You might be wondering how to make your tech or business website or apps more versatile and efficient. One way to achieve this is by using plugins to extend the functionality of your content management system. This article will explore the must-have plugins for tech and business websites.

Strapi plugins are software components that extend Strapi's functionality. They allow developers to customize Strapi to meet specific project needs. Plugins can be built-in, installed from the Strapi Market, or developed locally.

With the release of Strapi 5 around the corner, now is a good time to become more familar with plugins and the new plugin CLI which is one of the most exciting updates for developers.

Intro to Tech Strapi Plugins

Ever felt like your CMS just doesn't have the oomph you need? Strapi plugins might just be the secret sauce to take your website to the next level. They offer a way to add new features and capabilities without altering the core system.

Plugins can be built-in, meaning they come included with the system by default and provide essential functionalities. Alternatively, you can install plugins from the Strapi Market, where you’ll find a variety of options developed by the official team, partners, and the community. These plugins range from SEO tools to analytics integrations, offering a wide array of enhancements.

Whether its tech, corporate, ecommerce, these plugins play an important role. To get a better idea, you can check out these must-have Strapi plugins for corporate websites. For those who need something more specific, custom plugins can be developed locally. This allows developers to create solutions that are perfectly tailored to their unique project needs. Whether you choose built-in, marketplace, or custom plugins, they all serve the purpose of making your content management system more powerful and flexible.

What are the Types of Strapi Plugins?

Built-in Plugins

Strapi includes several built-in plugins by default, such as the Content-type Builder for creating and managing content structures, Email for sending emails, GraphQL for querying and mutating content, Internationalization (i18n) for managing multilingual content, Upload for file handling in the media library, Users & Permissions (U&P) for managing API access, and Sentry for error tracking. They are essential tools for enhancing the functionality and efficiency of tech and business websites. These plugins provide the core functionality needed to get your project up and running. Because they are integrated into the core system, you don't need to install them separately. They are ready to use right out of the box, ensuring that you have the fundamental tools necessary for managing your content and users effectively.

Marketplace Plugins

Imagine having a treasure trove of features just a few clicks away. Marketplace plugins are developed by the official team, partners, and the community. These plugin are available for installation from the Strapi Market. They offer a wide range of additional features and integrations that can enhance your project.

Whether you need SEO tools, analytics integrations, or social media connectors, the Marketplace has a variety of options to choose from. Installing these plugins is straightforward. You can browse the Market, find the plugin that suits your needs, and install it with a simple command. This allows you to expand your project's capabilities without extensive development work. Note that certain plugins can be extended with additional providers. For instance, you can use the upload media files to AWS S3 instead of the local server, or using the Resend provider for emails instead of Sendmail.

Custom Plugins

Sometimes, you need something truly unique. Custom plugins are developed locally by developers to meet specific project requirements. These plugins are tailored to address unique needs that built-in or marketplace plugins might not cover. For example, consider the differences between static vs dynamic websites to understand where custom plugins might be most beneficial.

Developing custom plugins involves creating a new plugin directory within your project and writing the necessary code to extend the system's functionality. This approach gives you complete control over the features and behavior of your plugin. You can design it to integrate seamlessly with your existing setup, ensuring that it meets all your project's specific needs. Custom plugins are ideal for projects with unique requirements that cannot be addressed by existing solutions.

What are the Benefits of Using Strapi Plugins?

Extend Functionality

Feeling like your CMS is a bit vanilla? Using plugins, you can easily add new features and capabilities to your content management system. Strapi is well-known for boosting developer productivity. Whether you need advanced SEO tools, analytics integrations, or custom content types, plugins provide a straightforward way to enhance your system without extensive coding. This flexibility allows you to adapt your platform to meet the evolving needs of your projects, ensuring that you always have the right tools at your disposal.

Customize User Experience

Plugins offer the ability to tailor the admin panel and APIs to fit your specific project requirements, which is one of the best practices for onboarding content managers to Strapi. You can modify the user interface to make it more intuitive for your team, add custom fields to content types, or create new workflows that streamline your processes. This level of customization ensures that your content management system aligns perfectly with your business needs, making it easier for your team to manage content efficiently.

Save Development Time

Who doesn't want to save time? One of the significant advantages of using plugins is the ability to boost productivity and leverage pre-built solutions instead of building features from scratch. This can save you a considerable amount of development time and resources. By installing and configuring plugins, you can quickly add complex functionalities to your system, allowing your development team to focus on other critical aspects of your project. This efficiency can lead to faster project completion and reduced costs.

