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15 Best WordPress Menu Plugins to Enhance the Look & Navigation on Your Site

Last Updated on February 17th, 2023

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WordPress menu plugins are an incredibly easy way to improve the look of your site and enhance the user experience.

As you already know, WordPress is incredibly customizable. With a nice theme and a few carefully chosen plugins, you can quickly create a great website full of useful features that your site users will enjoy using.

Unfortunately, menus are one important element that often doesn’t get enough attention when websites are being created. A good, clear menu structure is essential to help your users easily navigate around the site. So, it stands to reason if your menus aren’t particularly good, users will have a harder time using your site. And as we all know, a poor user experience means users are less likely to visit again in the future.

WordPress Already Has Built-In Menus – Surely That Is Enough?

If you just want a basic website then sure, you can use the limited menus that WordPress already includes.

However, if you really want to make your site stand out, your menus will need significantly enhanced functionality and customizability. The simplest way to achieve that is to use plugins. Thankfully, there are a bunch of these available, both free and paid, so you don’t have any excuses not to make your menus much cooler and more user-friendly.

What Can A Menu Plugin Do?

WordPress menu plugins allow you to tailor the look, feel, and functionality of your site’s menus to your (and your site users’) specific needs. Visitors to your site will really love you for that.

WordPress Menu Plugins To Take Your Menus To Another Level

Below we have selected fifteen of the most popular WordPress menu plugins currently available which you can add to your site to make it so much more attractive and functional.

UberMenu

UberMenu - WordPress Mega Menu Plugin

This is a hugely popular WordPress menu plugin, with well over 80,000 sales from the CodeCanyon website and a user rating of 4.68/5.0.

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UberMenu allows you to add some pretty cool features to your menu:

  • Fully configurable, allowing things such as dropdown CSS3 transitions, 25 popular google fonts, vertical or horizontal menus
  • Responsive layout that includes touch support for mobile devices
  • Tabbed submenus which can be oriented in several ways
  • Easy to customize colors, sizes, fonts, etc.
  • Ability to include advanced content in your menus – images, descriptions, posts grid, widgets, google maps, and more
  • Advanced submenu layouts such as responsive grids, the ability to set background images for each submenu, or create scrollable submenus
  • Integrates automatically with many themes, and manually with most others

UberMenu costs $25 which includes future updates and six months of developer support. The support can be extended to twelve months for an additional $7.50. 

Get UberMenu

Superfly Responsive Menu

Superfly Responsive Menu has over 9,000 sales from the CodeCanyon website and an impressive 4.81/5.0 user rating.

Offering a wide range of customization options, this plugin can significantly enhance your menus with features such as:

  • Slide-in, static, compact icon navbar, skewed panel, or full-screen menu modes
  • Compatible with different screen sizes, and the ability to show or hide the menus on different devices
  • Option to hide default menu button (label) and toggle menu from any element like button, link, image, etc.
  • Simple customization – fonts, colors, sizes, locations, button style, etc.
  • Add rich elements and styles to your menus such as images, icons, animations, widgets, shortcodes or custom HTML, etc.
  • Multi-level (up to 4 deep) menus on both desktop and mobile devices
  • Smooth scroll feature for one-page websites
  • Behavior options e.g. opening on hover or click, etc.
  • Social media bar allowing access to all the familiar platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.
  • GDPR compliant, meaning the plugin does not store any site visitor data

Superfly Responsive Menu costs $29. This includes future updates and six months of developer support. For an additional $9, the support can be extended to twelve months. 

Get Superfly Responsive Menu

Hero Menu

Hero Menu is an easy-to-use plugin that gives you the ability to quickly create menus that are as simple or as complex as you wish. The plugin has sold over 6,000 licenses through CodeCanyon, where it enjoys an excellent 4.48/5.0 user rating.

