Some plugins offer so much functionality, so easily, you don’t pass up.
There is a WordPress “look” to some sites. It’s not bad necessarily. It has a lot of spacing. Looks fairly basic. But the site just works. Take a look at this site for example. There are certain sites in the WordPress ecosystem, often the “authority sites” in the space, that have this look and inspecting them closer will reveal the plugins they are using. My thought is, if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.
Custom Fields
Advanced Custom Post Types
Smush (Photo Compression)
EDD (E-commerce)
WP Forms
Custom FB Feed Pro (Social Feed Integration): See Below.
Slippry (Slider) – Scrap this one as it uses jQuery.
SmashBalloon Custom is my current pick but not perfect by any means. Need to upgrade to get carousel feed layout. May want to add GDPR consent plugin. Says you can add custom CSS and Custom JS.
Other Social Media Plugin Options Looked at Summer 2021:
Easy Social Feed: 4.5 Stars; 80k active
Widget for Social Page Feed: 5 Stars; 100k active
10 Web Social Post Feed: 4.5 Stars; 20k active
Social Like Box and Feed: 3.5 Stars; 30k active