WordPress. Many Paid Addons available to make a full online learning portal integrated with vairous popular WordPress Plugins.
Memberships
Membership plugins all provide content protection, but you’ll need to compare plugins if you have special needs. Below we’ve listed some of our favourites with notes about key features that have previously been important to our clients.
(Note: functionality is mentioned only if absent from any other)
Free/Paid: Ultimate Member
More “Social” leaning. Role-Based. Member Directory. No native payment system, but good integration with Woo and Woo Subscriptions.
Free/Paid: Paid Memberships Pro
Payment System. Has “Pay by Invoice” prior to Membership Activate (offline payment method). Member Directory. Group Accounts.
Paid: Memberpress
Payment System. Group Account Option. Requires Zapier for most integrations.
Newsletter
(also added to frontend wordpress plugin recommendations list as it’s quite customer facing)
Free/Paid: FluentCRM
Fluent is kicking goals lately, they just appeared on the WordPress plugin scene out of nowhere with well-craft and generous plugins – like some kind of tech-centric “industry plant” This plugin has a great balance of free and Premium features, the latter being something you will happily pay for if you need them.
Page Builder
Free: Elementor
Arguably the best Page Builder, and it just keeps getting better with age.
Paid: Elementor Pro
With Elementor Pro, you can essentially build a complete website – this is more than a Page Builder Plugin, it is an easy to use “Theme Builder”.
Popups
Paid: Jetpopup
When the Elementor Popup Builder doesn’t suffice, Jetpopup will fill the needs.
Right Click Protection
Free: Photection
This is a very old plugin – usually I wouldn’t recommend something that hasn’t been update for so long… but… it just works.
Search
Free / Paid: Ivory Search – WordPress Search Plugin
If you need to boost the functionality of the search field, then look no further. This has Ajax search, extra taxonamy and CPT search etc.
Slider
(Sliders are evil and should be banished from the internet)
Social Sharing Links
Free: Super Socializer
This plugin has always served us well, contains the key freatures we look for in this area.
Paid: Elementor Pro
There aren’t any advanced features in this area for Elementor, but if you have Elementor Pro, then likely no need for an extra plugin.
Translation
Free: TranslatePress
We were blown away by how easy and powerful this FREE plugin is, it’s not as in-depth as WPML in features, but does have everything you will likely need to translate pages, and offer a language switcher. Note: You will need to set up Google Translate API.
