From mega menus to beautiful tabs and animations, there are plenty of ways to format your menus in WordPress. You might find that you need to fit thousands of product categories into the menu, or maybe you just want to make it look a bit more colorful. That’s why we want to highlight some of the best WordPress menu plugins on the market.
WordPress Already Has Menus — Why Would I Need an Extra Plugin?
Great question! There are several answers, many of which revolve around the fact that the WordPress menus are somewhat limited:
- You can’t make larger mega menus with the default WordPress menus.
- Many WordPress themes and default menus don’t have media support such as product images.
- Sometimes you find out that your WordPress menu isn’t responsive, or it just doesn’t look that great on mobile devices.
- There’s really only one layout you have with the standard WordPress menu, whereas many of the plugins offer several templates.
- You don’t get much technical support for the WordPress menu, but paying for one of the premium WordPress menu plugins would provide that.
- Transition effects and animations are available by default in the WordPress menu.
- Building menus in WordPress is somewhat tedious. You’re often better off finding a plugin with a drag-and-drop or visual builder.
What Features Should You Look for When Researching WordPress Menu Plugins?
When looking at the advantages, it becomes clear that having a plugin opens up far more possibilities for your menus—particularly when running an eCommerce website. What’s also great is that many of the WordPress menu plugins are either really cheap or free.
So, what features should you look for while completing your research?
- Responsive menu designs that always look good on smartphones and tablets.
- Several templates to get you started with constructing your menus.
- Options for building larger, extensive mega menus.
- Media and icon support to make your menus more visual.
- Either drag-and-drop or visual designers so that you don’t have to visualize the menu yourself on the backend of WordPress.
- Seamless integrations with all WordPress themes and WooCommerce.
- Tools for customizing every element of the menu, including fonts, colors, and sizes. It’s also nice to have an option for sticky menus.
- Unique menu styles like vertical or tabbed formats.
The Best WordPress Menu Plugins
Now that you understand exactly what to look for in a great menu plugin, keep reading to find out our favorites and the reasons you might consider them over others.
1. Max Mega Menu
The Max Mega Menu plugin is your go-to if you’re interested in a free mega menu with some excellent features included. You’ll have to upgrade in order to get some of the more advanced tools, but the average website should be fine with the free version.
The plugin has some excellent starter features such as the ability to configure several menu locations and a pretty nice drag-and-drop editor. It actually works alongside the default WordPress menu editor, but it adds some other elements to make it easier to work with and handle a larger mega menu.
As mentioned, the free version can be downloaded immediately, but you also might consider upgrading to the Pro or Business license. This would provide more features such as a sticky menu, custom item styling, and a menu logo. This starts at $29 per year.
Best features
- The fact that the plugin is free and offers a laundry list of tools for that price.
- It utilizes the regular WordPress menu area, so those familiar may have an easier time building.
- You can place WordPress widgets inside of the menu to show things like images and other links.
- The mega menu has several formats such as flyouts, submenus, tabbed menus, and vertical formats.
- Icons are supported in the free version.
- Several animations are provided for movements like fades, slides, and more.
- WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads support comes with the premium versions.
- The premium plugins have great visuals such as sticky menus, custom item styling, and icons.
Why Would You Consider Max Mega Menu?
I like the Max Mega Menu plugin for those who don’t want to pay anything for a wonderful mega menu solution. The standard features should work for most small to mid-sized businesses, and the upgrade pricing isn’t bad at all if you need something like tabbed mega menus.
2. Responsive Menu
With many of these plugins, you’ll find that the names of them are fairly simple and tell you exactly what they do. The Responsive Menu plugin is one of them, seeing as how it takes your current menu and turns it into a beautiful, mobile-friendly menu. A plugin like this would be used if you happen to buy a WordPress theme and realize that the mobile menu isn’t that great.
On the other hand, you may even be working with an older theme that never came with a responsive menu to begin with.
The Responsive Menu plugin cuts out any problems you might have with design, seeing as how the builder is visual and there’s no need to use code or hire a developer. It does have a free version with basic functionality such as menu animations and sub-menus.
For more advanced tools, upgrade to the premium version, starting at $19.99 per year.
Best features
- A beautiful starting point for a responsive menu, with over 150 customizable options.
- You’re able to customize many items such as the text, border color, and background.
- Upload images to use as background photos.
