Are you looking to enhance your WordPress site without learning how to use another page builder? The WordPress block editor makes content creation easier, but it can still use a boost to unlock its full potential.
Imagine having a set of tools that turns your editing experience into a seamless, creative powerhouse – for free. With the right plugins, you can add advanced features, enhance design flexibility, and improve performance.
In this post, let’s explore the top free block editor WordPress plugins to supercharge your site-building experience.
Why enhance the WordPress block editor?
The WordPress Block Editor isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction for visual editing. If you’re just building a basic blog, it’ll probably do the job. But when it comes to custom websites, you’ll need to level up with some third-party tools – like block editor plugins.
There are a ton of free plugins out there that can make a huge difference, adding more features, better design options, and making the whole editing process way easier to handle.
Here’s the list:
TL;DR
| No. | Plugin Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
1 |
Twentig |
Enhances core blocks and provides ready-to-use website templates and block patterns, simplifying site personalization with tools for block shape tweaks, animations, and more. |
|
2 |
Block Visibility |
Allows control over content visibility by device size and user role, helping create responsive and dynamic content that adjusts to mobile and desktop views. |
|
3 |
Dynamic Year Block |
Automatically updates the year in footers, keeping your site’s copyright information accurate and removing the need for manual changes. |
|
4 |
Simple TOC – Table of Contents Block |
Generates a table of contents for posts or pages, improving content navigation with simple customization options for appearance. |
|
5 |
Joli TOC |
Offers more advanced table of contents options, including animations, hierarchy controls, and auto-insertion on specific post types. |
|
6 |
Animated Blocks on Scroll |
Adds CSS3 scroll animations to native Gutenberg blocks with ease, enhancing user engagement and interactivity. |
|
7 |
Post Layouts for Gutenberg |
Creates custom post layouts with list-style or grid layouts, ideal for blogs or magazines to enhance readability and design. |
|
8 |
Lazy Blocks – Custom Blocks Constructor |
Simplifies custom Gutenberg block creation without React, enabling users to build blocks visually in the editor. |
|
9 |
All Bootstrap Blocks |
Incorporates Bootstrap UI components into the editor, making responsive layouts easy to achieve directly within Gutenberg. |
|
10 |
Wicked Block Builder |
Provides a visual block building tool for creating custom blocks and styles without needing code. |
|
11 |
Wicked Block Conditions |
Restricts content display based on user role, login status, or other custom rules, useful for membership sites or gated content. |
|
12 |
The Icon Block |
Adds SVG icons into your block editor, offering easy customization and the option to include your own icon libraries. |
|
13 |
Flexible Table Block |
Enhances table creation with advanced customization options for headers, footers, cells, and rows directly in the editor. |
|
14 |
Content Blocks Builder |
Enables users to build advanced custom blocks, sliders, and content patterns, offering flexibility for website creation. |
|
15 |
Breadcrumbs Block |
Inserts breadcrumbs to improve navigation and SEO by showing page hierarchies, boosting user experience. |
|
16 |
Essential Blocks |
Provides a set of custom Gutenberg blocks for advanced website creation with a wide variety of features and customization options. |
|
17 |
Social Sharing Block |
Offers lightweight social media sharing options for posts and pages, with a simple interface that doesn’t slow down the site. |
|
18 |
Meta Field Block |
Displays custom meta fields in the block editor, supporting integration with Advanced Custom Fields. |
|
19 |
Editor Block Outline |
Adds outlines and labels to blocks for better visual customization and easier theme adjustments. |
|
20 |
Bootstrap Blocks |
Allows the use of Bootstrap components directly within Gutenberg, providing responsive layouts and UI components. |
|
21 |
GutenBee |
Introduces various additional blocks to the editor for fast and custom page building. |
|
22 |
BlockMeister |
Simplifies block pattern creation and management, allowing for faster reuse of design components. |
Twentig
Twentig is a plugin that adds creative flair to the block editor. It comes with a selection of ready-to-use website templates and block patterns, making it easy to personalize your site without starting from scratch.
While the templates aren’t exhaustive, they’re perfect for kickstarting your custom block-based website.
