The strongest alternative to Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons for most sites is AddToAny Share Buttons, a lightweight, free sharing plugin that loads fast and supports hundreds of networks. Sassy Social Share is a flexible free pick with more layout options, while Shared Counts is the best choice for accurate, performance-minded share counts. We ranked these from our index of 55,000+ WordPress plugins.

Why people switch from Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons

• Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons has a reputation for bloat and upsells, so people wanting a lighter, cleaner tool move to AddToAny Share Buttons or Simple Share Buttons Adder.
• Users wanting more layout and network control without paying move to Sassy Social Share.
• Sites that specifically want reliable, cached share counts move to Shared Counts.
• People needing simple profile-icon widgets move to WPZOOM Social Icons Widget.

AddToAny Share Buttons – Overall replacement

AddToAny Share Buttons is a long-running free sharing plugin that loads asynchronously and supports a huge list of networks plus follow buttons. Against Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons, it is lighter and cleaner, with no aggressive upsells. What it does not do: its styling options are fairly basic, so achieving a highly custom look can take extra CSS.

Choose AddToAny Share Buttons if you want fast, free share buttons without the bloat.

Simple Share Buttons Adder – Simple setup

Simple Share Buttons Adder focuses on adding a clean set of share buttons with minimal fuss. Against Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons, it keeps configuration simple and the output light. What it does not do: its development has slowed and its free network and design options are limited compared with the more actively maintained plugins.

Choose Simple Share Buttons Adder if you want basic share buttons with a quick setup.

WPZOOM Social Icons Widget – Profile icons

WPZOOM Social Icons Widget from WPZOOM specializes in linked social profile icons for widgets and blocks, with many icon styles. Against Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons, it is a cleaner tool for linking to your profiles rather than sharing content. What it does not do: it is aimed at follow or profile links, so it is not a full content-sharing plugin with share counts.

Choose WPZOOM Social Icons Widget if you mainly want tidy icons linking to your social profiles.

Sassy Social Share – Flexible and free

Sassy Social Share from Heateor offers a flexible free plugin with many networks, standard and floating bars, and layout controls. Against Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons, it gives more free customization of how buttons look and where they sit. What it does not do: its admin is busy and dated, and some advanced features rely on other Heateor add-ons.

Choose Sassy Social Share if you want lots of free layout and network options.

shared-counts – Accurate share counts

Shared Counts is a performance-focused plugin from Bill Erickson and Jared Atchison that caches share counts to keep pages fast. Against Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons, it is built to display accurate counts without the usual speed penalty. What it does not do: it deliberately supports only a curated set of networks, so it is less suited to sites wanting dozens of sharing options.

Choose shared-counts if you want fast, accurate share counts on a curated set of networks.

When to stay on Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons

Stay on Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons if you already have it configured and its icons display the way you want. It supports a wide range of networks and both sharing and follow icons, and if it is not visibly slowing your pages or nagging you to upgrade, swapping share plugins mainly means reconfiguring placement for a modest 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 a popular free choice that loads quickly and supports hundreds of networks. Sassy Social Share is another strong free option with more layout controls, while Shared Counts is preferred by performance-focused sites that want accurate, cached share counts.

Do social sharing plugins slow down WordPress?

Some do, especially older plugins that load many scripts or fetch live share counts on every page view. Lighter options like AddToAny load asynchronously, and Shared Counts caches counts specifically to avoid the performance hit that heavier sharing plugins can cause.

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

Share buttons let visitors post your content to their own networks, while profile icons simply link to your accounts. Plugins like AddToAny and Sassy Social Share handle sharing, whereas WPZOOM Social Icons Widget focuses on linking to your profiles.

The verdict

The best all-round replacement is AddToAny Share Buttons for its speed and simplicity, with Sassy Social Share the pick for free customization and Shared Counts for accurate, performance-friendly share counts. If Social Media Share Buttons & Social Sharing Icons is already set up and not slowing your site, staying on it is a fair choice.