Best syntax plugins for WordPress
The most popular syntax plugins for WordPress in November 2026, in WordPress.org’s own popular order, which follows active installs. String locator leads with 100K+ active installs, ahead of Code Block Pro (10K+) and CodeColorer (1K+). All 75 plugins tagged “syntax” are below, with figures from WordPress.org that update every day.
Installs aren’t everything: a recent release, a “Tested up to” that matches the current WordPress, and support threads that get resolved show a plugin is looked after. Open any plugin for its downloads, rank history and alternatives.
Research this niche or see all plugins.
Top 10 syntax plugins
- 1.
String locatorThe most installed syntax plugin, with 100K+ active installs. Rated 4.6 from 125 reviews, updated 1 month ago.
- 2.
Code Block Pro10K+ active installs. Rated 4.8 from 50 reviews, updated 2 months ago.
- 3.
CodeColorer1K+ active installs. Rated 4.9 from 11 reviews, updated 2 months ago.
- 4.
Code Click to Copy700+ active installs. Rated 4.7 from 14 reviews, last updated 1 year ago. Tested only up to WordPress 6.8.12.
- 5.
Pastacode400+ active installs. Rated 4.9 from 14 reviews, updated 7 months ago. Tested only up to WordPress 6.9.11.
- 6.Better File Editor
300+ active installs. Rated 4.7 from 17 reviews, last updated 11 years ago. Tested only up to WordPress 4.3.34.
- 7.
Simple Code Highlighter300+ active installs. Rated 4.7 from 7 reviews, last updated 8 years ago. Tested only up to WordPress 4.9.35.
- 8.WP SyntaxHighlighter
300+ active installs. Only 1 review so far, last updated 14 years ago. Tested only up to WordPress 3.3.2.
- 9.Gist GitHub Shortcode
200+ active installs. Rated 5.0 from 6 reviews, last updated 6 years ago. Tested only up to WordPress 5.5.24.
- 10.Google Syntax Highlighter for WordPress
100+ active installs. No reviews yet, last updated 19 years ago. Tested only up to WordPress 2.2.2.
All 75 plugins tagged “syntax”

String locator
Down in the last 7 days:1#367by InstaWP1 month ago
Find and edit code or texts in your themes and plugins
- Installs
- 100K+
- Rating
- 4.6(125)
- Downloads
- 788/day

Code Block Pro
Down in the last 7 days:1#2,141by Kevin Batdorf2 months ago
Code highlighting powered by the VS Code engine. Performance focused. No bloat.
- Installs
- 10K+
- Rating
- 4.8(50)
- Downloads
- 71/day

CodeColorer
Down in the last 7 days:24#6,488by Dmytro Shteflyuk2 months ago
Syntax highlighting for code snippets in posts, comments, and RSS, with inline code, themes, and line numbers.
- Installs
- 1K+
- Rating
- 4.9(11)
- Downloads
- 22/day

Code Click to Copy
Down in the last 7 days:18#7,998by treeflips1 year ago
Copies and tags automatically to clipboard with customizable tooltips.
- Installs
- 700+
- Rating
- 4.7(14)
- Downloads
- 11/day

Pastacode
Down in the last 7 days:29#9,594by Willy Bahuaud8 months ago
Use Pastacode to add code into your posts with the awesome PrismJs coloration library. So, past'a code!
- Installs
- 400+
- Rating
- 4.9(14)
- Downloads
- 8/day
Better File Editor
Up in the last 7 days:37#10,281by Bryan Petty11 years ago
Adds line numbers, syntax highlighting, code folding, and lots more to the theme and plugin editors in the admin panel.
- Installs
- 300+
- Rating
- 4.7(17)
- Downloads
- 6/day

