Best Gutenberg Blocks Plugins

Gutenberg blocks plugins used to be the first thing you installed on a new build. Core gave you paragraphs and headings; accordions, tabs, responsive padding and hover states came from somewhere else. That gap has closed a long way. WordPress 6.9 added an Accordion block, and 7.1 added Tabs plus per-device style controls. So the honest question now is not which block plugin wins. It is whether you still need one at all.

Plugin	Free version	Paid entry (USD/year)	Renewal	Sites covered	Best for
Kadence Blocks	600,000+ installs, 4.8	Essentials $99/yr (theme + Blocks Pro)	Not published	Priced per site	Forms and a matching theme, one site
Stackable	100,000+ installs, 4.9	Premium $49/yr	No separate renewal price shown	1 site (10-site and unlimited tiers priced separately)	One well-designed site
Spectra Legacy	1,000,000+ installs, 4.7	Spectra Pro $69/yr	No separate renewal price shown	3 sites	Sites already built on Spectra
Spectra Blocks	30,000+ installs, 4.5	Covered by the same Spectra Pro licence	No separate renewal price shown	3 sites	New Spectra builds and AI drafting
GenerateBlocks	200,000+ installs, 4.9	Pro $99/yr	Auto-renews, no discount shown	Up to 500 sites	Freelancers with a client book
Greenshift	70,000+ installs, 4.8	Design Pack $39.99/yr	No separate renewal price shown	1 site (5-site and unlimited tiers priced separately)	Animation, 3D and dynamic layouts

Two of those prices look identical and are not comparable. Kadence Essentials and GenerateBlocks Pro both list at $99 a year, but the Kadence page states that plans are priced per site, while a GenerateBlocks licence covers up to 500 sites. For a freelancer with ten client sites that is $990 against $99.

What WordPress core already does in 2026

This is the part most roundups quietly skip, because the honest answer costs them affiliate revenue. A large slice of what these plugins sold you when this list was first published now ships with WordPress. Here is what core covers today, straight from the release notes and the block reference:

• Accordion and Tabs blocks. Accordion landed in WordPress 6.9; the Tabs block arrived in WordPress 7.1 in August 2026.
• Per-device responsive styling. WordPress 7.1 put responsive controls in the Site Editor, so you can set different spacing on desktop, tablet and mobile without touching CSS. Block themes can define their own breakpoints in theme.json.
• Hover, focus and active states for buttons, in the editor style controls, also from 7.1.
• Device visibility, block-level custom CSS, an Icon block and a Breadcrumbs block, all added in WordPress 7.0.
• A Gallery block with a lightbox slideshow, also from 7.0.
• Grid layouts, sticky positioning, background images on groups and a font library, accumulated across the 6.x line.

Between them, those cover a genuinely large share of a normal marketing site. If you are on a modern block theme, try building one page with nothing but core before you install anything. Our guide to WordPress full site editing themes is a reasonable starting point for that.

What core still cannot do

There is a real list, and it is why these plugins are still worth money to some people:

• Forms. The core block reference lists a Form block, but it is still flagged experimental, which means it is not something to hand a client. You need a block plugin or a proper WordPress form plugin.
• Sliders and carousels. There is no core carousel block. The 7.0 Gallery lightbox is a lightbox, not a content slider, so a dedicated slider plugin or a block plugin still does that job.
• Countdown timers, progress bars and animated counters. None of these exist in core.
• Table of contents. Present in the block reference but marked experimental.
• Query loops driven by post meta or option fields. The core Query Loop handles post type and taxonomy; it does not filter on custom fields, so a custom field plugin plus a block plugin is still the usual pairing.
• Scroll animation, pinning and 3D. Nowhere near core, and unlikely to be.
• Design libraries. Core has patterns; it does not have several hundred pre-styled sections that inherit your theme colours.
• Styled data tables. The core Table block is plain. A table builder plugin or a block plugin still wins here.

If none of those appear in your project brief, stop reading and save yourself $99. If two or three do, keep going.

