A simple, themeable widget which displays posts in the category, order, and quantity of your choosing.
As of April 2026, Posts By Category Widget is a WordPress posts plugin with 80 active installations and a 5/5 rating from 2 reviews. It has been downloaded 5.5K+ times in total. Requires WordPress 3.7+ and PHP false+. Available on WordPress.org since 2013. Last updated 12 years ago — may have compatibility concerns. Top alternative: WP Shortcodes Plugin — Shortcodes….
This widget displays posts in the category, order, and quantity of your choosing. It supports custom templates!
After installation, drag-and-drop the new “Category Widget” to a widget area, choose the categories you wish to display, and tell it the order and quantity in which you wish to display them.
The default template is just plain-ol’ HTML5, without any CSS; it’s meant to fit right into any theme without modification.
However, if you’re a theme developer and you wish to use custom markup or WP functions inside your template, here’s how to customize it:
catswidget.php (or copy template.php from posts-by-cat-widget/views to your theme’s root, and rename it catswidg…| WordPress | 3.7+ requiredTested up to 3.7.41 |
| PHP | false+ required |
Plugin data sourced from WordPress.org. Analysis and metrics by PluginSift.