As good as JetBlog

I happen to find this plugin by chance, and it’s a true gem. I reviewed it quickly after I found it. Having played with it for a week, I think they deserve much better. Yes, there are some weak points. I will address them.

I compared this plugin with Elementor Loop Item and Jetblog. Not a fair comparison, because those two are paid extensions. One can and should expect more. To test I created loops exactly the same as the blog widgets make by Hash Elements. To my surprise Hash Elements works faster! Admitted, not a lot. But still: Hash Elements scored 70 in Lightspeed and a similar Elementor loop 71. That’s pretty good!

Next, layouts. You can make any layout your want in a loop item. That’s the whole purpose of it. Jetblog severely lacks here, as you have one (1) layout to work with. Hash Elements comes with no less that 15 pretty good layouts. You can mix and match most of them.

One drawback is that those layouts are fairly limited. You can’s set margins and padding. Most widgets have fixed numbers of posts. One widget cannot have less than 5 posts. Most widgets do not have an excerpt, which not a good thing in a blog extension.

On the other hand, it makes the plugin lightweight, easy to set up and it’s free. You can’t have everything.

Both Jetblog and Hash Elements are not good for archive pages. They both lack a vital function: you cannot select the same category in the query field. Something I find reprehensible in a paid extension (Jetblog) but less so in a free plugin.

Support is minimal, which is pretty common for free plugins. There is a description on the WP Repository. That’s about it. Some documentation would be (highly) appreciated, but you don’t really need it. Install the plugin, play around with it and you’re good to go.

I rated this extension 4 stars, but it’s much better than that. I rewrote my review, and give it full five stars. It’s well worth it.

Lastly, at the time of writing this extension was updated. That’s another good thing: they keep it up to date.

Well done, HashThemes!

• This topic was modified 1 month ago by josflachs.
• This topic was modified 1 month ago by josflachs.
• This topic was modified 3 weeks, 3 days ago by josflachs.