- You can create your own custom menu triggers.
- Other visuals can be uploaded such as logos and icons.
- The premium version has support for animating each of the individual menu items.
- Color opacity is customizable.
- Include a header bar for announcements or sales.
Why Would You Consider Responsive Menu?
You would consider the Responsive Menu plugin if you’re not satisfied with the current mobile view of your menu. Many theme developers claim their themes are responsive, but I’ve seen plenty of menus look terrible when on a phone or tablet. This plugin is an affordable way to give your menu a complete overhaul.
3. WP Responsive Menu
The WP Responsive Menu plugin is rather similar to the Responsive Menu plugin we outlined above. Both are worth testing if you’d like to swap out your current menu and ensure that it has a great responsive look to it. It also comes down to personal preference, since this plugin has different animations, icons, and other elements that you might prefer over the Responsive Menu plugin.
Overall, the WP Responsive Menu plugin has a respectable free version with features like beautiful responsive templates and support for adding your logo.
Upgrading to the Pro version will cost you $25 for a single site, but it provides several great features like WooCommerce integration, social media icon display, and Google Font support.
Best features
- The plugin transforms your current menu into a beautiful slide menu without much work at all. It takes just a few minutes. All of the menus are responsive as well.
- It has a few free visual options such as the ability to add some icons as well as your logo.
- You can hide any unwanted or cluttering elements of the menu when it goes into responsive mode.
- Opening and closing your menu is done with simple swipes as opposed to having to click on smaller buttons.
- You can upgrade to get support for social media buttons on your menu.
- Include a search bar on your menu.
- Link the menu to WooCommerce to show your products and categories.
Why Would You Consider WP Responsive Menu?
The WP Responsive Menu plugin is a good solution for those who want a great mobile-friendly menu without the hassle of having to spend too much time designing. It also has some free visual features in there for things like logos and icons.
4. WP Mobile Menu
With WP Mobile Menu we come to yet another option for turning your regular WordPress menu into a better-looking solution for mobile interfaces. Once again, test out all of the “mobile menu” plugins to ensure you find your favorite.
This one, in particular, features some interesting premium features such as sliding menus, a copyright section, and a header banner. You can even import or export your menus for using elsewhere.
The free version isn’t that bad, but we feel that the premium version is where the true value resides. Unfortunately, it’s a recurring cost at $4.99 per month, but that could be worth it for some companies that need things like alternative menus on each page. You could also go for the $7.99 per month WooCommerce plan for some awesome eCommerce menus.
Best features
- An option to upgrade the plugin to include a wide variety of WooCommere tools like account links in the sliding cart, a mobile product filter, and a menu cart icon.
- Background images for your menu.
- Options for hiding certain items of your menu when shown on the mobile interface.
- Premium tools for adding footer menus, header banners, and over 2000 icons.
- Tools for importing and exporting your menus to and from other websites.
Why Would You Consider WP Mobile Menu?
Consider the WP Mobile Menu plugin if you’d like a new, responsive menu with some unique features for eCommerce and visuals.
5. WordPress Mega Menu – QuadMenu
The QuadMenu plugin creates a mega menu and easily integrates it into your current theme. Several types of menus are available, including a mega menu, a carousel, and a menu with tabs.
Visual customization is key with this plugin since you can adjust settings for colors, fonts, and menu items while seeing the changes in front of you. This visual editor is more advanced than the regular WordPress menu dashboard and even some of the other plugins on this list.
The free version has a decent list of features, some of which include multiple menu locations, support for child themes, and icon and cart menus. To add some extra menus–like tabs, login, and social menus–upgrade to the Pro version for the $15 onetime fee. You can choose some of the higher priced plans if you need the plugin on more websites.
Best features
- Menu integrations that can either be done manually or automated by the plugin.
- Place your menu on several different areas of your website.
- The plugin allows for more than just mega menus, including icon, search, cart, tabs, login, social, and register menus.
- Create an unlimited number of menu themes for your websites.
- Many alternative formats are provided such as sticky menus or off-canvas mega menus.
- You can add some fun to your menus by utilizing Google Fonts or dropdown animations.
- All of the most common layouts for menus have already been developed so it allows for a quick integration with your current theme.
- The drag-and-drop editor is far easier to use than the regular WordPress menu area.
- All of the menus look great on mobile devices.