Foster Community Collaboration

The open-source nature of plugins fosters a collaborative environment where developers can contribute to and benefit from a shared ecosystem. By using and contributing to plugins, you become part of a community that continuously improves and expands the available tools. This collaboration leads to higher-quality plugins, as community members can identify and fix issues, add new features, and share best practices. Additionally, contributing your plugins to the community can enhance your reputation and provide valuable feedback from other developers.

Strapi marketing team uses Strapi for various practical applications. You can also use these plugins in your content management system as it offers numerous benefits, from extending functionality and customizing the user experience to saving development time and fostering community collaboration. These advantages make plugins a valuable tool for any tech or business website, ensuring that you have the flexibility and efficiency needed to succeed.

How do Strapi Plugins Work?

Ever wondered how to magically add features to your CMS? Plugins are built using a dedicated plugin API, making it straightforward for developers to extend the platform's capabilities. Strapi offers a simpler and user-friendly interface. That is why these plugins can easily enhance both server-side and admin panel functionality, providing a comprehensive way to customize the system to meet specific needs.

When you create a plugin, it gets registered in the configuration files. This registration process ensures that the system recognizes and integrates the new functionality seamlessly. The configuration files act as the central hub for managing all plugins, making it easy to enable, disable, or configure them as needed.

Developers can use the CLI to generate a boilerplate for new plugins. This tool simplifies the initial setup by creating the necessary file structure and basic code, allowing you to focus on adding the specific features you need. The CLI is a powerful utility that speeds up the development process and ensures consistency across different projects.

Plugins can be developed in either JavaScript or TypeScript, giving you the flexibility to choose the language that best suits your project. JavaScript offers a quick and easy way to get started, while TypeScript provides additional type safety and error-checking during development. This flexibility ensures that you can leverage your existing skills and preferences while building robust and maintainable plugins.

In summary, plugins work by utilizing a specialized API, integrating through configuration files, and offering development tools like the CLI. They can be written in JavaScript or TypeScript, providing a versatile and powerful way to extend the platform's functionality.

5 Most Popular Tech Strapi Plugins

If you have not yet checked out the Strapi Plugin Marketplace you might be missing out on some game-changing features! Here are five plugins you absolutely need to consider.

1. SEO Plugin for Search Enginer Optimization

The SEO plugin is a must-have plugin for any tech or business website aiming to reach a global audience. This plugin enhances content optimization for search engines directly within the Strapi CMS. It includes features like real-time SEO checks, social media previews, and meta tag management, allowing users to ensure that their content is optimized for search engine rankings. The plugin offers both technical and non-technical users a user-friendly interface to improve SEO without needing external tools or extensive coding.

2. Sitemap for generating SEO-friendly XML sitemaps

The Sitemap plugin is essential for improving your website's search engine visibility. This plugin automatically generates XML sitemaps that search engines like Google and Bing use to index your site more effectively.

An XML sitemap lists all your website's URLs, making it easier for search engines to crawl and understand your site's structure. This leads to better indexing and potentially higher search rankings. The Sitemap plugin allows you to customize which URLs to include, set update frequencies, and specify priorities for different pages. This level of control ensures that your most important content gets indexed first, improving your site's overall SEO performance.

3. The Strapi REST Cache Plugin

The Strapi REST Cache plugin helps optimize performance by caching HTTP requests using an LRU (Least Recently Used) caching strategy. It allows you to store cache data using various providers, such as in-memory, Redis, or a file system, ensuring faster response times and automatic cache invalidation when content is updated. This plugin is ideal for developers looking to enhance Strapi's performance for REST API requests, especially in high-traffic environments.

4. The Strapi Meilisearch Plugin

The Strapi Meilisearch Plugin integrates Strapi content-types with Meilisearch, an open-source search engine. It enables automatic indexing and real-time updates of content in Meilisearch whenever changes are made in Strapi. This allows for fast and efficient search functionality in applications. Key features include support for multiple content-types, hooks for content changes, and customizable indexing behavior, such as transforming or filtering entries before indexing. The plugin streamlines search setup by automating much of the connection and configuration process.

5. The Strapi Preview Plugin

The plugin allows you to configure "Preview" and "Live View" buttons for different content types. For drafts, the preview button links to a URL where the draft version can be viewed, while for published content, it links to the live version of the page or post. It supports dynamic URL generation using placeholders like {slug}, {locale}, and other content entry data, making it flexible for various content types (e.g., Pages, Posts).

How to Install Strapi Plugins?

