Embed Plus for YouTube Gallery, Livestream and Lazy Loading with Facades

84 Quality Score

Active Installs

23/30

With 100,000 active installs it sits comfortably in the mid tier of YouTube plugins, well behind the million install image optimizers but matching peers like Feeds for YouTube and Presto Player.

Update Freshness

25/25

A last update date of April 2026 and tested compatibility with WordPress 7.0 signal that the developer is actively keeping pace with the WordPress core release cycle.

User Rating

14/15

The 92 out of 100 score from 571 reviewers is strong and consistent, indicating most users who bother to rate are happy with the result.

Support Health

8/15

Two open threads and zero resolved is a small sample size that is hard to interpret, but the low volume could mean either that issues are rare or that users do not get timely replies when they do post.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Compatibility scores at the maximum, matching modern WordPress versions and supporting installs going back to 4.5, which covers essentially every live site today.

Scores higher than 93% of indexed plugins

About

A multi-featured plugin to embed YouTube in WordPress. Embed a video, YouTube channel gallery, playlist, or YouTube livestream. Defer JavaScript too!

Active Installs 100k+

Rating ★★★★½ 4.6/5

Last Updated 2026-09-06 7:40pm GMT

Requires WordPress 4.5+

Tested Up To 7.1

Security History

2 known vulnerabilities, all patched

2 Medium

Most recent: March 6, 2026

View details ▸

What It Does

Embed Plus for YouTube lets WordPress site owners embed individual YouTube videos, full channel galleries, playlists, and livestreams using shortcodes and facades that defer the heavy YouTube iframe JavaScript until the user interacts with the thumbnail. The lazy loading and deferred script approach is designed to cut page weight and improve Core Web Vitals on content heavy pages that embed many videos.

Who It's For

This plugin fits publishers, creators, and organizations that regularly embed YouTube content and care about both presentation and performance: news outlets, tutorial sites, course creators, churches running services on YouTube Live, gaming communities, and event organizers displaying highlights. Sites that show a single video per page will get less value from its gallery and deferral features.

Who Should Skip It

If you only embed one or two YouTube videos per page, or you already use a full page builder or block theme that handles video embeds natively, the overhead of installing another plugin is not justified. Sites that need a self hosted video player rather than YouTube embeds should look at a player focused alternative like Presto Player instead.

The Bottom Line

Embed Plus for YouTube is a capable, actively maintained YouTube embed plugin with solid ratings and broad compatibility, scoring 83.69 out of 100 in our assessment. The only real caveat is the thin support track record, so buyers should plan to rely on documentation rather than a quick forum answer if something breaks. For content heavy sites that embed many YouTube videos, it is one of the stronger options in its category.

Related Plugins

EWWW Image Optimizer 89/100

Pick this only if your real bottleneck is image size rather than video embedding, since it solves a different problem but ranks higher overall.

Feeds for YouTube (YouTube video, channel, and gallery plugin) 85/100

Choose this if your priority is pulling live feeds from YouTube channels as a stream rather than embedding curated galleries and shortcodes.

Presto Player 84/100

Pick this if you need a self hosted video player with advanced tracking, chapters, and overlays rather than a YouTube focused embed tool.

Ajax Load More – Infinite Scroll, Load More, & Lazy Load 83/100

Choose this if you want general purpose lazy loading and infinite scroll across posts and custom content, not just YouTube embeds.

iframe 82/100

Pick this if you only need a lightweight iframe wrapper with basic lazy loading and do not need YouTube specific features like galleries or livestream support.