Top 10 WordPress Plugins for Designers

Are you a web designer aiming to create awe-inspiring and stunning websites using WordPress? Then, you must consider the best WordPress plugins for designers that make your job easy. These are the toolboxes that come in handy for WordPress developers to create the sites in a less daunting way. These tools will streamline the process and let you focus majorly on creativity. As a web designer, you can use these plugins to improve the look and feel of the website while ensuring functionality and usability.

This post lists the top 10 WordPress plugins for designers, with pros and cons. All the plugins we have discussed in common will let you create beautiful WordPress sites that enhance user experience. 

10 Best WordPress Plugins for Designers

Elementor

Elementor is the best WordPress plugin that makes the life of web designers simple by letting them design without having to write a single line of code. Each section on the WordPress theme can be edited using these WordPress plugins for designers, including the design part of the page, header, and footer. 

Features

• It comes with a rich and easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor to build websites. 
• Contains an extensive range of temple libraries with different website elements. 
• Has mobile responsive design capabilities.
• It is easy to customize the styling options to have design control. 

Pros

• You will enjoy working on a clean interface. 
• Hotkeys are available to redo and undo the changes. 

Cons

• Styles need to be applied more effectively regarding widgets and fonts.
• No white label option is available to make the design appear your own. 

Link: https://elementor.com/ 

YellowPencil

YellowPencil is one of the best WordPress plugins for designers, allowing you to easily style the website using CSS. It has a CSS editor plugin that enables you to customize the website design in real-time. 

Features

• Change any CSS element on the site by just dragging and dropping.
• Contain a wireframe tool to focus on the page layout to check the website structure. 
• Edit the margin and padding properties of the website. 
• Easy to design the login page. 

Pros

• Access CSS code any time and explore the CSS stylesheet file whenever you want. 
• Adding motion, animation, and shadows to the website is easy. 

Cons

• Options are overwhelming for website designers, especially beginners.
• Advanced features will have a learning curve. 

Link: https://yellowpencil.waspthemes.com/ 

WPForms

WPforms is the best WordPress plugin for designers, and it has regular and advanced forms for newsletters, surveys, registration, and payment. Out of all WordPress plugins for designers, it lets you use conditional logic and send custom notifications to clients. 

Features

• You do not need to write code to create forms using drag-and-drop builders. 
• Come with pre-built templates to save time while building the forms from scratch. 
• Optimize the website for mobile devices and is SEO-friendly. 
• Easy to integrate with PayPal, Stripe, Hubspot, Zapier, and so on. 

Pros

• Templates for forms are ready to make and available to use instantly. 
• Create any number of forms you want. 

Cons

• The free version of the plugin has limitless access to all features.
• You have to figure out the options to build the form from scratch.

Link: https://wpforms.com/ 

Envira Gallery

When you want to design a beautiful gallery with WordPress plugins for designers, Envira is an ideal plugin for you to use in WordPress. It is easy to set up and has a user-friendly interface with many layouts like mosaic, thumbnail, and masonry. 

Features

• Come with Gutenberg blocks and drag-and-drop gallery builders in these design plugins. 
• Has beautiful layouts and advanced templates for easier customization. 
• Add a beautiful slideshow with auto and manual controls. 
• It is easy to split extensive galleries into multiple pages. 

Pros

• The plugin is 100% responsive and is SEO-friendly. 
• Allow you to integrate with social media and Woocommerce stores. 

Cons

• The free version of the plugin has a few premium features. 
• You would need to buy the pro version for advanced features. 

Link: https://enviragallery.com/ 

Updraft Plus

UpdraftPlus is the best plugin that allows you to edit files on the WordPress site and modify the JS, CSS, and PHP. It is one of the WordPress plugins designers can use to back up data regularly. 

Features

• Allow you to schedule the backup of data on the site regularly.
• Display the backup status on the WordPress admin panel to show errors and warnings. 
• It is easy to decrypt the databases within the WordPress control panel.
• Offer many areas where you can store the data remotely. 

Pros

• The free version of the plugin lets you access all features.
• It contains a lot of storage options to have limitless backup.

Cons

• It is expensive compared to its competitors. 
• It may need to work more effectively for the large sites as it worked with the smaller ones. 

Link: https://updraftplus.com/ 

Imagify 

If you are a web designer looking for WordPress plugins for designers, you can use Imagify. The Imagify plugin does compression and optimization jobs well without impacting the website’s loading speed. 

Features

• Support lossless and innovative compression capabilities. 
• Work with different galleries and sliders. 
• Easy to convert images to different formats such as Avif and WebP. 
• One-click backup to back up the data and restore it with ease. 

Pros

• Auto optimizes the images once you upload them.
• All the images that are optimized would look great without getting pixelated. 

Cons

• The starter plan will have a limited storage of 20MB. 
• Does not offer integration with CDN. 

