63
Custom Sidebars – Dynamic Sidebar Classic Widget Area Manager
A classic widget manager with a side of abandoned Pro promises.
HealthyDeclining
63/100
The plugin provides useful targeting but carries risks of admin crashes and abandoned Pro features.
Active installs
~150,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 100k+
Rating
4.7★
1,028 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
-55%
Declining fast
399 → 181 installs/day
What to watch out for
- MINORdownloads down 55% vs a year ago
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Declining fast · -55% in the last year
399/day a year ago→181/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayCustom Sidebars is a generally capable widget area manager that works well for straightforward use cases, but is undermined by serious stability issues for some users, intrusive ads in the admin, and notable gaps in targeting functionality.
What people like
- +Works reliably for assigning different widgets/sidebars to individual pages×5
- +Easy to set up and configure×4
- +Has not broken sites for long-term users×2
- +Compatible with multilingual setups such as Polylang
- +Responsive support noted by some users×2
Common complaints
- −Activation breaks the entire admin area for some users, rendering it unclickable and requiring full plugin deletion to recover×2
- −Intrusive ads in the Widgets overview block access to widgets; installing advertised items can leave the area blank×2
- −Sidebar replacement does not always work on the front end despite correct back-end configuration×2
- −Cannot target WooCommerce product categories, limiting usefulness for WooCommerce stores
- −Plugin hides unwanted sidebars via CSS only — the HTML still loads on all pages regardless of targeting settings
- −Category targeting is unreliable: existing categories may not appear in the list and filter settings may be ignored
- −Pro version was discontinued without notice, leaving paying customers with a broken setup and no migration path
Review trustMostly organic
- 4.20★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.70★
- 8%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
- past spikeReview timing — up to 33% of all reviews landed in a single month
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2024-10-122025-08-082026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 1,028 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2026-02-07★★★★★Perfect pluginhurtadodoo
- 2025-10-05★★★★★Works OKws24
- 2024-10-04★★★★★Broke the site.rivmanbx
- 2023-01-18★★★★★crashed the sitemichaeljamisontttttttttttttt
- 2023-01-16★★★★★seems not compatibleobsidiaan
- 2022-11-14★★★★★It Was Good …cambeul1-shot
- 2022-02-02★★★★★Thanks for the plugin!sabash
- 2021-08-18★★★★★NOT compatible with the new widgets edit WP 5.8huyrealproperty1-shot
- 2021-07-09★★★★★Perfect toolvaclavek
- 2021-05-03★★★★★Doesn't Replacebloohair
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
172
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
189
Prior 7-day baseline
142
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
216
Mean release-day peak (30d)
172
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
-9.0%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
33%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
2.45
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
76%
5★ share in analyzed sample
8%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
4.22 → 4.20★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered