Though Craft CMS has been there since more than a decade now, it is only now that it has started gaining the much deserved acceptance and implementation for creating stunning websites and web apps. Similar to WordPress, it’s a CMS that can be used to create static and dynamic websites. For the WordPress users it would seem as if a similar playground as Craft CMS almost mimics the WordPress CMS and is considered as a good alternative to WordPress. Craft CMS development lately has really picked up the pace. Businesses and the development companies alike have started using Craft CMS as their go to technology for developing websites that are not feature heavy and more of a static in nature.
One distinguished pillar of the success of Craft CMS is it’s plugin store similar to WordPress. Plugins as we know make the life of developers and the website owners quite easy and saves a lot of effort of redevelopment of the same function over an over again in multiple websites. Craft CMS plugin store is systematically divided into the categories. There are plugins for each category be it SEO, E-commerce, Security, Utilities, Performance, and other aspects of a website development activity.
Installing a Craft CMS plugin is an easy affair similar to WordPress. It’s a straight forward process of plug-and-play. Though it’s quite easy, ideal installation process of a Craft CMS plugin is somewhat like below.
** 1. Log in to Craft CMS Admin Panel:** Go to your Craft CMS admin URL (usually https://yourdomain.com/admin).
** 2. Navigate to Plugin Store:** On the left sidebar, click “Plugin Store”.
** 3. Search for the Plugin:** Use the search bar to find the plugin you want to install.
** 4. Click “Install”: **Click on the plugin → Click the “Install” button. Craft will handle downloading and installing it via Composer in the background.
** 5. Configure the Plugin: ** Once installed, go toSettings → Pluginsto configure the plugin if required.
There is another method to install the plugin to the existing Craft CMS setup as well which is via composer but, this is for the developers to look into.
**
Let’s explore 15 must have plugins from each category while developing a Craft CMS website.
1
Retour
Retour plugin addresses a major concern of loosing the SEO values while redeveloping or restructuring the website to new. It efficiently redirects the legacy URLs, so that you don’t lose the SEO values the page/website already has. Retour also allows the dynamic redirects. Retour automatically creates a redirect if there is a change in slug.
Category:** SEO and accessibility
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/retour
Active Installs: 21,000+
**Reviews:**4.9/5
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**Supports: **Supports GraphQL
**
2
SEOMate
SEOMate provides a set of tools to create the meta-tags, sitemaps, and JSON-LD microdata in a traditional method. There is no control panel or settings. Instead everything is configured from the plugin's PHP config file, which makes it easy and quick to set up, bootstrap and version control. It also offers SEO preview functionality which makes is quite interested to view before going live.
Category:** SEO and accessibility
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/seomate
Active Installs: 2500+
**Reviews:**5/5
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**
3
Minify
Minifying your JS, CSS, and HTML files is an important aspect for the better SEO performance. Minify plugin does the exact same. It adds block tags for minifying HTML, CSS, and JS inline templates. One thing to note here is that it doesn’t minify the external JS and CSS files.
Category:** SEO and accessibility
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/minify
Active Installs: 10,000+
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**
4
Craft Commerce
Official eCommerce plugin for Craft CMS developed by the same guys who developed Craft CMS. Craft CMS comes with almost all the necessary features required for developing an eCommerce website such as managing products, stores, promotions, orders, and so on. It also has a multi-store facility, localisation, and other plugin integration facility.
Category:** E-commerce
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/commerce
Active Installs: 4,500+
Reviews: 5/5
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**
5
Shopify
A plugin developed with an intention to create a bridge between Shopify and Craft CMS. This plugin is again developed by the same guys behind developing Craft CMS as a content management system. It automatically syncs changes made to Shopify products with Craft CMS. However, this plugin does require a Shopify account to use and integrate.
Category:** E-commerce
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/shopify
Active Installs: 600+
Reviews: 4/5
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**Tested: **Tested of Craft Cloud.
**
6
Stripe
Official plugin by Craft CMS to provide Stripe payment gateway for the website built using Craft Commerce.
Category:** E-commerce
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/commerce-stripe
Active Installs: 2000+
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**Tested: **Tested of Craft Cloud.
**
7
FreeForm
Unarguably, the most used plugin for building forms for the website. It comes with plethora of features useful in building forms for the website. Features like drag-and-drop builder, conditional rule logic, multi-page forms, save as draft forms, email notifications, multiple custom types, and so on. This plugin is also GDPR compliant along with spam protection feature. In short, if you are developing a Craft CMS website, FreeForm is a must have plugin for creating forms for your website.
Category:** Forms
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/freeform
Active Installs: 15,000+
Reviews: 4.4/5
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**Tested: **Tested of Craft Cloud.