What sets Twentig apart is that it enhances the core blocks you already know and love, instead of cluttering your site with new ones. You can tweak things like the query loop block, container shapes, add animations to various blocks, and more, all from within the editor.
For a full rundown of what Twentig can do, check out their quick start guide.
Price: 100% Free.
Block visibility
Block Visibility gives you control over when and where content appears on your site pages. Inside the block editor, it adds visibility settings in the sidebar, letting you show or hide specific content with ease.
This handy plugin also lets you control who can view a selected block based on user role or login status.
One standout feature of Block Visibility is its Screen Size control, which lets you hide blocks on different devices like desktops, tablets, or phones. Take buttons in your navigation block, for instance; you can easily hide them on smaller screens, which is a feature sorely missing in native blocks.
This simple responsive control allows you to create pleasant interfaces for mobile users without digging into code.
There’s plenty more you can do with Block Visibility, and it’s a simple tool that does its job well.
Price: 100% Free.
Dynamic Year Block
One of the small, quirky challenges with block themes is adding a dynamic year to the copyright paragraph in the footer. This was easy in classic themes with just a single line of PHP code.
But with HTML-based templates in block themes, it’s not as simple.
The Dynamic Year Block plugin solves this by automatically updating the year for you, no manual work needed. It might seem minor, but it’s super useful.
Showing the current year keeps your website looking up-to-date and gives the impression that it’s active and well-maintained.
Price: 100% Free.
Simple TOC – Table of Contents Block
Simple TOC is an easy, no-frills table of contents block plugin that displays a table of contents on a post or page. It has just enough options to customize how your table of contents looks.
You can add a table of contents to the sidebar or the main body of the post, giving your readers a quick way to skim through the content.
This is a great example of a plugin that focuses on doing one thing really well.
Price: 100% Free.
Joli TOC
If you want more than just a basic table of contents block, the Joli TOC plugin has tons of customization options for adding a TOC to your posts or pages. You can tweak the appearance and behavior of the table of contents to fit your needs.
In the basic settings, you can set the minimum and maximum width of the block or just use the default auto width. You can adjust the hierarchy offset to show indented subheadings for each heading or keep all headings and subheadings in line.
You can also choose to show the TOC only when there are more than a certain number of headings.
The plugin includes animation and scroll effects to add visual appeal while browsing your page.
After you’re done with the basic settings, you can set the auto-insertion option to control to where the TOC shows up. You can specify if you want the TOC on posts, pages, or custom post types (CPTs).
If you need even more features and control, the Pro version has a lot of additional options.
Price: Freemium.
Animated Blocks on Scroll
CSS3 animations can look amazing when done right, but coding them can be tricky.
With the Animated Block On Scroll plugin, adding effects to Gutenberg native blocks is easy. You can pick from over 75 CSS3 animations or create your own without needing to code. The plugin has a bunch of controls to help you customize the animations to fit your site perfectly.
The Animated Blocks On Scroll plugin is a nifty tool for quickly sprucing up dull web pages and making your site more interactive and appealing.
Price: 100% Free.
Post Layouts for Gutenberg
Post Layouts for Gutenberg is a plugin I’ve wanted to try for a while but kept putting off. I finally gave it a shot while researching for this post, and it’s an amazing tool for creating beautiful post layouts.
The default Gutenberg query loop block isn’t very user-friendly for post layouts and almost always needs customization.
With this plugin, you can create custom post layouts that make your website stand out.
You can pick from list-style layouts or grid layouts for your posts, and you can choose whether or not to display thumbnails.
Post Layouts for Gutenberg is perfect for magazine-style blogs but works great for personal and business blogs too.
Price: 100% Free.
Lazy Blocks – Custom Blocks Constructor
The Lazy Blocks plugin gives you a visual way to quickly create custom Gutenberg blocks.
One challenge with making custom Gutenberg blocks the default way is the complicated setup and tools needed for React development.
Lazy Blocks simplifies this by letting both average WordPress users and developers build custom blocks right in the block editor.