Why Would You Consider WordPress Mega Menu – QuadMenu?
The QuadMenu plugin makes the most sense if you’d like a wide variety of menu options. It’s not only for mega menus, so if you plan on making some other menus–like a carousel or social menu–consider this as your best solution. Also, you get the premium versions for a lifetime.
6. UberMenu – WordPress Mega Menu Plugin
Some menu plugins are only available as premium purchases. This has both advantages and disadvantages. The bad part is that you can’t test it out with a free version, and some companies might not need all of the advanced features. However, this also usually means it’s a low one-time fee to get the plugin, which you can’t complain about. (Oh yeah, and you typically get much better customer support).
UberMenu is a highly rated solution, providing a stunning mega menu for all types of devices. These menus can feature large images, products, and lists of your categories. Flexible layouts are available to create anything from a tabbed menu to something more visual. What’s great about UberMenu is that it includes advanced content and features, but it doesn’t take a whiz to figure it out.
The plugin is $21 on the CodeCanyon marketplace, and that’s a one-time fee unless you continue paying for customer support.
Best features
- You can quickly and easily add images to your menus by pulling from your featured images or uploading them from your computer.
- Design advanced and beautiful menus with the help of a visual, grid-based system.
- The plugin has support for some extremely advanced content such as maps, search bars, and contact forms. You can even implement your own custom code to show anything you want.
- The visual customizer has over 50 style settings to adjust, including headers and spacing.
- The dynamic menu generator creates the entire menu for you by pulling things like posts and pages.
- The AJAX saving ensures that you never lose your work.
- You can easily organize a large collection of menu items in tabs.
Why Would You Consider UberMenu – WordPress Mega Menu Plugin?
UberMenu is rather useful for those interested in making an extremely unique menu. The custom HTML, shortcodes, and widgets all help with adding anything from maps to contact forms. You could honestly put anything in your menu.
We also like the plugin for those who want to generate menu items automatically–like from your blog posts.
7. WordPress Menu Plugin — Superfly Responsive Menu
The Superfly Responsive Menu plugin sells on CodeCanyon with a price tag of $26. Once again, we’re continuing to see that menu plugins aren’t that expensive, but they could potentially turn your navigation into something truly special.
What makes Superfly different from the others? It’s specifically for making vertical menus. And they are beautiful.
Some of the side menus have more unique, skewed designs for helping your company stand out. You can add items like social media buttons and images, while also offering a fullscreen mode that might pop out when someone requests it. Lots of triggers can be modified on the backend, so you’re able to make your menu complete many actions such as pushing content, scrolling in, and more.
Best features
- You can switch any boring menus you have on your theme directly to a fun, creative vertical menu.
- Add image backgrounds to your menus while still allowing for the menu buttons to show.
- Build an icon bar that works more like a small, unobtrusive app menu.
- Give your users access to the fullscreen menu so that you don’t lose their attention.
- Use the built-in icon library to add some visual elements to the menu.
- Quite a few menu modes are included, such as the slide in, static, compact, and skewed menus.
- Content areas can be adjusted with the help of custom coding or shortcodes.
- A smooth scroll feature is included for those one-page websites that need navigation in view at all times.
- The animations that come with the plugin are powered by CSS3, and they look really nice compared to some of the other animations we have tested.
Why Would You Consider WordPress Menu Plugin — Superfly Responsive Menu?
The Superfly plugin is for those business owners who dig the vertical menu. If that’s your style, this is one of the easiest ways to achieve that. It’s especially useful if your current theme doesn’t support that.
I tend to think that vertical menus are more playful and creative, so I’d most likely recommend it to those types of companies or individuals.
8. Mega Main Menu
The Mega Main Menu plugin is listed at $16 on CodeCanyon, making it one of the cheapest premium options on this list. It’s one of our favorite menu plugins because of the ability to add several types of visuals from your dropdowns. You also have unlimited colors to choose from, meaning that you’re able to brand your menu with the current website.
One reason I like this plugin is that the developers provide a demo dashboard for you to test out and see if you like the interface. Change around the icon positioning, test out different colors, and upload your own branding images. You can truly make your own menu from that demo and see if it’s the perfect match for your company.
Best features
- Create sticky menus with the click of a button.
- Generate some beautiful dropdown menus without having to spend much time.
- You can add images, logos, and icons.