Key features of Hero Menu include:

  • Drag and drop menu layout and navigation structure builders
  • Eyebrow and sticky menu capability
  • Adapt menus based on the roles assigned to logged-in site users
  • Simple 3-step mega menu creation
  • Mobile menus with touch support
  • Generate dynamic content and add Shortcodes, HTML, and CSS
  • Ability to add posts, pages, categories, custom links to your menu as well as Google Maps and contact forms
  • WooCommerce enabled
  • Wide range of customization options – colors, fonts, animation, layout, look, and more
  • Over 60 free preset colors plus the ability to customize with your own
  • Over 650 Google fonts available
  • 270 free icons and all main social icons included

Hero Menu costs a very reasonable $20 which covers future updates and six months of developer support. The latter can be extended to a full twelve months for an additional $5.63.

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Get Hero Menu

WP Mega Menu Pro  

WP Mega Menu Pro is a feature-rich plugin allowing you to create impressive menus and submenus all customized to your specific needs. With over 3,300 licenses sold through CodeCanyon and a 4.49/5.0 user rating, users of this plugin are clearly very happy with it.

Key features of WP Mega Menu Pro include:

  • Flyout or mega menu submenu styles including templates
  • Over 100 customization options including transitions effects, tab layouts, orientation, trigger, etc.
  • Mega menus can be single or multiple groups, sticky, horizontal, or vertical
  • Ability to add top and bottom mega menu section
  • Built-in icons with the ability to upload custom ones
  • Roles and restrictions
  • Fully responsive and touch-friendly for mobile devices
  • Custom widgets that can be added group-wise
  • Custom CSS possible
  • Active ‘view more’ button
  • Menu replacement system – search type, popup login or register form, WooCommerce total cart
  • 50+ Google fonts available

WP Mega Menu Pro is great value at $18 through CodeCanyon. That figure includes future updates. The included six months of developer support can be extended to a full year for an additional $4.88.

Get WP Mega Menu Pro

Groovy Mega Menu

Groovy Menu Plugin (Free)

Groovy Mega Menu is available as a basic free version which is perfectly adequate if you are on a tight budget. However, the Pro version unlocks considerably more features and functionality allowing you to adorn your website with impressive menus.

The free version includes the following:

  • Various menu styles including mega, vertical, one-page, dropdown, submenu, toolbar, responsive
  • Ajax Cart
  • Compatible with DIVI, Avada Fusion Builder, Elementor
  • WooCommerce mega menu capable
  • Fullwidth mega menu
  • Fully responsive and mobile device friendly
  • RTL support and WPML ready
  • Multi-level menu support, smooth scroll, 2 hover types
  • 1 desktop logo + 1 mobile logo
  • GDPR compliant
  • Preview Mode

The Pro version adds:

  • Megamenu with blocks. These allow rich content to be added to the mega menu
  • A range of header layouts
  • Online preset library with pre-made presets
  • Vertical, icon, sticky, fixed, hamburger, and sidebar submenu types
  • Off-canvas navigation
  • Custom menu badges (icon, text, image)
  • User roles with user role plugins
  • Ability to set specific menu for the taxonomies
  • Premium support
  • Theme developer features
  • Elementor, WPBakery, Visual Composer, Divi mega menus

Over 4,000 free licenses of Groovy Mega Menu have been downloaded from the WordPress plugin directory where it enjoys a star rating of 4.3/5.0. The Pro version is sold through CodeCanyon, with over 2,500 licenses sold and a 4.95/5.0 user rating which indicates users love it. The Pro versions cost $39, and if you want to extend the support from six months to a year, you need to add another $12.75.

Get Groovy Mega Menu

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WP Floating Menu Pro

WP Floating Menu Pro allows you to add an easy one or multi-page scrolling navigator and sticky navigation menus to your site. It is simple to set up, just requiring you to define sections.

Key features of this plugin include:

  • Ability to add multiple menus on a page
  • 13 elegant template layouts
  • Add unlimited menus to your site
  • Menus configurable page-wise
  • Configurable mobile screen menus
  • Unlimited custom templates with a wide range of customization options
  • Three menu icon sets to choose from – Dash, Font Awesome, and Gener
  • Custom icons can also be uploaded
  • Sortable menu option
  • Inline navigation feature
  • 7 menu bar positions
  • Mobile ready menu template designs.
  • Translation ready

WP Floating Menu Pro has over 2,000 licenses in operation and a star rating of 4.7/5.0 on CodeCanyon. It costs a competitive $24 which includes future updates and six months developer support. An extra $7.13 adds another six months of support.