While anyone can use Lazy Blocks to create Gutenberg blocks, having some knowledge of HTML, PHP, JavaScript, and WordPress basics is helpful. There’s a learning curve to create useful blocks, but it pays off with time saved in the long run.
Price: Freemium.
All Bootstrap Blocks
Bootstrap is awesome for building responsive user interfaces and saving tons of time on new projects.
The All Bootstrap Blocks plugin brings Bootstrap components right into the Gutenberg editor.
With this plugin, you can build Bootstrap-style layouts and also add Bootstrap UI components as blocks wth much ease. You can style these components right in the editor and tweak them with custom CSS.
To make the most of it, start by setting up Bootstrap globally in your dashboard. Here, you can decide to include Bootstrap CSS and JavaScript files if your theme doesn’t already, add Bootstrap icons, and set the CSS loading order.
You can also pick a global color scheme, exclude specific blocks, and set display settings units.
This plugin is perfect for creating fully responsive blocks and crafting finely-tuned WordPress themes that look great on any device.
Price: 100% free.
Wicked Block Builder
Creating custom blocks is getting easier with visual editing tools. The Wicked Block Builder plugin is a handy tool that lets WordPress users of all skill levels create custom blocks with just a few clicks, no complex setup needed.
Once you install and activate it, you can access the builder dashboard from your site’s backend and start building your blocks.
In the Wicked Builder dashboard, you’ll find tools to define how your custom block behaves, its appearance, and custom attributes. There’s also a styles tab where you can tweak its look with custom CSS.
It might take a bit to get used to, but this plugin has serious potential. You can create powerful custom post templates and more.
Price: Freemium.
Wicked Block Conditions
Restricting content display in WordPress isn’t new. But with native core blocks, there’s no easy way to do it.
Thanks to tools like Wicked Block Conditions, you can restrict content based on defined conditions. With conditional content display, you can create mini membership sites without splashing out on complex tools.
Wicked Block Conditions gives you a bunch of rules to set up how blocks show up. You can restrict them based on things like user role, whether someone’s logged in, dates, categories, and post status. Plus, you can make your own custom rules using a PHP function.
Price: 100% free.
The Icon Block
The Icon Block plugin makes it simple to add SVG icons right into your site editor. It pulls icons straight from the WordPress library, so you can insert them and tweak them to fit your theme.
You can even add your own SVG icons by copying and pasting code into the icon insert block’s text area.
For more personalized designs, you can register your own custom icon library using this plugin.
But if coding isn’t your thing, the basic icon insert features are more than enough.
Price: 100% free.
Flexible Table Block
The Flexible Table Block lets you add a table block to your site editor with lots of ways to customize it. It’s the top free alternative to the core table block, perfect for creating detailed tables that showcase your content beautifully.
With its wide range of features, the Flexible Table Block stands out as one of the best free plugins for improving your block editing experience.
It works smoothly with the site editor, allowing you to insert and customize every part of your table directly – from headers and footers to individual cells, rows, and columns.
If you’re looking to add tables to your content, the Flexible Table Block plugin is a top choice among free options.
Price: 100% free.
Content Blocks Builder
The Gutenberg editor has brought significant improvements to WordPress website creation. However, the more you use it, the more you notice its limitations.
There are still many areas where the site editor falls short. The Content Blocks Builder plugin is one of the top tools trying to bridge these gaps for visual website building with Gutenberg.
With Content Blocks Builder, you can craft a wide variety of custom content blocks for Gutenberg in a highly personalized way. Whether it’s creating unique content blocks, patterns, or variations, this plugin empowers you to build a dynamic website on the Gutenberg platform.
Among the custom block builder plugins we’ve looked at, Content Blocks Builder stands out for its advanced features in website creation. It allows you to create not just basic layout blocks, but also hero sliders, header banners, content carousels, and even full landing pages.
Clearly, Content Blocks Builder aims to be a comprehensive website builder atop Gutenberg, and it’s doing a great job so far.
Price: Freemium.
Breadcrumbs Block
This simple plugin lets you insert breadcrumbs into your block theme pages. Breadcrumbs improve user experience by showing the page hierarchy relative to the current page.
They can also boost SEO and enhance internal linking on your site.
