6 WordPress Like Button Plugins

In this review I ame going to present and compare Like button plugins for WordPress. Plugins integrating Facebook buttons (or any other social services buttons) into WordPress website, five star ratings and polls are not taken into account and not present in the review.

1. Like Dislike Counter

Like Dislike Counter is the Like button plugin for anonymous voting, it does not track logged in users. The plugin is straightforward and easy to use.

The free version of the plugin provides one style and after activation automatically enables Like button for pages, posts and comments. The paid version provides 5 styles and allows to choose content types where you want to display the Like button. Besides the paid version allows to define the text that you want to display next to the icon and to display different icons for posts/pages and comments.

2. Like Button Voting & Rating

Like Button Voting & Rating plugin allows to like/dislike all the available content types, comments, WooCommerce products, BuddyPress, bbPress and custom post types. Plugin is powered by LikeBtn.com which stores votes for you. The plugin provides an enormous number of options (more than 60) allowing to configure almost each aspect of the Like button: theme, alignment, labels, texts, tooltips, counter, etc.

After visitor clicks "Like" the Like Button plugin shows a popup allowing to share a link in social networks (using AddThis). The paid version allows to display Donate buttons in this popup to collect donations using PayPal, Bitcoin, Google Wallet etc.

Plugin allows to synchronize votes from the LikeBtn service to your local WordPress database. After synchronization is configured you can sort content by likes/dislikes, use “Most liked content” widget and view statistics:

Plugins provides three shortcodes:

• Shortcode to display the Like Button inside a post/page: [likebtn]
• Shortcode to disable the Like button in a post/page: [likebtn_off]
• Shortcode to display the most liked content: [likebtn_most_liked]

Besides LikeBtn Like Button plugin provides Statistics and Votes Graph:

3. WP Thumbs

This is the simplest Like button plugin. It is free and provides 2 styles and can show graph of clicks above buttons:

You can choose areas where you want to display buttons: posts, pages or media. In the admin panel WP Thumbs displays a short statistics on the total number of likes and dislikes.

4. WTI Like Post

The free version of the WTI Like Post plugin allows to show most liked/disliked posts on the widget. Also free version shows statistics on likes in the plugin admin panel. Unfortunately plugin provides not so many styles and does not allow to enable Like button for comments. But this is the only plugin which can show below Like buttons those users who liked a post.

5. Thumbs Rating

The author writes the following about his plugin, “I needed a simple and light plugin to add thumbs rating, I couldn't find any so I built my own.” And it is really simple and light. Plugin has no admin panel at all. 

To show buttons after all posts, pages and custom post types, paste the following code at the end of functions.php file of your theme:

function thumbs_rating_print($content)
{
    return $content.thumbs_rating_getlink();
}
add_filter('the_content', 'thumbs_rating_print');

To display ‘Like’ buttons in certain parts of your theme paste the following code into the theme templates where you want to display buttons:

<?=function_exists('thumbs_rating_getlink') ? thumbs_rating_getlink() : ''?>

You can also use the Code Snippets plugin to make these changes from within the WordPress admin without editing your PHP files.

Thumbs Rating plugin uses a HTML5 LocalStorage to prevent users from voting twice, while all other ‘Like’ button plugins use cookies or database. Plugin supports 7 languages.

6. ZillaLikes

ZillaLikes plugin is not present in the WordPress Plugins Directory, it can be downloaded from it’s author website enter your email and download link will be sent to you.

The plugin provides just one neat style with heart-icon. It does not provide a Dislike button.

To add ZillaLikes to your posts and pages you can use the shortcode: [zilla_likes]

To add ZillaLikes manually to your theme template use the following PHP code:

<?php if( function_exists('zilla_likes') ) zilla_likes(); ?>

Summary

In conclusion I would like to present the WordPress Like button plugins comparison table to let you see advantages and disadvantages of each plugin and choose one that suits best your needs.

	1. Like Dislike Counter	2. Like Button Voting & Rating	3. WP Thumbs	4. WTI Like Post	5. Thumbs Rating	6. ZillaLikes
Supported content types	All	All + WooCommerce + BoddyPress + bbPress	posts, pages, media	posts, pages, custom post types	posts, pages, custom post types	posts, pages
Can be enabled for comments	+	+	-	-	-	-
Styles	5	28+	2	6	1	1
Tracks logged in users	-	-	-	+	-	-
Provides a Dislike button	+	+	+	+	+	-
Widget to show most liked content in the sidebar	+	+	-	+	-	-
Shortcode to place a button inside the content	+	+	-	-	-	+
Custom texts	+	+	-	+	-	-
Statistics on votes in the plugin admin panel	-	+	-	+	-	-
Allows to reset votes count in the plugin admin panel	-	+	-	+	-	-
Allows to change votes count in the plugin admin panel	-	+	-	-	-	-
Supported languages	1	27+	1	3	7	1
Allows to share a link after voting	-	+	-	-	-	-
Multisite comatible	+	+	+	+	+	+
Shortcodes	-	+	-	-	-	-
Technology used to prevent users from voting twice	DB	LocalStorage, Cookies	Cookies	Cookies	LocalStorage	Cookies
Commercial	+	+	-	+	-	-
Trial period	-	7 days	-	-	-	-