The WordPress social media plugins worth installing in 2026 are one lightweight share button plugin, a feed plugin only if social content genuinely sells for you, and an SEO plugin that writes your Open Graph tags. Most business sites need fewer share buttons than they think, and better link previews than they have.
The short answer
- Of the 12 social sharing plugins my 2015 and 2016 posts recommended, only 3 are still maintained in 2026.
- Open Graph tags matter more than share buttons, because they control how your page looks every time anyone pastes the link, with or without a button.
- The best social sharing plugins for WordPress today are light: AddToAny, Scriptless Social Sharing and Social Media Feather are good starting points.
- Put share buttons on content people actually share, such as guides and articles, not on service pages, forms or checkout.
How I chose these plugins. I checked every sharing plugin named in two older posts on this site against its WordPress.org listing or official changelog on 19 October 2026. I kept plugins that were updated in 2026, are tested against current WordPress and do one job without heavy scripts. I then added maintained alternatives for the jobs where the old picks have gone. This is a maintenance check, not a security audit or a speed benchmark, so treat “maintained” as the minimum bar.
What happened to the social plugins from 2015 and 2016?
Most WordPress social plugins recommended in 2015 and 2016 are gone. Of the 12 sharing plugins named in my older posts, five have been closed on WordPress.org, one is no longer listed, and three have not been updated since March 2025 or earlier. Only Social Media Feather, AddToAny and ShareThis, through a newer plugin, are still maintained.
| Plugin | Status in October 2026 | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Social Media Feather | Maintained, updated October 2026 | Keep |
| AddToAny Share Buttons | Maintained, updated May 2026 | Keep |
| ShareThis | Original plugin closed in 2018, replaced by ShareThis Share Buttons, updated October 2026 | Switch to the newer plugin if you use ShareThis |
| Social Warfare | Last updated March 2025, tested only to WordPress 6.7 | Replace |
| Shareaholic | Last updated November 2024 | Replace |
| Monarch | Last changelog entry dated 2021 | Replace |
| Digg Digg | Closed on WordPress.org in 2017 | Remove |
| Slick Social Sharing Buttons | Closed in 2020 for a guideline violation | Remove |
| Floating Social Bar | Closed in April 2025 for a security issue | Remove now |
| Mashshare | Closed in August 2025 at the author’s request | Remove |
| Flare | Closed in April 2026 for a guideline violation | Remove |
| Sharif Social Share Buttons | No longer listed on WordPress.org | Remove |
That table is my own editorial clean-up, and it is a little embarrassing. I recommended these twelve plugins in older articles, then left the advice unchanged for years. The October 2026 recheck found five closed on WordPress.org, one for a security issue, and only three still maintained. Anyone following old advice could be using a plugin its own directory had shut down. The lesson is to give each installed plugin an owner who checks it. If you run any of the “remove” rows, arrange a backup and a safe replacement, remove the unsafe or unused code, and then read my guide to how many WordPress plugins is too many for the wider clean-up.
Do business sites still need social share buttons?
Many business sites need fewer social share buttons than they have. Visitors can share any page by copying the link or using the share menu built into their phone, and those shares still use your Open Graph tags. Share buttons earn their place on articles and guides people forward, not on every page of the site.
Supporting browsers can open the device’s own share menu through the Web Share API, which may include messaging apps and email. It requires HTTPS and a user action, and support varies by browser and device. Keep a normal copy-link fallback rather than making native sharing the only way to pass a page on.
On a B2B site, a share bar floating over a service page is clutter. It pulls attention from the one action you want, which is an enquiry. Keep a small set of buttons at the end of blog posts, limit them to the two or three networks your buyers use, and drop share counts, which look thin on most business content. Social still matters for distribution, and I cover the content side in my social media tips for content marketing.
Why do Open Graph tags matter more than share buttons?
Open Graph tags matter more than share buttons because they supply the title, description and image platforms can use when someone shares your link, on Facebook, LinkedIn, messaging apps and many other platforms. A share button only helps people who click it. Open Graph tags shape every share, including the many that never touch a button.
The Open Graph protocol requires four properties on every page: og:title, og:type, og:image and og:url. Meta’s sharing guide for webmasters says that without these tags its crawler makes a best guess about the title, description and preview image. Its image guidance recommends images of at least 1200 x 630 pixels for the best display on high-resolution devices. LinkedIn’s help centre on making your website shareable lists the og:title, og:image, og:description and og:url tags it expects.
You probably do not need a separate plugin for this. Yoast SEO and Rank Math both generate Open Graph tags. The work is in the content: a specific social title, a description written for a person scrolling a feed, and a purpose-made image at the right size for every important page.
- Confirm your SEO plugin’s social or Open Graph settings are switched on.
- Set a default share image for the site, then custom images for key pages.
- Paste each key URL into Meta’s Sharing Debugger and LinkedIn’s Post Inspector to see the preview and refresh the cache.
- Remove any old social plugin that also prints Open Graph tags, so pages do not carry two sets.
Which WordPress social sharing plugins are worth installing?
