#998 by installs
Content Aware Sidebars – Fastest Widget Area Plugin
Display new sidebars on any post, page, category etc. Works with Classic Widgets, Block Widgets, and all themes!
- Installs
- 30,000+
- Rating
- 4.9 (724)
- Updated
- 8 days ago
Custom Sidebars – Dynamic Sidebar Classic Widget Area Manager
Flexible sidebars for custom classic widget configurations on any page or post. Create custom sidebars with ease!
- Active installs
- 100,000+
- #448 of 1,000
- Downloads, all time
- 5.2M
- 5,233,235
- Downloads, 30 days
- 6.2K
- 1.6K in the last 7
- Rating
- 4.7 / 5
- 1,028 reviews
- Last updated
- 3 months ago
- Aug 16, 2026
- Version
- 3.38
- 34 releases
Upkeep and compatibility
| Last updated | August 16, 2026Updated in the last 3 months |
|---|---|
| Tested up to | WordPress 7.1.4Covers WordPress 7.1.4, the current release |
| Needs WordPress | 4.6 or newer |
| Needs PHP | 5.6 or newer |
| First published | August 23, 2010 |
| Support, last two months | 1 of 1 threads resolved (100%) |
Reviews
4.7 / 5 from 1,028 reviews
| 5 stars | 903 |
|---|---|
| 4 stars | 52 |
| 3 stars | 10 |
| 2 stars | 14 |
| 1 star | 49 |
Downloads, last 30 days
What the author says it does
Manage and replace sidebars and other classic widget areas on your site with Custom Sidebars, a flexible widget area manager.
Make custom sidebar configurations and be able to choose what classic widgets display on each page or post of your site.
- Need to make a widget sticky or fixed? Try our free WP Sticky Anything plugin.
Custom Sidebars works ONLY with the classic widgets screen that was used in WordPress before version 5.8. If you want to use it with version 5.8 (and above) you have to install the official Classic Widgets plugin, or enable the classic widgets interface yourself. Once the classic widgets screen is activated the plugin will work the same as before.
- Having problems setting up SSL or generating an SSL certificate? Install the free WP Force SSL plugin.
Display Different Sidebars on Pages and Posts
Custom Sidebars allows you to dynamically display custom widget configurations on any page, post, category, post type, or archive page.
★★★★★
“Custom Sidebars will go on my “essential plugins” list from now on. I am pleased by how easy it was to figure out and by how many options are available in the free version.” – monkeyhateclean
★★★★★
“This plugin does exactly what it says. It’s light, integrates well into WordPress and gives you tons of possibilities.” – DarkNova
The opening of the plugin's own description. The full text, installation notes and changelog are on its WordPress.org page.
Questions the author answers
Why can’t I see a widget menu?
This plugin requires your theme to have widget areas enabled, if you don’t have widget areas enabled you probably need to use a different theme that does!
Where do I set my sidebars up?
You have a sidebar box when editing a entry. Also you can define default sidebars for different posts and archives.
Why do I get a message ‘There are no replaceable sidebars selected’?
You can create all the sidebars you want, but you need some sidebars of your theme to be replaced by the ones that you have created. You have to select which sidebars from your theme are suitable to be replaced in the Custom Sidebars settings page and you will have them available to switch.
Everything is working properly on Admin area, but the custom sidebars are not displayed on the site. Why?
You are probably using a theme that doesn’t load dynamic sidebars properly or doesn’t use the wp_head() function in its header. The plugin replaces the sidebars inside that function, and many other plugins hook there, so it is more than recommended to use it.
It appears that only an Admin can choose to add a sidebar. How can Editors (or any other role) edit customs sidebars?
Any user that can switch themes, can create sidebars. Switch_themes is the capability needed to manage widgets, so if you can’t edit widgets you can’t create custom sidebars. There are some plugins to give capabilities to the roles, so you can make your author be able to create the sidebars. Try User role editor
Can I use the plugin in commercial projects?
Custom Sidebars has the same license as WordPress, so you can use it wherever you want for free. Yay!
Latest changelog entry
- 2025-03-04
- Bug fix related to notice on Dashboard page causing a fatal error
Screenshots
Set custom sidebars for individual posts and pages or by category, post-type, or archive. 
Create new sidebars without confusing settings. 
Integrates with WordPress core Widgets menu.
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Where this page's numbers come from
Read from the WordPress.org plugin API on , when WordPress 7.1.4 was the current release. WordPress.org rounds active installs into buckets. These are the directory's figures, not my verdict, and I haven't tested this plugin.