10 of our favorite plugins for Craft CMS 4

Craft CMS 4 is a powerful and flexible content management system, but it can be even better with the right set of plugins. In this blog post, we're sharing our top 10 favorite plugins for Craft CMS 4 that can help enhance your website's functionality, design, and performance. From SEO optimization to form building, these plugins will make your life as a website developer or administrator much easier. Keep reading to find out which plugins made the cut.

Our first plugin to make the list is CKeditor. CKeditor is a rich text editor for Craft CMS. It allows content creators to format text, insert images and videos, and create links without the need for HTML knowledge. It also includes a variety of customization options, such as the ability to add or remove buttons from the toolbar and set limitations on the types of content that can be inserted.

The next plugin on our list is Linkit. LinkIt is a Craft CMS plugin that allows content editors to easily create links to entries, assets, and custom URLs within the Redactor editor. It adds a button to the toolbar that opens a modal window, allowing the user to search for and select the desired link. This plugin is particularly useful for content-heavy sites as it allows for quick and easy internal linking without the need for manual HTML. Additionally, It also allows for setting up different link types, like email and tel links, and also can be used to link to anchor on the page. This plugin can help make the process of creating and managing links within the content more user-friendly and efficient.

We have extensively used all of the popular form plugins for Craft CMS, and without a doubt the most complete and well known is Free Form.

Freeform is a popular plugin for Craft CMS that allows website administrators to create and manage forms on their website. With Freeform, you can create custom forms, manage submissions, and integrate with popular email marketing services such as Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor.

It also offers several features like spam prevention, file uploads, multi-page forms, and email notifications. It also provides different types of fields that could be added to forms like text fields, dropdown fields, checkboxes, radio buttons etc.
Additionally, it also provides the ability to use custom templates for forms and emails, and also to setup custom validation rules.

Freeform can be used for a variety of purposes, such as contact forms, surveys, event registration, and more. It makes it easy to collect and manage data from website visitors, making it a valuable tool for website administrators.

Any plugin list wouldn't be complete without mentioning the Blitz Cache plugin.

Blitz is one of the most popular caching plugin for Craft CMS, it is simple to use, and it also provides several advanced features such as the ability to cache individual elements, and to bust the cache when certain events occur, like when an entry is saved or a new asset is uploaded.

It also allows to set up different caching strategies like caching per-URL, per-section, and per-element, and also provides the ability to flush the cache from the control panel or programmatically.

Blitz can help website administrators to achieve a significant performance boost for their Craft websites by caching the rendered HTML output of pages, making it a valuable tool for optimizing the performance of a website.

One of the most popular plugins in the Craft CMS ecosystem is SEOmatic.

SEOmatic is a SEO plugin for Craft CMS that helps website administrators to optimize their site for search engines. It provides a variety of features for optimizing website content, metadata, and structured data, such as the ability to create custom meta titles and descriptions, generate sitemaps, and integrate with social media platforms.

One of the key features of SEOmatic is its ability to automatically generate and manage meta tags, such as the title, description and Open Graph tags, from the fields on the entry. This means that content editors don't have to think about the SEO aspects of their content and also it saves a lot of time for the website administrators. It also provides a feature to create custom templates for different types of pages and also allows to set up custom redirects. SEOmatic is a powerful plugin that can help website administrators to improve their website's visibility in search engine results, making it a valuable tool for improving the SEO of a website.

ImageOptimize is a plugin for Craft CMS that helps to optimize images on a website, which can help to improve the website's performance and reduce page load times. The plugin uses lossless optimization techniques to shrink image file sizes without any loss of quality.

ImageOptimize can be used to optimize images that are uploaded through the control panel, and also provides the ability to optimize images that are already on the server. It also allows to set up different image optimization options like the quality of the image, and the size of the image, and also provides the ability to exclude certain images from being optimized. It also provides the ability to optimize images in bulk and also to schedule regular optimization.

By optimizing images, website administrators can reduce the file size of images, which can help to improve the website's performance and reduce page load times, making it a valuable tool for optimizing the performance of a website.

Enupal Backups is a plugin for Craft CMS that allows website administrators to easily create and manage backups of their website's data. It provides an easy-to-use interface for creating and managing backups, which can be saved to a variety of different storage options such as local, Amazon S3, Google Drive, and Dropbox.

Enupal Backups provides a wide range of features to help website administrators keep their data safe, including the ability to schedule backups, manage backup retention, and restore backups from the control panel. Additionally, it also allows to exclude certain folders or files from the backup, and also to send notifications when a backup is complete.

Enupal Backups is a valuable tool for website administrators as it helps to ensure that their website's data is safe and secure, and can be easily restored in case of any data loss. Regularly backing up your website is considered as an important step in maintaining a healthy website, and this plugin makes it easy to do so.

Cookie Consent Banner is a plugin for Craft CMS that allows website administrators to display a cookie consent banner on their website, in compliance with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other similar regulations. The plugin allows you to customize the text and design of the banner, as well as configure the settings for the banner, such as its position, color scheme and more.

The plugin allows website administrators to choose between different types of consent options, like implicit or explicit consent, and also provides the ability to set up custom scripts for tracking.

Cookie consent banners are an important aspect of GDPR and similar regulations, as they help to inform website visitors about the use of cookies on the website and seek their consent. The plugin makes it easy for website administrators to comply with these regulations and provide a transparent user experience.

This handy little free plugin, allows you to manage everyone's favorite CDN right from your craft admin console. The Cloudflare plugin provides caching and minifying features, which can improve the performance of your website by reducing the amount of data that needs to be transferred between the server and the browser. It also provides you with the ability to clear the cache, which is useful when you make changes to your website and want them to show up immediately.

We had to end this list with a shameless plug for our own plugin: Algolia Sync.

Algolia Sync is a complete automated system for adding, updating and deleting records in Algolia based on Entries, Structures, Categories, Tags and User Groups in Craft CMS.

When any record is added, edited or deleted, the Algolia Sync plugin will be alerted. If that element type is configured to be synced, it will package up these values and ship them off to the associated Algolia Index.

Algolia Sync, along with the help of a developer. Can allow website administrators to create a powerful search experience for Craft CMS.

In conclusion, we hope you enjoyed our blog post about Craft CMS plugins. There is a wide variety of plugins available for Craft CMS, and we only covered a small selection in this post. We encourage you to explore the many other plugins available to enhance the functionality of your website and make your development process more efficient. Remember to always do your research and test any plugin before implementing it on a live website. Happy crafting!

At BrillianceNW, we pride ourselves on being true experts in custom plugin development for Craft CMS. With a proven track record of delivering high-quality solutions, we specialize in creating tailored plugins that enhance functionality, streamline processes, and bring unique visions to life. Whether you need seamless third-party integrations, advanced features, or solutions to complex challenges, our team is equipped with the skills and experience to meet your needs. We are committed to quality, innovation, and client satisfaction, ensuring every plugin we develop is efficient, reliable, and built to elevate your Craft CMS website. Let us help you tackle your next big project—get in touch today!