Get WP Floating Menu Pro

Max Mega Menu

Max Mega Menu

Max Mega Menu is a free plugin that is hugely popular. No fewer than 400,000 active downloads are in operation, and a 4.7/5.0 rating in the WordPress plugin directory gives plenty of reassurance that this could be a great addition to your site.

This plugin will automatically convert your existing menu into a mega menu to which you can WordPress widgets. You can restyle it, and even change its behavior.

Max Mega Menu’s features include:

  • Very mobile friendly with configurable options for mobile menus
  • Enhances the standard WordPress menu system with a wide range of customization and styling options
  • Multiple menu locations possible
  • Off-canvas or standard dropdown mobile menu
  • Submenus can be arranged in rows and columns
  • Ability to add WordPress widgets to menus
  • Flyout and mega menu submenu styles supported
  • Different submenu open and transition options
  • Add icons to menu items
  • Menu item options including hide text, disable link, hide on mobile, etc.
  • Various menu and submenu alignment possibilities
  • Menus styled using a single, static CSS file

If you crave even more options, a Pro version is also available. Pricing starts from $29 for a single-site license. This adds:

  • Tabbed mega, sticky, vertical & accordion menus
  • Icons from FontAwesome 5, Genericon & Custom Icons plus Google fonts
  • More customization options
  • Menu logo and search box
  • Support for WooCommerce and EDD
  • Roles and restrictions
  • Automatic updates
  • Priority Support for 12 months

Get Max Mega Menu

Admin Menu Editor

Admin Menu Editor

Admin Menu Editor is a free plugin that allows you to manually edit the WordPress dashboard menu. With over 300,000 active downloads and a WordPress plugin directory user rating of 4.7/5.0, it is immensely popular.

Key Features include:

  • Manually reorder the menus, show/hide specific items, change permissions, etc.
  • Change menu titles, URLs, icons, CSS classes, permissions, etc.
  • Drag and drop reorganization of menu items
  • Relocate menu items to a different submenu
  • Create custom menus pointing to any part of the dashboard or external URL

A Pro version costing from $29 for a one-year license for two sites adds features such as per-role menu permissions, the ability to selectively hide menus, export the admin menu, drag and drop items between menu levels, and more. The Pro version also includes free updates for an entire year.

Get Admin Menu Editor

Nav Roles Menu

Nav Menu Roles

 

Unlike most of the other plugins discussed here, Nav Menu Roles is open-source software that simply allows you to choose which user roles can see your custom menu items. For example, you can restrict certain parts of your menu to logged in (or logged out) users, or even to certain types of users.

Features of Nav Menu Roles include

  • Ability to add checkboxes with custom labels using the nav_menu_roles filter
  • Filter using whatever criteria you need, such as user meta values or any custom attributes added by other plugins

Unfortunately, support is limited to the WordPress forums only. Don’t let that deter you though – it has an excellent star rating of 4.9/5.0 and over 100,000 downloads in operation. One thing to note is this plugin does not restrict access to content, only menus. As such, it cannot be used on its own for, say, membership-type sites – you’d need a dedicated membership plugin to do that.

Get Nav Menu Roles

My Sticky Menu

Floating Notification Bar, Sticky Menu on Scroll, and Sticky Header for Any Theme – myStickymenu

 

We’ve all used sites where once you scroll down a page, the menu is nowhere to be seen. My Sticky Menu plugin overcomes this by making your menu float on the page and follows you around as you scroll. Cool, right?

