3 Best Wordpress Syntax Highlighting Plugins for free

Last Update:

June 26, 2024

Best WordPress syntax highlighting plugin. Prismatic Plugin. Best Free WordPress Syntax Highlighter Plugin. Display beautiful code snippets with Prism.js, Highlight.js, or plain code escaping. Here I am sharing my 3 years+ experience that how I found these two syntax highlighting WordPress plugins. Even in 2024, Prismatic remains the top code highlight plugin.

Why this article?

I know it’s challenging to choose the best plugin, in long-running we need a plugin whose developer provides regular updates and that plugin must have a good rating.

Here I’m sharing the 3 best WordPress code highlighting plugins based on my experience and both plugins fulfill all requirements I mentioned above.

Prismatic
Code Syntax Block

Almost 60% of websites are using these plugins to highlight code snippets.

As per your intrest

If you like Prisam.js or Highlight.js then go with “1st: Prismatic Plugin”

If you love Shiki then go with “2nd: Code Block Pro – Beautiful Syntax Highlighting”

No.1 Free WordPress Syntax Highlighting Plugin

This post is really based on my experience. You will be surprised when you work with these 2 plugins. I use Gutenberg for my articles. I also have experience with Elementor page builder So here I’ll share 2 plugins. One is a free Prismatic Plugin and the second one is PRO (only for Elementor) Coder – Syntax Highlighter for Elementor. I use Prismatic because it is free and compatible with Gutenberg. Prismatic Plugin has 2 major syntax highlighter libraries. (Prism.js and Highlight.js). Prism.JS has 9k stars on GitHub while HighlightJS have 18.2k stars. Both libraries are used by major companies. I studied both syntax highlighter libraries and found the 2 best plugins based on these libraries.

prismatic syantax highlighter for wordpress — Prismatic Plugin – Prismatic WordPress

Prismatic – a WordPress syntax highlighter plugin

Display beautiful code snippets with Prism.js, Highlight.js, or plain code escaping:

Prism.js – Code escape + syntax highlight using Prism.js
Highlight.js – Code escape + syntax highlight using Highlight.js
Plain Flavor – Code escape without syntax highlight

Prism.js Features & Prismatic Plugin prism.js library

Prism is a lightweight, extensible syntax highlighter, built with modern web standards in mind.

50+ coding languages
8 available Prism themes
Gutenberg block for adding code snippets
Enable Prism plugin Line Numbers
Enable/disable Prism plugin Line Highlight in plugin setting
Enable Prism plugin Copy Code Button feature
Enable Prism plugin Show Languages
Detects language- and lang- class prefixes
Limit syntax highlighting to Posts and Pages
Granular control over code escaping
Highlight single-line and multi-line code
Smart loading of CSS & JS assets
Support for ACF on single post views

Highlight.js Features & Prismatic Plugin has Highlightjs library

Highlight. js is a syntax highlighter written in JavaScript. It works in the browser as well as on the server.

Supports 50+ coding languages
Choose from all 98 available Highlight themes
Provides a Gutenberg block for adding code snippets
Provides TinyMCE/Visual buttons for adding code snippets
Customize the Highlight.js init JavaScript
Highlights code in post content, excerpts, and comments
Limit syntax highlighting to Posts and Pages
Highlight multi-line blocks of code
Enable support for no-prefix class names
Granular control over code escaping
Smart loading of CSS & JS assets

Prismatic Code highlighting Plugin Features (😍)

Easy to set up & configure
Built with the WordPress API
Regularly updated and “future proof”
Works with the Gutenberg Block Editor
Adheres to HTML coding best practices
Loads CSS and JS assets only when required
Focused on performance and security
Lightweight, fast and flexible
Born of simplicity, no frills
Squeaky clean, error-free code

My opinion about Prismatic is honest. First of all, it’s free and has positive reviews. As I mentioned above this plugin has 2 major syntax highlighter libraries (prismjs.com and highlightjs.org). so, we have options to go with which syntax library we like and which theme we like.

Prismatic developers launched monthly updates.

Regular Update is a great thing about a free theme/plugin and Prismatic Syntax highlighting for a WordPress plugin comes with monthly updates or something update comes twice a month. That’s why I have chosen this plugin as the No.1 Free Syntax Highlighting plugin.

How do you make a syntax highlighter?

