Recent & Featured Posts Widget
Recent & Featured Posts Widget adds a list of recent posts or posts of your choosing with thumbnail images, post titles, dates, times, and excerpts.
Consider an alternative
Recent & Featured Posts Widget shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 90+ sites, is rated 4/5 and was last updated 11 years ago, and scores 29/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (90+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 10 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 4.4 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Recent & Featured Posts Wid… stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| featured | >100 |
| featured posts | >100 |
| image | >100 |
| images | >100 |
| media | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 4 from 1 reviews
About Recent & Featured Posts Widget
From the official readme · v1.1.0Description
Recent & Featured Posts Widget adds a list of recent posts or posts of your choosing with thumbnail images, post titles, dates, times, and excerpts.
Features:
- Excerpt Length. Change the number of words in the post excerpt.
- Excerpt Display. Show the excerpt as a dropdown when someone hovers over a section or display the excerpt directly on the page.
- CSS Modification. Modify certain CSS values including image width, text position, and border.
- Featured Posts. Don’t want to show recent posts? Enter a list of post IDs. The number of posts shown will depend on the total number of IDs.
- Thumbnail Images. Choose to show featured image, or the oldest image attached to a post is shown by default.
- Images of your Choosing. Enter a list of image IDs to replace the default images. Images are shown in the order listed.
- Date and Time. Show or hide the post date and/or time. Choose a separator that goes between date and time.
- Include Sticky Posts. If you include sticky posts, an extra post is added. I.e. if the ‘Number of posts to show’ is 5 and you select ‘Include Sticky Posts’, 6 posts will be shown.
- Rectangular or Circular Image.
Installation
Install from Search
- From the Dashboard, select Plugins -> Add New.
- Search for the plugin by its full name.
- When it turns up, click on Install Now.
Install from a Zip File
- If you downloaded the zip file for the plugin, go to the Dashboard, and select Plugins -> Add New.
- Click on Upload Plugin.
- Click on Browse, select the file, and click Open.
- Click Install Now.
After installation, activate the plugin to use.
Changelog
You can now choose to display featured images.
1.1.0
- Released on August 26, 2015
- Added the option to display featured images.
Screenshots
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
Best Recent & Featured Posts Widget alternatives
All featured plugins →
FAQ
Recent & Featured Posts Widget: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 13, 2026
Is Recent & Featured Posts Widget free?
Yes. Recent & Featured Posts Widget is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Recent & Featured Posts Widget safe to use in 2026?
Recent & Featured Posts Widget shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 90+ sites, is rated 4/5 and was last updated 11 years ago, and scores 29/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Recent & Featured Posts Widget?
Recent & Featured Posts Widget is active on 90+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 6,656 times since it launched in August 2015. It was downloaded 73 times in the last 30 days.
Does Recent & Featured Posts Widget work with WordPress 7.1?
Recent & Featured Posts Widget is officially tested up to WordPress 4.4.34, while the latest release is 7.1.3. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Recent & Featured Posts Widget last updated?
The latest version, 1.1.0, was released on February 12, 2016 (11 years ago).
Who makes Recent & Featured Posts Widget?
Recent & Featured Posts Widget is developed and maintained by graysea.
What are the best alternatives to Recent & Featured Posts Widget?
The most popular alternatives to Recent & Featured Posts Widget are Featured Image from URL (FI… (60K+ installs), Conditionally display featu… (30K+ installs) and Hide Featured Image (10K+ installs).
Powered by PageForge
Want thousands of pages that rank like these? Build them in an afternoon.
This directory runs on the same engine as PageForge. Turn any spreadsheet, CSV or API into thousands of fast, SEO-ready WordPress pages — with schema, internal links and AI-written copy baked in.
- CSV, Google Sheets & API data sources
- AI content, schema & internal links per page
- Works with Elementor, Gutenberg, Yoast & Rank Math
- Free on WordPress.org — no credit card