Some links below are affiliate links. If you buy through one we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change the ranking, and we have removed two plugins from this list since the last update.

Kadence Blocks

Kadence Blocks sits on 600,000+ active installs with a 4.8 rating from 331 reviews, and its free tier is unusually complete. The free plugin includes an Advanced Form block, a countdown, a gallery that does carousels and sliders, Lottie animation, progress bars, a posts grid and over 1,500 SVG icons. That is not a demo. You can build a real client site on the free version.

The thing that changed since our last update is ownership and pricing. Kadence is now part of Liquid Web and Nexcess, and the old bundle tiers have been replaced with three plans. Kadence Blocks Pro is no longer sold on its own; it comes inside the Essentials plan alongside the theme.

Key features

• Advanced Form block, in the free version
• Row Layout and Advanced Text with desktop, tablet and mobile sizing
• Advanced Gallery with carousel and slider modes
• Countdown, Count Up and Progress Bar blocks
• 1,500+ SVG icons and an Icon List block
• Dynamic content sources, mega menus and hooked elements in Essentials

Price: the plugin is free. Essentials is $99/year and adds Blocks Pro, the premium theme, the form builder and starter templates, per the Kadence pricing page. Pro is $299/year and Elite is $499/year. The page states that plans are priced per site and does not publish a renewal price, so confirm both the site count and the renewal at checkout.

Best for: a single site where you want forms, a design library and a matching theme from one vendor, and you would rather not assemble that from four plugins.

Skip it if: you manage a client book. Per-site pricing at $99 does not scale, and the free plugin was tested only up to WordPress 7.0.4 at the check date while several rivals here list 7.1. It also requires WordPress 6.6 or newer and PHP 7.4.

Stackable

Stackable is the quiet one. 100,000+ installs, but a 4.9 rating across 521 reviews, which is the highest score on this list alongside GenerateBlocks. It ships 42 custom blocks and, unusually, lets you disable the ones you do not use so they never load.

Its real selling point is the global design system: set colours, typography, spacing, borders and button styles once and apply them site-wide, with styles that inherit from your block theme theme.json rather than fighting it. If you have ever inherited a site where every button was styled individually, you will understand why that matters.

Key features

• 42 custom blocks, individually toggleable
• Global colour schemes, typography and spacing that inherit from theme.json
• Carousel, Horizontal Scroller, Tabs, Timeline and Table of Contents blocks
• Countdown, Progress Circle and Video Popup blocks
• Premium adds the design library, global block styles, copy-paste styling, conditional display and motion effects

Price: free, with Stackable Premium at $49/year for one site and an All Access Pass at $89/year, per the Stackable pricing page. The page also offers 10-site and unlimited tiers and a lifetime option behind a toggle, priced separately. No renewal discount is shown, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Best for: one carefully designed site, or a designer who cares more about a consistent style system than about block count.

Skip it if: you are on an older install. Stackable now requires WordPress 6.9 or newer, which is the highest minimum on this list, so an unmaintained client site will not take it without an update first.

Spectra: read this before you install it

Spectra is the biggest name here by install count and the most confusing thing on this page, because it is now two plugins. Brainstorm Force split the product. Spectra Legacy is the original, sitting on 1,000,000+ installs at 4.7 from 1,870 reviews. Spectra Blocks is a ground-up rebuild on modern core-block APIs, currently at 30,000+ installs and a 4.5 rating from 24 reviews.

The vendor is direct about what that means. Per its own FAQ, Legacy keeps getting fixes and compatibility updates but no new features, new features are reserved for Spectra Blocks, and migration between the two is a manual page-by-page rebuild. There is no converter. That is the single most important fact about Spectra in 2026 and it is worth more than any feature list.

