Smart Post Lists Light
You can create a fully functional website using this widget. Check out the showcase. Drag & drop the widget in as many sidebars or custom widget areas as you like and build as many independent lists as you like. It is…
Consider an alternative
Smart Post Lists Light shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 200+ sites, is rated 3.8/5 and was last updated 5 years ago, and scores 29/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (200+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 4 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 5.9 (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 Smart Post Lists Light stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| authors | >100 |
| blog | >100 |
| custom post list | >100 |
| featured image | >100 |
| post list | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 3.8 from 4 reviews
About Smart Post Lists Light
From the official readme · v1.8Description
You can create a fully functional website using this widget. Check out the showcase.
Drag & drop the widget in as many sidebars or custom widget areas as you like and build as many independent lists as you like. It is very easy to build any type of list you’d like.
It works similar to SQL query but no coding knowledge is required!
Check out demo site
How it works
Go to your widgets section. Drag and Drop the widget in a sidebar(widget area) that you want your list to appear in. Fill in the form and click save. Here are the options you can choose from:
- Select multiple categories and tags to list posts from.
- Choose the number of posts to list and where to start listing from.
- Order the list by: author, date created, date modified, post title.
- Order to display posts: ascending, descending.
- Select fields you want to show: title, date, excerpt, number of comments.
- Select excerpt length in words
- Choose to show image on: all posts, first only or none
- Choose size of the image: thumb, medium, large
- Choose image float: top of text, left of text, right of text
By filling a simple form this plugin will build an SQL SELECT query, return a result set and build html code based on it. The form controls select expression, where condition, order by expression, limit expression.
No coding is required!
Showcase
You can create a fully functional website using this widget. Get some ideas at the demo site.
- Sidebar examples
- Footer examples
- Blog examples
- Portfolio example
- Products example
- Widgetized page
Customize front-end
By default the widget looks like all other widgets from the same sidebar (widget area) you drop it in. It has its own CSS file that overrides the default styles for your list elements. You can use that file to further customize the front-end outlook.
Get more of this plugin
Most themes for WordPress will come with default sidebars and a few footer areas where you can drop widgets in. If you want to have custom widget areas for instance in content areas of your pages and post, or any other area of your site:
- Create your custom widget areas by using a plugin. It’s fast and easy.
- Create your custom widget areas by little coding – advanced users.
- Use an advanced theme with more widget areas defined.
Installation
Please refer to online documentation page for more details and screenshots.
Changelog
1.8
- Updated: Core components
1.7
- Updated: php8 support
- Updated: Escape html attributes
- Updated: Sanitize requests
- Updated: Use strict mode for javascript
- Updated: Shortcode changes to support block editors
1.6
- Updated: OTW core functions
1.5
- Updated: latest version of OTW factory
- Fixed: error mode modification
1.4
- Updated: OTW core componets update
- Updated: WordPress 4.8 support
1.3
- Updated: WordPress 4.3 support
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 Smart Post Lists Light alternatives
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FAQ
Smart Post Lists Light: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 27, 2026
Is Smart Post Lists Light free?
Yes. Smart Post Lists Light is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Smart Post Lists Light safe to use in 2026?
Smart Post Lists Light shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 200+ sites, is rated 3.8/5 and was last updated 5 years ago, and scores 29/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Smart Post Lists Light?
Smart Post Lists Light is active on 200+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 28,419 times since it launched in May 2012. It was downloaded 114 times in the last 30 days.
Does Smart Post Lists Light work with WordPress 7.1?
Smart Post Lists Light is officially tested up to WordPress 5.9.18, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Smart Post Lists Light last updated?
The latest version, 1.8, was released on March 29, 2022 (5 years ago).
Who makes Smart Post Lists Light?
Smart Post Lists Light is developed and maintained by OTWthemes.
What are the best alternatives to Smart Post Lists Light?
The most popular alternatives to Smart Post Lists Light are Co-Authors, Multiple Author… (20K+ installs), Co-Authors Plus (20K+ installs) and Smart User Slug Hider (3K+ installs).
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