10 Best Novelist Alternatives in 2026
Updated September 7, 2026 · Ranked by how closely each plugin matches, from WordPress.org data · How this works
Novelist has 1,000+ active installs on WordPress.org. These 10 plugins share its category or its tags on WordPress.org, are actively maintained, and each has at least 100 active installs. They are ordered by how closely they match, not by our opinion.
The 10 closest alternatives to Novelist
- 1
Disable All WordPress Updates
Closest match4.8 (69) 10,000+ active installsDisables the theme, plugin and core update checking, the related cronjobs, plugin/theme update health checks and notification system.
About 10 times the installs, last updated 23 days ago.
- 2
Gallery by BestWebSoft – Customizable Image and Photo Galleries for WordPress
4.0 (158) 10,000+ active installsAdd beautiful, fully responsive galleries, albums, images, and categories to your WordPress website quickly and easily. Showcase your portfolio, photo …
About 10 times the installs, last updated 20 days ago.
- 3
Portfolio, Gallery, Product Catalog – Grid KIT Portfolio
4.4 (300) 6,000+ active installsPortfolio, gallery, product catalog, teams, logos and more. All-in-one - Grid Kit Portfolio Gallery plugin!
About 6 times the installs, no update since August 12, 2025.
- 4
Radius Portfolio – Filterable Grid, Gallery & Slider Portfolio
4.6 (38) 7,000+ active installsA simple and powerful WordPress portfolio plugin to showcase your creative work beautifully with different ways.
About 7 times the installs, last updated 6 days ago.
- 5
Video Gallery – YouTube Gallery, Vimeo, Video Portfolio, Image Portfolio and Image Gallery
4.8 (182) 10,000+ active installsGallery is a user-friendly plugin to display user or hashtag-based gallery feeds as a responsive customizable gallery.
About 10 times the installs, last updated March 5, 2026.
- 6
4.9 (186) 10,000+ active installsThe elegant lightbox built for photographers. Fast, responsive, and displays your photos beautifully with EXIF data and maps. You'll love it! 💕
About 10 times the installs, last updated 3 days ago.
- 7
Blog Filter
Paid version availableBlog Filter – Post Grid Filter by Category or Tag
4.9 (81) 7,000+ active installsCreate a responsive Blog Filter Post Grid to showcase posts. Let visitors filter by Category or Tag easily using Ajax. Supports Elementor and Divi.
About 7 times the installs, last updated 6 days ago.
- 8
4.9 (40) 10,000+ active installsAn Elementor extension that allows you to easily dynamically query your posts, portfolio, and loop grid widget results without custom query IDs.
About 10 times the installs, last updated June 23, 2026.
- 9
Cozy Blocks
Paid version availableCozy Blocks – Page Builder for Gutenberg Editor & FSE with 700+ Patterns, 58 Blocks & Templates
4.6 (21) 6,000+ active installsBuild any WordPress site without Elementor or Divi. 57 Gutenberg blocks, 700+ ready-made patterns & 50+ FSE templates. No page builder needed.
About 6 times the installs, last updated 13 days ago.
- 10
4.6 (30) 6,000+ active installsTransform your Query Loop blocks into powerful, flexible content engines! 🚀
About 6 times the installs, last updated 7 days ago.
Switching from Novelist: common questions
What is the best alternative to Novelist?
Disable All WordPress Updates is the closest match: it shares the same WordPress.org tags and has 10,000+ active installs with a 4.8 out of 5 rating.
Which Novelist alternative has the most users?
Disable All WordPress Updates, with 10,000+ active installs reported by WordPress.org.
Which Novelist alternative is rated highest?
Meow Lightbox, rated 4.9 out of 5 by 186 reviewers. Only plugins with at least 50 reviews are counted.
Are these Novelist alternatives free?
Every plugin listed here is free to install from WordPress.org. Where WordPress.org marks a plugin as commercial, the developer also sells a paid version or add-ons, and that is shown on each plugin.
How are alternatives chosen?
Automatically, from WordPress.org data: plugins that share a category top 10 with Novelist score highest, then plugins that appear in the same WordPress.org rankings, then plugins with the same tags, weighted so rare tags count more than common ones. Plugins by the same author and plugins rated under 4.0 are left out.
How we choose these alternatives
Nothing on this page is picked by hand. Every day we walk the whole WordPress.org directory, then score every plugin against Novelist on three signals: sharing a category top 10 counts most, then appearing in the same WordPress.org rankings, then carrying the same tags, with rare tags counting for more than common ones like "wordpress". Plugins by the same author are excluded, so an author's own add-ons cannot fill the list, and so is anything rated below 4.0 or with fewer than 100 active installs. The ten highest scores are what you see, in that order. Full methodology.
The bottom line
Disable All WordPress Updates is the closest match to Novelist by the data we track, and Disable All WordPress Updates has the widest reach with 10,000+ active installs. Meow Lightbox shipped the most recent release, on September 4, 2026. The list is rebuilt every day from WordPress.org, so a plugin that stops being maintained drops out on its own.
Weekly · free
What moved this week
One email a week, built from the same daily snapshots these rankings come from: the plugins that climbed, what launched, and one ranking worth a look.