This plugin is available in both free and paid versions. Key features you can expect with both versions are:

  • Show sticky header on scroll down/up with a fade or slide effect
  • Disable on small screens – essential for smaller mobile devices such as phones
  • Choose when to make the menu visible on scroll
  • Ability to change the font color when the menu is sticky, background color, opacity, sticky transition time
  • Define the z-index of the sticky header
  • Set an entrance effect for your sticky menu

The paid plans start from $19 (one website for one year) rising to $79 (for fifty websites) and add features like:

  • Multi welcome bar for different pages using page targeting rules
  • Option to display the floating bar at the bottom position, and to alter the height of the sticky notification bar
  • Allow redirect links to be opened in a new tab
  • Show the notification bar on scroll or after a few seconds, or show it just on mobile or desktop
  • Set an expiry date for the welcome bar
  • Set the floating notification bar to display only on specific pages
  • The floating menu can be disabled on desktop/mobile, or on scroll down
  • Ability to add CSS styles

My Sticky Menu could be a very worthwhile addition to your site, although don’t overdo the sticky menus as some people do find them annoyingly obtrusive.

Get My Sticky Menu

WP Sticky

Sticky Menu, Sticky Header (or anything!) on Scroll

Staying on the sticky menu theme, here we have WP Sticky. This plugin allows you not only to create floating menus, but also the header, navigation bar, widget, call-to-action, or any other element that can be quickly made sticky too.

The free version gives you:

  • Ability to make any element sticky
  • Flexible positioning from the top so that the element is not always at the page ceiling
  • Enable/disable for certain screen sizes or selected pages
  • ‘Push-up element’ automatically moves the sticky element out of the way if necessary so that things are not obscured
  • Z-index (used where other elements that obscure or peek through the sticky element)
  • Will not obscure the admin bar if it is present 
  • Debug Mode to establish why elements are not sticking

The Pro version costs between $39 and $99 (one-time payment, not yearly) depending on the number of sites you require. It adds the following additional features:

  • Visual elements picker
  • Ability to make unlimited multiple elements sticky
  • Select posts, pages, categories, tags, and CPTs where the element is not to stick
  • Lifetime updates & support

Like My Sticky Menu, over 100,000 downloads of WP Sticky are in operation, and the user star rating is also identical at 4.8/5.0. However, the Pro version of WP Sticky is a lifetime license as opposed to an annual one, making it exceptional value if you are looking for a full-featured sticky menu plugin.

Get WP Sticky

Responsive Menu

Responsive Menu – Create Mobile-Friendly Menu

 

You have no excuse not to make your menus the coolest in town with this plugin – it offers more than 150 customizable elements, meaning you have a total of over 22,500 customization options at your disposal! It uses a simple interface allowing even beginners to create exactly the look they are after for their site.

The functionality of the free plugin is impressive and includes:

  • Huge customization possibilities – text, background, and border colors, font sizes and colors, location, background image, etc.
  • Ability to choose the screen size where the menu will be shown
  • Selectable menu type
  • Selectable animation types and speeds
  • Customizable submenu depth
  • Custom menu triggers
  • Disable and re-order the different components
  • Choice of CSS elements to hide when the menu is showing
  • Upload logos, sub-arrow images, etc.
  • Fully customizable integrated search
  • Include Scripts externally, minified, and in the footer
  • Add custom HTML components
  • WPML/Polylang Support
  • RTL Support
  • Import and export options

Starting from $29.99 you can upgrade to the Pro version which adds:

  • One year of updates and support for one site
  • Integrated header bar
  • Preview changes before implementing
  • Menu item animation when a menu is opened
  • FontIcon support for individual menu items
  • Fifteen button animation effects
  • Opacity for all colors, plus custom overlay color and opacity

If you have more than one website, upgrading to Pro will cost $69.99 for 2-5 sites, and $99.99 will cover you for up to 100 websites.

This is another hugely popular plugin, with over 100,000 downloads from the WordPress plugin directory alone. The developers claim over one million downloads exist overall – wow! It has a very respectable 4.5/5.0 star rating.

Get Responsive Menu

WP Mobile Menu

WP Mobile Menu – The Mobile-Friendly Responsive Menu

 

As the name suggests, WP Mobile Menu is a plugin specifically for creating enhanced menus on mobile devices. It promises to offer your mobile device users a better, more engaging experience, giving them easy access to your site content via any device (mobile or desktop).