**Supports: **Supports GraphQL
**
Get your website developed with Craft CMS today. Connect with Nimblechapps... **Contact us
8
Comments
Comments plugin can be considered as Craft CMS’ own Disqus plugin. It allows users to comment on the elements. Developing a forum feature or implementing comment feature on the blog, this is the goto plugin you should have. Some of it’s features include threaded comments, anonymous comments, moderation, upvoting-downvoting, and so on.
Category:** Forms
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/comments
Active Installs: 1,000+
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**Supports: **Supports GraphQL
**
9
Snaptcha
It automatically validates forms and blocks spam bot submissions thus protecting your Craft CMS website. It validates all POST requests made to the front-end of your site. It works seamlessly with any form or plugin.
Category:** Forms
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/snaptcha
Active Installs: 650+
Reviews: 5/5
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**
10
Sentry Logger
This plugin pushes all the logs to Sentry.io for error logging and QA purpose. All errors and warnings for each request are sent to Sentry. These logs can then be looked into by the developers and solve. Basically, it solves the problem of the Craft CMS developers to manually update Sentry with the error logs.
Category:** Development
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/sentry-logger
Active Installs: 2,700+
Reviews: 5/5
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**
11
Sherlock
Sherlock is a security scanner and monitor for Craft CMS, designed to protect sites handling sensitive data from cyber threats. It scans for vulnerabilities like incorrect permissions, CSRF, CORS, and insecure headers, and ensures encrypted connections. Sherlock also monitors CMS configurations, flags critical updates, supports content security policies, and allows scheduled scans. Detailed reports and scan history help track and resolve issues effectively over time.
Category:** Development
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/sherlock
Active Installs: 3,500+
Reviews: 5/5
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**
12
FeedMe
Feed Me is a Craft CMS plugin for easily importing content from XML, RSS, ATOM, CSV, or JSON feeds—either once or on a schedule. It supports entries, categories, products, and more, with a simple field-mapping interface. Features include background processing, duplication handling, cron support, logs for troubleshooting, and database backups. Feeds can also be reprocessed or accessed directly from Twig templates.
Category:** Development
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/feed-me
**Active Installs:**20,000+
Reviews: 5/5
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**Tested: **Tested of Craft Cloud.
**
13
Blitz
Blitz is a powerful static page caching plugin for Craft CMS that significantly boosts site speed by serving cached pages, making navigation feel instant. It keeps your site stable during updates, reduces server load, and enables static delivery via CDNs like Cloudflare or Netlify. With automatic cache invalidation, easy setup, and extensible features like custom cache storage and deployers, Blitz ensures high performance with lower hosting costs.
Category:** Performance
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/blitz
**Active Installs:**11,000+
Reviews: 5/5
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**Tested: **Tested of Craft Cloud.
**
14
Imager X
Imager X is a powerful Craft CMS plugin for advanced image transforms, optimizations, and manipulations. It goes beyond Craft’s native capabilities, supporting local, cloud, and external images, modern formats like WebP and AVIF, and post-processing with tools like TinyPNG and Kraken. Features include responsive image support, customizable effects, placeholders, watermarks, cloud storage, and GraphQL. With flexible syntax and PRO options like batch transforms and offloading to Imgix, Imager is ideal for performance-focused image handling.
Category:** Performance
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/imager-x
**Active Installs:**10,000+
Reviews: 5/5
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**Tested: **Tested of Craft Cloud.
**Supports: **Supports GraphQL
**
15
ImageOptimize
ImageOptimize is a Craft CMS plugin that automatically generates and optimizes responsive image transforms from your assets using native Craft transforms or services like Imgix—without any template changes. It pre-generates optimized image variants on asset save for faster frontend performance, supports JPG, PNG, SVG, and GIF, and removes metadata without altering appearance.
Category:** Performance
Link: https://plugins.craftcms.com/image-optimize
**Active Installs:**5,600+
Reviews: 5/5
**Compatibility: **Craft 3, 4, 5
**Tested: **Tested of Craft Cloud.
**Supports: **Supports GraphQL
Conclusion
In conclusion, Craft CMS development is rapidly gaining traction among businesses and developers seeking flexibility, performance, and a streamlined content management experience. One of Craft’s standout advantages is its rich ecosystem of plugins that simplify complex tasks, enhance functionality, and improve overall site performance. From SEO and eCommerce to forms, security, and image optimization, Craft CMS offers a plugin for nearly every need—making it a powerful and scalable platform for modern web development. Whether you're building a static site, a content-rich blog, or a custom eCommerce platform, leveraging these essential plugins can greatly accelerate your workflow and elevate the quality of your website.