From Strapi Market

Worried about the installation process? Don't be! To install plugins from the Strapi Market, follow these steps:

1. Browse and find the desired plugin: Start by visiting the Strapi Market. This marketplace offers a variety of plugins developed by the official team, partners, and community members. Use the search bar or browse through categories to find the plugin that fits your needs.
2. Click "Copy install command.": Once you find the plugin you want, navigate to its details page. Here, you will see an "Install" button or a similar option. Click on it to reveal the installation command. This command is usually in the format of npm install or yarn add, followed by the plugin's package name.
3. Run command in Strapi project terminal: Open your terminal and navigate to the root directory of your Strapi project. Paste the copied install command and execute it. This will download and install the plugin into your project. After the installation completes, you may need to restart your Strapi server to activate the plugin.

Custom Plugins

Using a Strapi plugin in your project can be tricky. However, it is made easier for beginners. For custom plugins, the process involves a bit more hands-on development:

1. Create plugins/ directory in Strapi project: In the root directory of your Strapi project, create a new directory named plugins. This is where all your custom plugins will reside.
2. Develop plugin locally in plugins/ directory: Inside the plugins directory, create a new folder for your custom plugin. Name it appropriately based on its functionality. Within this folder, you'll need to set up the necessary files and structure. Typically, this includes a package.json file, a strapi-server.js file for server-side logic, and a strapi-admin.js file for admin panel extensions.
3. Register plugin in config/plugins.js: To make Strapi aware of your new plugin, you need to register it. Open the config/plugins.js file in your project. Add an entry for your custom plugin, specifying its name and any configuration options it requires. This step ensures that Strapi loads your plugin when it starts.
4. Rebuild Strapi admin panel: After registering your plugin, you need to rebuild the admin panel to reflect any changes. Run the command npm run build or yarn build in your terminal. This process compiles the admin panel with the new plugin integrated. Once the build is complete, restart your Strapi server to see the plugin in action.

By following these steps, you can easily extend your content management system with both marketplace and custom plugins, enhancing its functionality to meet your specific project requirements.

What Are Some Tips for Developing Strapi Plugins?

Follow Plugin Development Guidelines

Worried about making mistakes? When developing plugins, always adhere to the established best practices. Creating a Strapi plugin isn’t that hard. Moreover, the plugin guidelines ensure that your plugins integrate seamlessly and function reliably. Start by familiarizing yourself with the official documentation, which provides a comprehensive overview of the development process. Pay attention to the recommended file structure, coding standards, and naming conventions. Following these guidelines helps maintain consistency and compatibility across different projects, making your plugins easier to manage and update.

Use TypeScript for Type Safety

Leveraging TypeScript during development can significantly enhance the quality of your plugins. TypeScript's type-checking capabilities allow you to catch errors early in the development process, reducing the likelihood of runtime issues. By defining clear types for your data structures and functions, you can ensure that your code behaves as expected. TypeScript also improves code readability and maintainability, making it easier for other developers to understand and contribute to your projects. Integrating TypeScript into your development workflow is straightforward and provides long-term benefits in terms of stability and reliability.

Test Thoroughly

Thorough testing is a key aspect of plugin development. Write unit tests to verify the functionality of individual components and integration tests to ensure that your plugin works correctly within the larger system. Automated tests can save time and effort by quickly identifying issues whenever you make changes to your code. Use testing frameworks and tools that are compatible with your development environment to streamline the process. Regular testing helps maintain high-quality standards and reduces the risk of bugs and errors in production environments.

Contribute to Community

Sharing your plugins on the Strapi Market benefits the entire community. By contributing your work, you provide valuable resources that others can use and build upon. This collaborative approach fosters innovation and continuous improvement within the ecosystem. When you share your plugins, include detailed documentation to help others understand how to use and integrate them. Engaging with the community through forums and discussions can also provide feedback and insights that enhance your development skills. Contributing to the community not only helps others but also establishes your reputation as a knowledgeable and helpful developer.

Is Developing Strapi Plugins Worth it?

Developing Strapi plugins can save significant development time. By creating a simple Strapi plugin, you can add new features to your project without starting from scratch. This efficiency allows you to focus on other critical aspects of your project, speeding up the overall development process.

Plugins allow developers to reuse and share code across projects. Once you develop a plugin, you can easily integrate it into multiple projects. This reusability reduces redundancy and ensures consistency across different applications. Sharing these plugins within your team or the broader community can also streamline collaborative efforts.

Custom plugins can provide a competitive advantage for agencies. Tailoring plugins to meet specific client needs can set your services apart from competitors. Custom solutions demonstrate your ability to deliver unique and specialized functionalities, enhancing your value proposition to potential clients.

However, plugin development requires an understanding of Strapi's internals. To create effective plugins, you need to be familiar with the system's architecture and API. This knowledge ensures that your plugins integrate smoothly and function correctly within the platform.

Ready to develop your own plugin in Strapi 5? Check out the documentation for more in-depth guides in how to use the new Plugin CLI to create and publish a Strapi plugin