Free and paid versions of this plugin are available. The free version has an impressive array of features, including:

  • Overlay mask when the menu is opened
  • Add your logo and text branding, as well as a background image behind the menus
  • Hide specific elements on mobile devices
  • Customize the styling of your mobile menus
  • Selectable display type, either slide-out over content or slide-out push content
  • Google fonts

Three paid plans are offered – Professional ($8.99 per month), Business (WooCommerce) ($12.99 per month), and Enterprise ($39.99 per month). These all include the following additional functionality:

  • Menus up to 5 deep
  • Footer menus
  • Disable mobile menus on specific pages
  • Option to have alternative menus per page
  • Ability to show menus only to logged-in users
  • Header banner and live search
  • Sliding, overlay full width or slide out from top menu types
  • Over 2000 Icons from FontAwesome, Fontelicon, Iconic, Entypo, and Typicons plus animated Icons
  • Copyright section
  • Import/export options

The Business (WooCommerce) plan is interesting as it offers WooCommerce specific options:

  • Menu cart icon
  • A sliding cart with checkout, view cart buttons as well as account links
  • Mobile product filter
  • Header products live search

This plugin has been downloaded over 80,000 times from the WordPress plugin directory alone, and the star rating of 4.7/5.0 means it is tremendously popular and well-liked. 

The downside of this plugin is the pricing. Discounts are offered for annual and lifetime subscriptions, but either way, the paid versions of this plugin are the most expensive of the fifteen in this article. That said, it is unique, being specifically designed to enhance the browsing experience for mobile device users. The WooCommerce functionality would be particularly interesting for those of you with eCommerce stores.

With mobile browsing is increasing rapidly with no end in sight, price should not necessarily be the overriding factor in deciding on a menu plugin.

Get WP Mobile Menu

WP Mega Menu

Not to be confused with WP Mega Menu Pro which was developed by AccessKeys, this plugin by Themeum offers both free and paid versions.

Even using the free version, you can make attractive navigation menus for your website thanks to an extensive range of drag-and-drop customization options. The free version gets you:

  • Multiple themes and skins including stretch menu
  • Unlimited colors and options
  • Ability to add widgets to the menu
  • Theme export/import function
  • Branding in logo and menu background image
  • Add social icons or a search bar to the menu
  • Menu labeling and badges, for example, ‘hot’, ‘new’, ‘sale’, etc.
  • Icons (Dashicons, Font Awesome)
  • Responsive and mobile menu support
  • Google fonts

Paid plans add:

  • Priority support and updates
  • Grid post
  • Call-to-action (CTA) button
  • Vertical menu
  • Feature box pro
  • Center Logo

The annual paid plans are priced from $29 for a single site, $49 for 2-5 sites, and $70 for unlimited sites. Lifetime versions of the plans are available for $199, $299, and $499 respectively. We are not so sure lifetime subscriptions are worthwhile, as quite often even the most popular plugins eventually fall by the wayside and don’t get updated. 

This plugin has been downloaded over 20,000 times from the WordPress plugin directory alone. Users seem to be generally happy with it, giving an average star rating of 4.5/5.0.  

Get WP Mega Menu

Wrapping It Up

So, there you are, fifteen menu plugins for you to choose from! Not only will these make your site look exceptionally good, but they will ‘feel’ good to use too, something your users will really love.

Best of all, there are plenty of free options you can try out first, so even if you are on a tight budget, there is no reason why you still cannot enhance your menus beyond the bog-standard WordPress offerings.

As with all plugins, we do advise that you check the compatibility with your website’s theme, other plugins, and also the version of WordPress you are running. Compatibility notes can usually be found in either the WordPress or CodeCanyon plugin directories, or by approaching the developer directly. Checking user comments can also be a good place to look.  

What’s Your Favorite WordPress Menu Plugin? 

Are you already using WordPress menu plugins? If so, which is your favorite? And if not, do you plan on adding one or more to your website’s menu in the future? Have any of the ones we have suggested caught your eye? We’d love to hear your views in the comments section below.

A team of WordPress experts that love to test out new WordPress related software, WordPress plugins and WordPress themes.