In web technology, both Widgets and Plugins play an important role. They are generally added to websites to enhance their efficiency of the website. In this article, we will see what are widgets and plugins, along with understanding their differences.
What is Plugin?
Plugins are nothing but small software that is used to improve a website’s performance, they are generally used to add some additional features or functionality to the website. For instance, there are plugins available to watch videos on websites, if the plugin is not installed then maybe our browser doesn’t understand how to play that video.
Here is the list of some useful Plugins:
- Gravity Forms: Gravity Forms is a simple plugin that helps to handle all forms on the website, through this we can also customize the form fields and can create conditional logic within the form. Gravity Forms are also tied up with any third party like PayPal and MailChimp etc.
- EventOn: As the name suggests, the EventOn plugin generally organizes the events based on color and category, with the help of EventOn we can add a calendar to sidebars on the website.
- Advanced Custom Fields: This plugin allows us to add and edit custom fields on the back end of our website, as well as customize our admin edit screen.
- Yoast SEO: If you have a blog or site on WordPress then this plugin is for you, Through this plugin, we can set the SEO Title and Meta Description on-page and the alt attributes of your images, and posts, as well as setting more advanced options like sitemap settings.
- Elementor: This plugin enables us to design custom web page designs, there are a lot of free templates in the Elementor library that you can use for creating a page.
- Akismet: Akismet plugin automatically blocks the spam comments, this plugin is very useful for blog and business owners who receive at least tens of comments daily.
Plugin Installation: In WordPress, you can directly go to the plugins section and select the desired plugin then install it. Please refer to How to Install any Plugin on WordPress Website? article to see a detailed step-by-step procedure.
Plugin Installation
What is Widget?
A Widget is something through which a user can interact with an application. A widget is an element of a graphical user interface that deals with the information for a user, widgets help us to add some additional features and functionality like pull-down menus, buttons, selection boxes, icons, scroll bars, etc.
Here is the list of some useful Widgets:-
- Google Map Widget: Google Map Widget helps to get a map on the website, for instance, when a user clicks on the map widget, a larger map opens in a popup, and it is very simple and easy to use the widget.
- Astra Widget: Astra Widget is nothing but a pack of widgets, It allows us to easily add business location, social profile links, and an icon list on the sidebar.
- Simple Social Icon: This widget enables us to add social icons to our sidebars, we can choose which of our social networks to link to and then add our profile URLs.
- Social Media count widget: As the name of the widget states that it keeps the count of subscribers we have on our social media, This means it will show how many subscribers we have on YouTube, how many followers we have on Instagram, Twitter Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
Widget Installation: In WordPress, go to the Appearance section and then to the widget section. After clicking on the widget, you can see all the ‘widgets‘ on the left side and the area where you need to add a ‘widget’ on the right side. So, you can drag your widget from the left side and drop it to the area on the right side to add that widget in that area. Please refer to What is Widgets in WordPress? article to see a detailed step-by-step procedure.
Widget Installation
Difference between Plugin and Widget:
Plugin |
Widget |
|---|---|
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Plugins can be used to add functions or features to your site. |
Widgets can be used to add content blocks to the frontend, usually in the sidebar or footer of your site |
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The plugin keeps the page running and functioning properly in the background |
A widget is something with which a user can interact and see it on the page. |
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Plugins are geared towards functionality. |
Widgets are geared towards appearance. |
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eg. add a small feature to the admin area add social media sharing icons to your blog articles or automatically capitalize your title and heading tags. |
eg. A widget can be a button, scroll bar, label, dialog box, or check box or it can be something slightly more sophisticated like a search box, tiny map, clock, or visitor counter. |
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Example: Gravity Forms, EventOn, Yoast SEO, etc. |
Examples: Google Map Widget, Astra Widget. |