Block themes don’t come with built-in support for breadcrumbs, but this plugin makes it simple to add them to your WordPress site. It’s lightweight and doesn’t add unnecessary features that slow things down.
Although it offers minimal customization through filters, the plugin’s core function is straightforward and gets the job done effectively.
Price: 100% free.
Essential Blocks
Essential Blocks for Gutenberg is a set of blocks designed to supercharge the site editor for creating custom websites. It includes a wide range of blocks beyond what’s in the core collection.
This plugin provides custom versions of many core blocks, ensuring consistency in your designs when you use it.
Essential Blocks is developed by WP Developer as part of their suite of tools for website creation and digital marketing.
Price: Freemium.
Social Sharing Block
In the crowded world of social media sharing tools for WordPress, the Social Sharing Block plugin stands out. It lets readers easily share your posts or pages on their social media accounts.
True to its name as “a simple little WordPress block,” it delivers exactly that. The plugin is straightforward with no fancy extras. It’s lightweight and does its main job well, without adding unnecessary weight that could slow down your site. To use it, just insert the block where you want the social share buttons to appear.
The Social Sharing Block doesn’t automatically add buttons to every post or page. Instead, you can place the block in a post or page template and use that template wherever you want the social sharing buttons to show up.
Price: 100% free.
Meta Field Block
The Meta Field Block plugin is ideal for creating custom websites, especially when dealing with custom post types or regular posts that need extra meta information.
Meta fields in WordPress let you add more details to a post. They’re especially useful for custom post types. For instance, if you’re creating a book post type, you can use meta fields to include author details and publishing year alongside the main content.
While many plugins help you create custom meta fields, most don’t let you display them without buying extra features.
With Meta Field Block, you can easily show custom meta field info on your block theme pages. It even supports meta data from tools like Advanced Custom Fields.
The plugin offers even more advanced features in its Pro version to further enhance its functionality.
Price: Freemium.
Editor Block Outline
This plugin clearly has a lot of potential for customizing block themes.
Block themes can be visually customized in the site editor, while more advanced customizations are handled via the theme.json file.
The Editor Block Outline plugin makes this even smoother by adding an outline to each block on a page (if you turn on this setting). This lets you see at a glance how all your blocks fit together on the page.
Plus, it tags each block with a name, which is handy when you’re fine-tuning blocks in the theme.json file.
Price: 100% free.
Bootstrap Blocks
If you’re a fan of Bootstrap, the Bootstrap Blocks plugin lets you design interfaces right in the site editor using Bootstrap components.
With this plugin, you can visually create nearly anything Bootstrap allows directly within the block editor.
A major perk of the plugin is its inclusion of Bootstrap’s responsive containers, which you can adjust using Bootstrap’s breakpoints.
In essence, this plugin lets you turn a Bootstrap HTML template into a WordPress block theme effortlessly. It’s essential for anyone building WordPress block themes with Bootstrap.
Price: 100% free.
GutenBee
The GutenBee plugin gives you a bunch of blocks to make it easy to create custom pages fast. Along with adding new blocks, GutenBee also provides its own variations of several core blocks.
For instance, it adds a container block to group page elements, upgrades the button and heading blocks, and beefs up the image block with better responsive options, among other improvements.
Best of all, GutenBee is totally free and amps up your site editor, making it a must-try for crafting custom pages.
Price: 100% free.
BlockMeister
The BlockMeister plugin simplifies creating and managing block patterns. When you’re building WordPress sites using the block editor, you frequently need to reuse components across different projects.
Block patterns let you build elements once and deploy them wherever you need, which speeds up the design process significantly.
BlockMeister allows you to quickly create patterns, categorize them, and register them either in your theme or plugin.
If you opt for the Pro version of BlockMeister, you get additional features that enhance your site editor toolkit for visual website creation, making it a must-have tool.
Price: Freemium.
Final thoughts
If you want to make the most out of the block editor, these tools offer features that will enhance your website creation experience in a great way. Every plugin has its place and you’ll probably need its functionality at some point.
You can start experimenting with the free versions to test out the improvements they bring to the site editor.