Link: https://imagify.io/ 

WP Rocket

WP Rocket is the best WordPress plugin that boosts the site’s performance with just a few clicks. The powerful extension will optimize the code, boost page loading speed, improve the performance score, and optimize core web vitals with this one of the WordPress plugins for designers. 

Features

• CSS can be optimized, such as by minimizing and removing unused CSS. 
• Lazy loading will prioritize loading the images above the fold. 
• It was an advanced clean-up of the database, including the comments. 
• Files like Javascript and CSS will be optimized to remove unused styles and functions. 

Pros

• You can get a 14-day money-back guarantee if you do not like the plugin so that you can try it out.
• Enable gzip compression and browser caching to improve page speed. 

Cons

• No chat option is available to offer customer support.
• Image optimization and WebP conversion are not available in this plugin. 

Link: https://wp-rocket.me/ 

Modula

Modula is the best gallery plugin designers use to create attractive image galleries. It has many effects to create galleries for creative expression. 

Features

• Contains six different light boxes for images with these WordPress plugins for designers.
• Adding custom captions, effects, and animations to images is easy. 
• Galleries will be displayed inside the WordPress widgets.
• Support social sharing buttons to let website visitors share the pages. 

Pros

• It has many effects, animations, hover states, and layouts to create beautiful galleries. 
• User-friendly interface to use for building galleries. 

Cons

• The free version has limited access to effects, animation, and support for Lightbox. 
• The free version has a limit on the number of images you upload to the gallery, i.e., 20.

Link: https://wp-modula.com/ 

Site origin page builder

Page builder plugin is the most widely used WordPress plugin design tool. With a free license, it offers live editing to edit drag-and-drop components and customize CSS.  It is compatible to use with different WordPress themes. 

Features

• Contains a collection of widgets and layout options.
• Create captivating designs using the drag-and-drop functionality.
• Responsive design to create flawless designs on different devices. 
• No coding skills are required to customize the page design. 

Pros

• Developers regularly update it to keep it highly compatible and secure. 
• The plugin’s infrastructure is efficient and does not impact the website’s performance. 

Cons

• The interface is beginner-friendly, but it would make you feel updated.
• You need a separate plugin to build widgets. 

Link: https://siteorigin.com/page-builder/ 

Short Pixel 

If you are a designer, you must add many images to the website and look for the best free WordPress plugins for design. Large images would hurt the website loading times, and there is a need for image optimizers like Shortpixel to enhance user experience and increase search engine ranking. 

Features

• It supports different image formats, such as lossless, lossy, and glossy. 
• Automatically optimize the images to add on the site to load briskly.
• It is easy to work with the galleries and sliders. 
• Compatible to use with retina images. 

Pros

• PDF optimization feature will reduce the document size and make PDF presentations easier. 
• The automation feature is easier to set up and saves time. 

Cons

• The free plan has a limit of 100 images per month. 
• The UI is dull, and functionality is emphasized more than the user interface. 

Link: https://shortpixel.com/ 

Things to Look at when Choosing a Design WordPress Plugin

It would help to consider the following factors when choosing WordPress plugins for designers.

Check the Number of Installs.

You can check how many users have installed the plugins. 

Check the Reviews

You need to check the reviews of the users who have installed the plugins from the site. 

Latest Updates

If you decide to download a plugin, install the one with regular updates. 

What is the best WordPress Plugin for Designers?

With many WordPress plugins for designers, we have listed out the top 10, of which Envira Gallery is the best plugin many designers use. It is easy to use and display photographs and designs to visitors. Many customization options are available, and they work with all WordPress page builders. Envira ensures that the image portfolios are highly responsive and work at their best with tablets, mobiles, and desktops. 

Conclusion 

Building a website from scratch is a laborious and scary process, but many plugins are available in WordPress that swiftly let you make an impressive website. The WordPress plugins for designers discussed in this post with pros and cons will help you create beautiful websites, so ensure to build websites using these plugins. You can use these plugins if you want interactive galleries, custom-built web pages, or optimized images. 

FAQs – Best WordPress Plugins for Designers

Do designers use WordPress?

The website designers will use WordPress to design small to complicated websites. Millions of companies also use it to develop and design sites that are easier to manage. 

What are the advantages of WordPress designer plugins?

The main advantage of using the best WordPress plugins for design is that it reduces the time designers spend improving the site. It also reduces the overall cost of the website. 

Can I design the website using WordPress?

Yes, you can design the website however you want using WordPress. There are a lot of designer plugins available that you can use to create the website you want. 

Is WordPress ideal for web design?

WordPress is a versatile content management system used for designing a website without coding and using themes, widgets, and plugins. 

Is the Elementor plugin free?

The core Elementor plugin is 100% free to use. However, if you want to use advanced features and capabilities, you can buy the Elementor Pro.