Key features

• Spectra Blocks ships 49 blocks including Container, Accordion, Tabs, Slider, Counter, Countdown, Modal and a popup builder
• Extensions that add spacing, border, shadow and responsive controls to core blocks instead of replacing them
• AI page drafting through the companion Zip AI plugin, including HTML-to-blocks conversion
• Spectra Legacy keeps the older, larger block set running on existing sites

Price: both plugins are free. Spectra Pro is $69/year for 3 sites and unlocks Pro features on either plugin, per the Spectra pricing page. Watch the bundles: the Essential Toolkit is advertised at $199 for the first year and the page states it renews at $299/year, and the Business Toolkit is $279 renewing at $429. Those bundles throw in Astra Pro and other Brainstorm Force products, which is either good value or three plugins you did not want.

Best for: sites already running Spectra, which should stay on Legacy, and new builds where you want the AI drafting workflow.

Skip it if: you are starting fresh and want stability. Spectra Blocks is on version 1.0.6 with 24 reviews. Starting a client project on a 1.0 rebuild, knowing there is no migration path back, is a decision to make deliberately rather than by accident.

GenerateBlocks

GenerateBlocks takes the opposite approach to everyone else on this page. Instead of 40 or 80 single-purpose blocks, it gives you about nine: Container, Grid, Text, Button, Image, Shape, Query, Looper and Loop Item. You learn those properly and build everything from them. 200,000+ installs, 4.9 rating.

The payoff is output. CSS is generated only for the blocks actually on the page, and the HTML stays close to what you would write by hand, which is worth real points on a site you are trying to speed up. The cost is a steeper first week. There is no pre-styled testimonial block waiting for you.

Key features

• Container, Grid, Text, Button, Image, Shape, Query, Looper and Loop Item blocks
• Dynamic tags for post title, excerpt, permalink, date, featured image, post meta, author meta and term lists
• Per-breakpoint styling on every block, with custom media queries in Pro
• Pro adds post meta and option field queries, 300+ patterns and 20+ starter sites
• Works with any theme, not only GeneratePress

Price: free, with GenerateBlocks Pro at $99/year covering up to 500 sites including client sites, per the GeneratePress pricing page. The GeneratePress One bundle is $149/year and adds the premium theme and GenerateCloud. Licences auto-renew annually and no renewal discount is published. Lifetime licences have been retired.

Best for: anyone who builds sites for other people. One $99 licence covers a whole client book with no per-site tier to climb, and the lean markup means you are not handing clients a performance problem.

Skip it if: you want to drag a finished pricing table onto a page this afternoon. It has no form block, no countdown and no carousel, so pair it with a form plugin if you need one.

Greenshift

Greenshift has grown from 10,000 installs when we first covered it to 70,000+, with a 4.8 rating. It is the one plugin here built around motion rather than layout, and that is the part core will never absorb: GSAP scroll animation, pinning, smooth scroll, mouse-follow effects, Rive and Lottie, and a dynamic 3D block. Our full Greenshift review goes deeper on the block set.

It also moves faster than anything else here in a way you can check: Greenshift is on version 13.1.9 while every other plugin on this list is still on a single-digit major version, and it shipped an update three days before this check. Fast movement means bugs get fixed quickly and it also means more regression testing on your side. The other honest warning: heavy scroll animation is one of the easier ways to create layout shift, so measure before and after.

Key features

• GSAP animation, scroll effects, pinning, smooth scroll and mouse-follow
• Dynamic 3D block, Rive and Lottie support
• Dynamic fields, an API connector and a Figma converter in the higher tiers
• A Woo Pack with product loop builders, swatches, variation galleries and bundles
• A class-first workflow through the separate GreenLight PRO plugin

Price: free, with paid packs on the Greenshift pricing page. Yearly: Design Pack from $39.99, Woo Pack from $49.99, GreenLight PRO from $51.99 and All in One from $59.99, all for one site, with 5-site and unlimited tiers above them. Lifetime versions of each pack start at $79.99. No renewal discount is shown. One caution: the pricing page carried a stray euro-per-month line at the check date that does not match the plans it sits beside, so confirm the figure at checkout.

Best for: motion-heavy marketing pages, and WooCommerce stores that want product loops and swatches from the same vendor as the layout blocks.

Skip it if: you want a calm, slow-moving dependency for a site you will not touch for two years, or if the plugin and add-on structure sounds like more moving parts than you want to license and track.

