The strongest Sassy Social Share alternative for most sites is AddToAny, a lightweight, free sharing plugin that covers every major network with less bloat than Sassy Social Share. If you want stylish icon layouts, WPZOOM Social Icons is a flexible pick, while Social Media Share Buttons packs in many button styles. We ranked these from our index of 55,000+ WordPress plugins.

Why people switch from Sassy Social Share

• Sassy Social Share works well but adds more scripts than some sites want, so people move to AddToAny for a lighter footprint.
• Users wanting cached share counts move to Shared Counts or MashShare.
• People wanting decorative social profile icons rather than share buttons move to WPZOOM Social Icons.
• Those wanting many button designs move to Social Media Share Buttons.

AddToAny – Lightweight sharing

AddToAny is a long-running, free share-button plugin covering virtually every social network and sharing service. Against Sassy Social Share, it is very light and simple to set up, with floating and inline bars that load quickly. The drawback is that its styling options are basic, so it prioritizes function and speed over deep visual customization.

Choose AddToAny if you want fast, free, universal share buttons with minimal weight.

WPZOOM Social Icons – Stylish profile icons

WPZOOM Social Icons from WPZOOM focuses on attractive social profile icons with many styles and a block and widget interface. Against Sassy Social Share, it is the better pick when you want linked profile icons rather than post-sharing buttons. The drawback is that it is aimed at linking to your profiles, so it is not a full share-with-counts solution.

Choose WPZOOM Social Icons if you want stylish icons linking to your social profiles.

Social Media Share Buttons – Many button styles

Social Media Share Buttons offers a wide range of social share and follow buttons with plenty of design and placement options. Against Sassy Social Share, it gives more out-of-the-box button styles and configuration choices. The drawback is that its dense settings and frequent upsell prompts can make setup feel cluttered.

Choose Social Media Share Buttons if you want lots of button styles and placement options.

shared-counts – Share counts, lightweight

Shared Counts is a performance-focused plugin that displays social share counts while caching them to avoid slowing the site. Against Sassy Social Share, it is built specifically to show reliable counts without the overhead many count-enabled plugins add. The drawback is that it supports a smaller, curated set of networks rather than an exhaustive list.

Choose shared-counts if you want reliable share counts without the performance hit.

mashshare-share-buttons – Count-focused sharing

MashShare is a sharing plugin centred on prominent, clean share buttons with share counts and a modular add-on system. Against Sassy Social Share, it emphasizes a tidy, count-forward design for the major networks. The drawback is that many networks and features are delivered through paid add-ons rather than the free core.

Choose mashshare-share-buttons if you want a clean, count-forward sharing layout for the main networks.

When to stay on Sassy Social Share

Stay on Sassy Social Share if you value its wide range of supported networks and its free sharing and following buttons with counts. It packs a lot into a free plugin, and if it is configured and performing acceptably on your site, switching would largely swap one set of buttons for another without a meaningful gain.

How we ranked these

Every plugin here is scored by the WPS Score, a single 0 to 10 rating built from 21 signals covering maintenance, support responsiveness, compatibility, performance, and ratings quality across our index of 55,000+ plugins. Rankings are derived from that data, not editorial preference, and no plugin author can pay to change a score. How the WPS Score works.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free social sharing plugin for WordPress?

AddToAny is one of the best free social sharing plugins because it is lightweight, supports nearly every network, and sets up quickly. Sassy Social Share is also free and feature-rich, while Shared Counts is a good free choice if you specifically want cached share counts without slowing the site.

Do social sharing plugins slow down a website?

They can, because share buttons and especially live share counts load extra scripts and make external calls. Lightweight options like AddToAny and Shared Counts, which caches counts, minimize this impact. Choosing a lean plugin and limiting the number of networks shown helps keep pages fast.

What is the difference between share buttons and social profile icons?

Share buttons let visitors share your content to their own networks, while social profile icons link to your accounts so people can follow you. Sassy Social Share and AddToAny focus on sharing, whereas WPZOOM’s social icons plugin is built for linking to profiles. Many sites use both.

The verdict

For most sites, AddToAny is the best all-round Sassy Social Share alternative because it is light, free, and universal, while Shared Counts wins if you need cached share counts and WPZOOM Social Icons for stylish profile icons. Social Media Share Buttons and MashShare suit specific tastes. If Sassy Social Share already performs well, staying put is fine.