The WordPress social sharing plugins worth installing in 2026 are the ones that stay light and stay maintained. AddToAny suits sites that want broad network coverage, Scriptless Social Sharing suits speed-focused sites, and Social Media Feather suits sites that want simple share and follow buttons. Choose one sharing plugin and use it everywhere.
- AddToAny Share Buttons: 300,000+ active installs, and its listing covers Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and many more services.
- Scriptless Social Sharing: builds plain sharing links with no JavaScript, which is my pick for performance-focused sites.
- Social Media Feather: lightweight share and follow buttons, placed automatically or with widgets and shortcodes. It is one of the two original picks still standing.
- Hubbub Lite: free share and follow buttons with paid upgrades, covering networks such as Facebook, Pinterest, X and Threads.
- Novashare: a premium sharing plugin sold through its own site, with a changelog showing an August 2026 release.
Should you embed social feeds or auto-post from WordPress?
Embed social feeds only when your social content genuinely helps someone decide to buy, such as a restaurant, retailer or venue showing recent work. Auto-post from WordPress when you publish often and want each new post on your channels. For most service businesses, neither is essential, and both add scripts or another plugin to maintain.
If you do need them, use maintained options. Smash Balloon’s Instagram Feed plugin has 1+ million active installs and sister plugins for Facebook and other networks. Jetpack Social shares new posts to connected social accounts automatically. Revive Social reshares older posts on a schedule. XPoster, which started life as WP to Twitter, now posts to Bluesky and Mastodon. For a wider view of where social plugins sit among other tools, see my list of WordPress marketing plugins.
A feed needs an owner as well as a design. Confirm permission to reuse the displayed content, moderation rules and what the embed sends to third parties before it loads. Test the page when the social account disconnects or the visitor does not allow the embed: a normal profile link should still work. Auto-posting also needs a visible failed-post log so an expired connection does not silently stop distribution.
How has social media changed web design?
Social media changed web design in four practical ways. The link preview became part of the page’s design. Visitors from social mostly arrive on a phone, deep inside the site, not on the homepage. Your site has to look and read like the same business as your profiles. And those visitors look for proof before they act. Share buttons are the least important part of that.
- Design the preview. Treat the 1200 x 630 share image as a designed asset, not whatever photo happens to sit at the top of the page. An image that works inside an article may crop badly in a feed. I check the preview as a separate part of the page: readable wording, the right image and a clear connection to the destination.
- Design the landing, not just the homepage. Someone tapping a link on LinkedIn or Instagram usually lands on one article or offer, often inside the app’s own browser. That page has to say who you are and offer the next step without the homepage’s help.
- Keep one identity. Use the same name, photo or logo and description on your profiles and your site, and link the profiles from the site. Google’s organization structured data guide supports a sameAs property for listing those profile URLs.
- Put social proof on the page. A named testimonial or review next to the enquiry button does more than a feed widget most visitors scroll past.
How do you add social plugins without slowing your site?
Adding social plugins without slowing your site means choosing a plugin that loads little or no JavaScript, showing buttons only on the post types that need them, and turning off share counts and floating bars. Embedded feeds should load lazily or sit below the fold. Measure page speed before and after installing anything social.
Social widgets are a common source of third-party scripts, and third-party scripts are hard to cache or control. Simple icon links to your profiles need no plugin at all: an icon in the footer that links to your LinkedIn page is just a link. If the site already feels slow, start with my quick fixes for speeding up WordPress before adding anything new.
What to do next
- Check your installed social plugins against the status table and remove anything closed or abandoned.
- Test your top ten pages in Meta’s Sharing Debugger and LinkedIn’s Post Inspector, and fix titles, descriptions and images.
- Keep one lightweight sharing plugin, limited to blog posts and guides.
- Replace feed embeds that do not help a buyer decide with simple profile links.
- If you want a second opinion on what your site should keep, book a free call with me and my team.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free social sharing plugin for WordPress?
For most business sites, AddToAny Share Buttons is a sensible free default: it is actively maintained, widely installed and supports newer networks such as Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads. Maintained is not the same as audited, so keep it updated like any other plugin. If page speed is the priority, Scriptless Social Sharing is lighter because it builds plain links without loading any JavaScript.
Do social share buttons help SEO?
Share buttons are a distribution tool, not a ranking tool. They can help content reach more people, and that reach can lead to links and branded searches over time. Heavy sharing scripts can also slow pages down, so a light plugin, or no plugin on pages nobody shares, is usually the better trade.
What size should an Open Graph image be?
Meta recommends Open Graph images of at least 1200 x 630 pixels for the best display on high-resolution screens, with an absolute minimum of 200 x 200 pixels and a file size under 8 MB. Using one 1200 x 630 image per important page works well across most platforms that read Open Graph tags.
Do I need a plugin for Open Graph tags?
Usually not a separate one. Yoast SEO and Rank Math both generate Open Graph tags, so if you already run one of them, switch on its social settings and fill in the fields. Avoid running a second plugin that also outputs Open Graph tags, because duplicate tags can produce the wrong preview.
Should I show share counts on my posts?
Only if the numbers are consistently high. In my view, low share counts work as negative social proof, signalling that nobody found the content worth passing on. Counts can also need extra requests to fetch the data. For most business blogs, plain share buttons without counts are the better choice.