- Choose from ten different dropdown formats, such as links, widgets, or shortcodes.
- The unlimited colors and collection of Google Fonts allow for the ultimate customization.
- You even get access to over 1600 vector icons.
Why Would You Consider Mega Main Menu?
This plugin looks like a great choice for those that want a premium plugin but want to save a bit of money.
It also works quite well if you plan on having visuals such as pictures and icons on your menu.
9. Hero Menu
Hero Menu can be purchased for $20, and it gives you access to a beautiful drag-and-drop builder, fully responsive menu templates, and fairly simple tools for constructing a mega menu. The plugin is meant for building both the simplest of menus and the biggest mega menus. What’s great is that you shouldn’t have to spend an extreme amount of time to complete either.
WooCommerce can also be integrated with Hero Menu, making it rather versatile for promoting your products and categories. The intuitive user interface is set up as a visual builder, helping you when adding a new menu or menu item and providing all of the settings right in one spot. It’s also a drag-and-drop builder to make things easier.
Best features
- Hero Menu links directly to WooCommerce to reveal some of the more important elements of any online store (like the shopping cart).
- Include all sorts of items on your menu such as social media buttons and pictures to your products.
- Choose from 60 color presets and a wide variety of fonts to make your menu look perfect.
- The mega menu builder is run on a drag-and-drop interface, with plenty of settings for you to test out.
- Place your menu anywhere on the website. There’s also support for vertical menus.
- The plugin is responsive and has a sticky menu option if you need it.
- There’s a large library of icons.
Why Would You Consider Hero Menu?
If you love drag-and-drop builders, this plugin offers the best one on this list. It’s also great for WooCommerce users, since you can include items like your shopping cart in the menu.
10. WP Mega Menu
WP Mega Menu offers an intuitive drag and drop system to create interactive navigation menus. You can use different widgets icons, images, and tabs, to create your personalized menus and, thanks to custom colors, fonts, and attributes, you can easily create different styles.
This plugin helps to create a menu that attracts visitors with its option to incorporate various media content such as a gallery, audio, video, icons in the menu.
WP Mega Menu is a feature-packed responsive mega menu plugin with a freemium version. The free version is available in the WordPress plugin directory while the WP Mega Menu pro version comes with a license-based price plan, starting from $29 for a single site license.
Best features
- Flexible drag and drop tool.
- Row-column structure to compose menus. Add rows and predefined columns to
create menu layout. - Possibility to add products on your menus to attract consumers and boost lead generation.
- Unlimited number of menu items and offer a stylish and interactive multi-layered
navigation to your website. - Predefined feature widgets to use as menu items.
- Animation effects.
- Full control of responsiveness by defining the breakpoint.
Why Would You Consider WP Mega Menu?
If you want to create and manage multi-layered mega menus, you should give WP Mega Menu plugin a try. Go with the free version, at first, if you are ok with the basic features or upgrade to pro if you need advanced functionalities. WP Mega Menu is also compatible with most of the popular themes in the market, so you shouldn’t worry about that too much.
Which of the Best WordPress Menu Plugins Is Right for You?
Some of these plugins won’t do the trick for your website. However, we covered a wide range of menu plugins so that everyone gets a chance to make their menus look beautiful on all devices.
Here are some final recommendations:
- Max Mega Menu – Consider this if you’d like a solid free menu plugin.
- Responsive Menu – Go with this plugin if you don’t like your current mobile menu.
- WP Responsive Menu – This is also for mobile menu design, but it’s a faster building process.
- WP Mobile Menu – This is also a mobile menu plugin, but it’s best for eCommerce.
- WordPress Mega Menu – QuadMenu – Consider this plugin if you want multiple menu designs, not just mega menus.
- UberMenu – WordPress Mega Menu Plugin – We like this plugin for making automated menus, like from your current blog posts.
- WordPress Menu Plugin — Superfly Responsive Menu – Go for this plugin if you like vertical menus.
- Mega Main Menu – This is great for a cheaper premium version of a mega menu.
- Hero Menu – Go for this plugin if you want the best drag-and-drop builder.
That’s all! If you have any questions and/or comments about the best WordPress menu plugins, let us know below.
Head of Content at Kinsta and Content Marketing Consultant for WordPress plugin developers. Connect with Matteo on Twitter.
Kinsta is always great for any answers