ShareThis Share Buttons vs Simple Social Icons
Compare WordPress plugins and tools side by side. Pick products with “Compare” in the software directory.
| Feature | ShareThis Share Buttons v2.3.13 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free · ★ 3.5/5 Visit Details | Simple Social Icons v4.1.0 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free · ★ 4.3/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | 10,000+ | 100,000+ |
| Last updated | October 7, 2026 | September 17, 2026 |
| Editions | ShareThis Share Buttons | Simple Social Icons |
| Pros | Inline and sticky share button layouts; Widget and block for placement; GDPR option and asynchronous loading | Widget with icon size, colour and alignment settings; Extra icons added to the core Social Icons block; Lightweight CSS and SVG output |
| Cons | Needs a ShareThis property ID from the vendor platform; Front-end script is loaded from ShareThis servers; Settings depend on the ShareThis platform | Block variations need WordPress 6.9 or later; Only links to profiles, with no follower counts or sharing; Icon styling changes can break older custom CSS |
| Mentioned in our posts | 1 | 2 |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Inline and sticky share buttons, GDPR compliance option, Share buttons widget, Gutenberg block, Asynchronous platform script loader | Social icons widget, Icon size, colour and hover settings, Extra icons for the core Social Icons block, Block editor assets for the icon variations, Icon CSS printed on the front end |
| Integrations | ||
| Social | ShareThis platform API, AI assistant share targets | — |
| Other | ShareThis platform CDN | WordPress core Social Icons block |
| Requires WordPress | 5.5 | 4.0 |
| Requires PHP | — | 7.4 |
| Tested up to | 7.1 | 7.1 |
| Phones home | No | No |
| External services | vendorlist.consensu.org, platform-api.sharethis.com, platform-cdn.sharethis.com | — |