Two we cut from this list, and why

The previous version of this article recommended PostX and Qi Blocks. Both are still maintained; neither belongs in a general five-plugin shortlist any more.

PostX is on 40,000+ installs at 4.8, on version 5.0.38 and tested to WordPress 7.1, so it is in good health. But it is a news and magazine layout tool wearing a general-purpose label. If you are building a magazine or review site it is a strong pick. If you are building a five-page business site it is the wrong shape, and the core Query Loop plus GenerateBlocks covers you for less.

Qi Blocks has grown to 60,000+ installs, but its WordPress.org rating rests on five reviews, which is not enough signal to recommend it to someone spending client money. Version 1.5.2 was last updated a month before this check and is tested to 7.0.4. We flagged the thin review count last time and it has barely moved since.

What most roundups get wrong about block plugins

Installing two of them is worse than installing none

Every plugin here registers its own container block, its own spacing system and its own CSS. Run Kadence and Stackable together and you get two competing layout systems, two design libraries and a page whose padding is set in three places. Pick one. The comparison is meant to happen before installation, on a staging copy, not on the live site.

Blocks are markup, and markup is lock-in

This is the cost nobody prices in. A Kadence Row Layout block is not a core Group block. Deactivate the plugin and you get the invalid-block warning and a wall of comment markup where your layout used to be. Spectra just demonstrated the sharp end of this: its own rebuild has no automatic migration, and moving from Legacy to Blocks is a manual page-by-page job. Anything you build with a block plugin is a commitment for the life of the page, which is the same trade you make with visual page builders, just less obviously.

The lightweight claim is usually about the editor, not your visitor

Every vendor on this page describes itself as lightweight. Some of that is real, and GenerateBlocks in particular only generates CSS for blocks in use. But we have not run comparative field measurements on identical pages, so we are not going to hand you a ranking that looks like data. Build the same page twice on staging, measure it yourself with real Core Web Vitals data, and trust that over anyone’s marketing copy, ours included.

Free tiers are the product, not the trial

Kadence free gives you forms and carousels. Stackable free gives you 42 blocks. GenerateBlocks free gives you the whole layout engine. For most small sites the paid tier buys a design library and conditional display, and you can genuinely run for a year on free and only upgrade when a specific job demands it.

Which one should you install?

• Your pages are text, images, accordions and tabs. Install nothing. WordPress 7.1 covers it.
• You build sites for clients and bill for your time. GenerateBlocks. $99/year for up to 500 sites, and the markup will not embarrass you in three years.
• One site, no budget, and you need a contact form today. Kadence Blocks free.
• One site, small budget, and you care about design consistency. Stackable Premium at $49/year.
• The brief says scroll animation, 3D or a WooCommerce product loop. Greenshift, from $39.99/year.
• You already run Spectra on live sites. Stay on Spectra Legacy. Use Spectra Blocks for the next new build, not for a rebuild of the current one.
• You run a news or magazine site. Look at PostX instead of anything on the main list.

Frequently Asked Questions

Our call

Build one page in plain core first. That is not a hedge, it is the recommendation, and for a lot of small business sites it is where you stop. WordPress 7.1 closed most of the gap these plugins were invented to fill.

When core is not enough, the answer depends on who is paying. If you build for clients, install GenerateBlocks: $99 a year across up to 500 sites, nine blocks that compose into anything, and output you will not apologise for at handover. If it is your own single site and you need a form working by Friday, install Kadence Blocks free and do not spend anything. If the brief needs motion or a WooCommerce product loop, Greenshift from $39.99 a year is the specialist and is priced like one.

We are not recommending Spectra to anyone starting fresh this year. It is the biggest plugin here by installs and the least settled, and a version 1.0 rebuild with no migration path is not where a client project should begin. If you are already on it, stay on Legacy and take your time.

Whatever you pick, pick one, and check the price at checkout rather than trusting this table forever. Every vendor on this page has changed its pricing since we last wrote about them.