Simple Code Highlighter
Up in the last 7 days:22#10,414by kedinn9 years ago
Simple Syntax Code Highlighter
- Installs
- 300+
- Rating
- 4.7(7)
- Downloads
- 0/day
WP SyntaxHighlighter
Down in the last 7 days:42#10,856by redcocker14 years ago
This plugin is code syntax highlighter based on SyntaxHighlighter ver. 3.0.83 and 2.1.382.
- Installs
- 300+
- Rating
- 5.0(1)
- Downloads
- 0/day
Gist GitHub Shortcode
Down in the last 7 days:3#12,678by Claudio Sanches6 years ago
Adds Github Gists in your posts via shortcode
- Installs
- 200+
- Rating
- 5.0(6)
- Downloads
- 6/day
Google Syntax Highlighter for WordPress
Down in the last 7 days:76#13,410google-syntax-highlighter19 years ago
This plugin makes using the Google Syntax highlighter by Alex Gorbatchev to highlight code snippets within WordPress simple.
- Installs
- 100+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
WP-SynHighlight
Down in the last 7 days:69#14,176by FractalizeR10 years ago
Plugin provides syntax highlighting for about 116 programming languages via Geshi.
- Installs
- 100+
- Rating
- 4.6(5)
- Downloads
- 0/day
Embed GitHub Gist
Down in the last 7 days:45#14,353by dflydev14 years ago
Embed GitHub Gists into WordPress.
- Installs
- 100+
- Rating
- 5.0(4)
- Downloads
- 0/day
Auto SyntaxHighlighter
Up in the last 7 days:69#16,157by digihero14 years ago
Auto SyntaxHighlighter is a WordPress Code highlight plugin. Use editor botton, in the pop-up window, paste or write your code, oh, very simple.
- Installs
- 100+
- Rating
- 4.3(6)
- Downloads
- 0/day
Syntax Highlighter MT
Up in the last 7 days:5#16,347by iamthechad11 years ago
This plugin works like many of the others that enable the use of the Syntax Highlighter tool. Dynamic plugin loading
- Installs
- 100+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
WP-Syntax Editor Integration Plugin
Down in the last 7 days:48#16,429by diekleinehexe13 years ago
Adds new buttons to the visual and html editor window which allow to use WP-Syntax.
- Installs
- 100+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day

APH Prism Syntax Highlighter
Down in the last 7 days:67#17,280by Agus Prawoto Hadi3 years ago
Bringing Prism into WordPress easily. User-friendly GUI, support both classic editor and block editor. Support tab & back-tab in the code editor.
- Installs
- 90+
- Rating
- 3.9(7)
- Downloads
- 0/day
Syntax Highlighter Compress
Down in the last 7 days:233#18,531by agmorpheus15 years ago
Syntax Highlighter ComPress is a plugin for code syntax highlighting. It loads fast on the website and code can pasted easily into Wordpress.
- Installs
- 70+
- Rating
- 4.8(5)
- Downloads
- 0/day
Prettify Code Syntax
#18,570by jesucarr13 years ago
Code syntax highlighter using Google Prettify, supporting the HTML5 recommendation, and caching plugins.
- Installs
- 70+
- Rating
- 4.2(12)
- Downloads
- 11/day
Syntax Highlighter++
Down in the last 7 days:39#19,298by leo10812 years ago
You can add code with syntax highlighter easily when you are editing an article. 方便的代码高亮插件。
- Installs
- 60+
- Rating
- 5.0(1)
- Downloads
- 0/day
SyntaxHighlighter Evolved
Down in the last 7 days:401#20,028by randexdev12 years ago
Adds support for the Swift Programming Language to the SyntaxHighlighter Evolved plugin.
- Installs
- 60+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day

Simple Syntax Highlighting
Down in the last 7 days:130#21,005by gung8 years ago
Simple, clean and lightweight syntax highlighting WordPress plugin.
- Installs
- 50+
- Rating
- 4.0(1)
- Downloads
- 11/day
CodeMirror for CodeEditor
Down in the last 7 days:72#21,929by redcocker14 years ago
Just another code syntaxhighligher for the theme and plugin editor with CodeMirror.
- Installs
- 40+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
Crayon Syntax Highlighter to Pastacode
Down in the last 7 days:252#24,185by Willy Bahuaud10 years ago
The only use of this plugin is to convert Crayon Syntax Highlighter's tags into Pastacode shortcodes.
- Installs
- 30+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 4/day
Sunburst Code Prettify
#24,318by Rachel Baker14 years ago
Uses Highlight.js with the Sunburst syntax theme to elegantly highlight code.
- Installs
- 30+
- Rating
- 5.0(1)
- Downloads
- 0/day
WP Prism Syntax Highlighter
Up in the last 7 days:205#24,395by GuiTeK12 years ago
A lightweight and convenient plugin to integrate Prism Syntax Highlighter into WordPress.
- Installs
- 30+
- Rating
- 5.0(2)
- Downloads
- 0/day
Highlight Source Pro
Down in the last 7 days:77#24,609by kno18 years ago
Powerful, XHTML-compliant, server-side code highlighting for pretty much all languages
- Installs
- 30+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
ACE Editor for WP
Down in the last 7 days:536#26,607by daxitude14 years ago
Adds ACE Editor to the post content editor for syntax-highlighting and more
- Installs
- 20+
- Rating
- 4.5(2)
- Downloads
- 0/day
REST API support for Crayon Syntax Highlighter
Down in the last 7 days:248#27,334by miunosoft8 years ago
Adds WordPress REST API support for Crayon Syntax Highlighter.
- Installs
- 20+
- Rating
- 3.5(2)
- Downloads
- 0/day
SyntaxHighlighter Evolved
#27,509by Bernhard Kau1 year ago
Adds support for the SASS language to the SyntaxHighlighter Evolved plugin.
- Installs
- 20+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
Prism Syntax Highlighter
Up in the last 7 days:85#27,554by Gilbert Pellegrom14 years ago
Prism is a new lightweight, extensible syntax highlighter, built with modern web standards in mind, by
- Installs
- 20+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day