I hope you read the full article & yes Prismatic Plugin is the best free code highlighting plugin.

Prismatic reviews – Best Syntax Highlighting Plugin

check out the 96% 5 start and positive reviews about this syntax highlighting plugin for WordPress: https://wordpress.org/plugins/prismatic/#reviews

Prismatic Plugin Reviews on wordpress.org

2nd: Code Block Pro – Beautiful Syntax Highlighting

Shiki based code highlighter for Gutenberg. Plugin Url: https://wordpress.org/plugins/code-block-pro/

Initial release : 1.0.0 – 2022-08-20, Last update: 1.26.4 – 2024-06-18

Active installations => 7,000+, and 5 star rated.

Live Theme playground: https://code-block-pro.com/themes?theme=solarized-dark&lang=javascript

Values:

Values
Performance first – Web vitals. Pre-rendering. Minimal asset loading.
Lightweight – No bloat. Simple functions. Clean, maintainable code.
Practical/useful – Focused on the user experience and presentation.
Beautiful – Your code should look great!

Features:

Includes 25+ built-in themes to choose from.
Supports over 140 programming languages
10+ Modern programming web fonts – locally hosted
Line numbers
Line highlighting (static and on hover)
Blur highlighting (with reveal on hover)
Header styles
Footer styles
Copy button
Native Gutenberg block
Tab or space indentation
Core functionality works in headless mode (see FAQ)
Converting from the default code block (and others)
Max height with scrollable section (optional expand button)

More Info

Star it on GitHub
Follow @kevinbatdorf on Twitter

3rd Best Syntax or Code Highlighter

This is Code Syntax Block by Marcus Kazmierczak. And luckily it is also built on prisam.js

Code Syntax Block extends the WordPress block editor by adding syntax highlighting support to the core code block using the Prism syntax highlighter.

Primary development and issues tracked on Github at:
https://github.com/mkaz/code-syntax-block

Conclusions

Final words. If you are using Gutenberg then go with Prismatic Plugin (Prismatic WordPress) and if you are using Elementor page builder then go with Coder – Syntax Highlighter for Elementor. I personally like Prismatic and I use it for my regular posts to display code highlighted. Coder is paid plugin but trust me it’s cool I test it out deeply, BUT WHY do I CURRENTLY USE PRISMATIC INSTEAD OF CODER? Well, the answer is simple I do not like using Elementor for writing articles and blogs because these plugins have their own js and CSS files which increases page load time, every page builder has js, and CSS files like Elementor, WP Bakery Builder, Yellow Pencil, etc these plugins are best to design pages and I mostly use these Page builder plugins only for page designing but for articles, I only go with WordPress default Page builder which is Gutenberg. Hope so you will understand why I prefer Prismatic Free Syntax Highlighter Plugin.

Did I use other free syntax or code highlighting plugins?
yes, I used many, and based on my experience I choose Prismatic & it is the Best and top Syntax Highlighting Plugin for WordPress.

These 2 Syntax Highlighting Plugins 💖

How to install Prismatic WordPress syntax highlighting plugin?

Install Prismatic Plugin

Goto plugins -> Add Plugin and search Prismatic
install and activate it.
Goto settings -> prismatic -> General settings and choose a library, for example, highlight.js or prisam.js
when you create a post, search for prismatic block and add it, on the right sidebar choose the programming language e.g PHP.
Why Prismatic: Display beautiful code snippets with Prism.js, Highlight.js.

Choose a library highlight.js or prisam.js

Goto settings -> prismatic -> General settings and choose a library, for example, highlight.js or prisam.js

Choose a library theme dark or light etc

Goto settings -> prismatic -> tab: Highlight.js and choose a theme from the dropdown there are several themes for both prisam.js and for highlight.js.

How to add syntax highlight block

when you create a post, search for prismatic block and add it, on the right sidebar choose the programming language e.g PHP, MySQL, etc

FAQ

Any other plugin you recommend for code highlight?

Yeah, you can pick Code Syntax Block. This is also awesome and supports both libraries.
Which one I’m using on this blog?
I’m using Prismatic. and I selected highlight.js as the default library with stackoverflow light theme.

And on another website i’m using “Code Block Pro – Beautiful Syntax Highlighting” plugin because Skihi is powerful syntax highlighter.

If you found this article helpful then share your thoughts in the comments.