Qlik for WordPress
#29,196by Matthew Fryer8 years ago
Tools for Qlik bloggers including inserting Qlik UI icons and automatic syntax highlighting of QlikView and Qlik Sense script/expressions on any WordP …
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- 5.0(1)
- Downloads
- 0/day
SyntaxHighlighter Evolved PHP5
Down in the last 7 days:131#29,969by Sandro Bilbeisi15 years ago
Adds support for the PHP5 language to the SyntaxHighlighter Evolved plugin using the [sourcecode language="php5"] tag and [php5] shortcode.
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 1/day
Lite Syntax Highlighting
Down in the last 7 days:69#30,730by z-177 years ago
Lite Syntax Highlighting: PHP, HTML, CSS, JS, C
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- 5.0(2)
- Downloads
- 0/day
Easy Google Syntax Highlighter
#31,203easy-google-syntax-highlighter17 years ago
An implementation of Alex Gorbachev's Google Syntax Highlighter with a front end to allow configuration.
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
PHPGuard Lite
#31,801by phpguard19 months ago
Check WordPress plugins and PHP code for syntax errors before activating or using them.
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
SyntaxHighlighter Evolved Applescript
#31,937by Scott Selikoff15 years ago
Adds support for the AppleScript language to the SyntaxHighlighter Evolved plugin using [applescript] and [as] tags.
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
Code Block
Down in the last 7 days:1,120#33,224by Jerome6 years ago
A simple and nice-looking Gutenberg block for displaying code snippets.
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 1/day
WP-Markdown-SyntaxHighlighter
Down in the last 7 days:303#34,649by mattshelton14 years ago
WP-Markdown-SyntaxHighlighter works in conjunction with Markdown-formatted code blocks and SyntaxHighlighter to properly format code.
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
WP-Syntax Download Extension
Up in the last 7 days:2,701#36,128by Akinori MUSHA2 years ago
This plug-in makes WP-Syntax highlighted code snippets downloadable from nice captions.
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
WP-Syntax Effects
Up in the last 7 days:5,391#38,603by xeno01015 years ago
Adds a simple mouseover-effect for WP-Syntax. Expands the "Sourcecode"-Frame to the sourcecode length. So it's not needed to scroll, if …
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
rtSyntax
Down in the last 7 days:1,374#38,988by rtCamp11 years ago
A no-fuss, lightweight, fast and optimised syntax highlighter for WordPress
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- 3.8(4)
- Downloads
- 0/day
SyHi
Up in the last 7 days:1,706#40,463by sole16 years ago
Minimalistic Syntax Highlighter plug-in which also makes sure code can still be copied and pasted into your favourite compiler!
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
Pygment It
Up in the last 7 days:4,188#40,734by glauco_dsc12 years ago
A WordPress plugin for syntax highlighting using Pygments, though Pygments is not required to be installed.
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- 5.0(1)
- Downloads
- 0/day
Google Map With Short Code
Up in the last 7 days:5,433#40,920by sukhchainsingh14 years ago
This plugin will show google map in your post or pages with the help of short code then will plugin will place a link and your google map will be view …
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day

APH Syntax Highlighter
Up in the last 7 days:4,976#41,246by Agus Prawoto Hadi9 years ago
Bringing SyntaxHighlighter 4 by Alex Gorbatchev into Wordpress easily. Easy to use with user-friendly GUI. Write-edit code in place
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
Dottoro Syntax Highlighter
Up in the last 7 days:5,811#41,983by dottoro16 years ago
Colorize your source code as easily as possible. Dottoro Highlighter provides professional coloring for CSS, HTML, JavaScript and XML languages.
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
Simple Fast Highlighter
Down in the last 7 days:3,457#42,194by michielve9 years ago
Fast syntax highlighter written in Javascript.
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day
Texy!
#42,920texy16 years ago
Texy! is text-to-HTML formatter and converter library. It allows you to write structured documents without knowledge or using of HTML language.
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 2/day
Alex Syntax Highlighter
#43,805by Anthony13 years ago
Alex Syntax Highlighter highlights code in the theme editor for easier understanding. See http://anthony.strangebutfunny.net/my-plugins/syntax-highlig …
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- 2.0(1)
- Downloads
- 0/day
WP-Markdown-Syntax-Sugar
#44,331by dwhitevisoft14 years ago
WP Markdown Syntax Sugar is a simple plugin that works in conjunction with Markdown code blocks and highlight.js to properly format code.
- Installs
- 10+
- Rating
- –
- Downloads
- 0/day