11 Best WordPress Mega Menu Plugins for Better Site Navigation

Is there anything more frustrating than visiting a website and not knowing where to find the content you want?

... Yes, probably. Still, poor navigation can be the Achilles heel of an otherwise quality website. Easy navigation is one of the most useful features of a website — f yours lacks this, that’s enough to send someone to a competitor with better UX.

In many cases, a simple, well-designed menu provides enough guidance for users. But for websites with many pages and heaps of content, a simple dropdown isn’t enough — enter mega menus.

A mega menu is a type of menu that contains many options presented in a dropdown or flyout format. Here’s an example from a Canadian tourism site, which groups its navigational links into categories:

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Mega menus are used on large websites (think online stores and corporate sites) to help visitors located their desired content quickly. A mega menu may also contain other types of content, like a search bar, images or videos, and/or interactive elements.

While WordPress allows you to build basic menus, negotiating its tool can be challenging as your menu sizes grow. That’s why we’ve compiled 11 of the best free and premium WordPress plugins for configuring and adding mega menus to your website.

By expediting your build and helping users get around, these plugins make everyone’s lives just a bit easier, so let’s get started.

Top WordPress Mega Menu Plugins

1. Max Mega Menu
2. UberMenu
3. GutenKit
4. ElementsKit
5. WP Mega Menu
6. Superfly
7. Mega Main Menu
8. Hero Menu
9. WP Mega Menu Pro
10. Sky Mega Menu
11. Slick Menu

1. Max Mega Menu

With over 300,000 active installations to date, Max Mega Menu is the leading mega menu plugin from the WordPress plugin directory and the go-to for many admins. The free version of this plugin integrates with the native WordPress menu builder, letting you add a flyout or mega menu to your website.

Max Mega Menu can convert your existing menus into mega menus, or you can build from scratch. It also lets you style the transitions between menu items, add icons and widgets to your menus, and implement keyboard navigation for better web accessibility.

If you upgrade to Max Mega Menu Pro, starting at $29, you’ll also get more menu types (like tabbed, vertical, and accordion), access to custom icons, a search box, and WooCommerce integration.

WordPress Mega Menu Example (Max Mega Menu):

2. UberMenu

UberMenu is another popular selection among WordPress users — it's a premium plugin used for adding responsive mega menus and flyout menus to any WordPress site, and lets you control transitions, fonts, menu orientation (vertical or horizontal), and background color as well.

On top of being highly customizable, UberMenu comes with an admin dashboard where you can control all of its options. Also inside the dashboard, you can configure the width of each column, add widgets, shortcodes, and custom HTML to your menus, and view your changes in live preview mode.

WordPress Mega Menu Example (UberMenu):

3. GutenKit 

GutenKit is an ultimate Gutenberg plugin that supercharges creating a mega menu using block. It is available with pre-built patterns and templates so that you can instantly pick a template and customize that according to your preferences. Additionally, you will have full control over the content, style, and advanced customizations while adding a mega menu.  

Due to its friendly interface and better UX, day-by-day the number of its active users is reaching new heights. It’s a perfect alternative to ElementsKit for those who want to build and customize sites in a block editor. Apart from the mega menu, it includes 60+ blocks and 25+ modules which make every little and big website tweaks and customizations possible inside Gutenberg.

4. ElementsKit

Fans of the Elementor page builder might already know about the popular ElementsKit plugin — it offers a huge library of Elementor-friendly custom modules, including a header and footer builder, a logo widget, parallax scrolling, a countdown timer widget, and a mega menu builder.

ElementKit’s mega menu builder enables you to build menus without disrupting your workflow, as you don’t have to leave the Elementor builder to put one on your site. Add menu items by dragging and dropping, and take advantage of the light and dark menu appearances and two mobile menu layouts.

WordPress Mega Menu Example (ElementsKit):

5. WP Mega Menu

If you’re looking for a quality free mega menu option, try the WP Mega Menu plugin from Themeum. This plugin includes functionality usually only found in paid options, like letting you place a logo, search bar, and/or background image inside your mega menu. You can even create menu themes and save them to apply across multiple menus.

WP Mega Menu is built on a drag-and-drop interface to quickly create user-friendly navigation. You’ll also have access to Google Fonts, Font Awesome Icons, and social icons, and all menus are mobile-friendly.

WordPress Mega Menu Example (WP Mega Menu):

6. Superfly

Fly menus are a new trend in the web design arena. This type of menu is hidden on initial page load. When the user clicks or hovers over a menu icon (commonly a hamburger button), the menu enters from the side and grabs their attention. Fly menus are especially useful on mobile screens where space is limited but good navigation is crucial, and the Superfly plugin lets you add such a menu to your WordPress site with ease.

With a bit of adjustment, you can use Superfly to construct a mega menu with all your important website links in one place. Styling is completely up to you — you control the transition effects, add icons to menu items, and select the background color, texture, image, or video for your menu.

WordPress Mega Menu Example (Superfly):

7. Mega Main Menu

Mega Main Menu is a simple but effective tool for implementing a mega menu, providing everything you need for one and nothing that you don’t. Mega Main Menu comes with over 10 layout options for dropdown menus, and you can place links, images, and widgets inside them. It also offers unlimited color options, over 1600 vector icons, a sticky menu setting (i.e. the menu stays onscreen as users scroll), and access to Google fonts.

WordPress Mega Menu Example (Mega Main Menu):

8. Hero Menu

Another quality premium option, Hero Menu from Hero Plugins has one of the best builder interfaces we’ve seen from a WordPress menu plugin. Menu items are placed with the drag-and-drop method and are color-coded in the builder. This way, it’s easy to see the hierarchy of your items. Any special menu items you need to place — a logo, search bar, or icon — can be activated with a click.

Hero Menu also offers multiple menu styles to choose from, and 60 preset color combinations to save you time. Menus are mobile responsive and WooCommerce-friendly. Finally, Hero Menu has been tested with popular WordPress themes like Divi and Avada.

WordPress Mega Menu Example (Hero Menu):

9. WP Mega Menu Pro

WP Mega Menu Pro (unaffiliated with the WP Mega Menu plugin above) lets WordPress admins pick from 10 templates when designing their menus, along with 14 beautifully designed menu skins. Menus can be created in both horizontal and vertical orientations.

One additional perk of this straightforward plugin is the ability to limit the visibility of menu items by user role. A user with the Editor status will likely need access to more options than someone under the Subscriber role on your site. With WP Mega Menu Pro, you can restrict access to these items accordingly, so users only see what they can access.

WordPress Mega Menu Example (WP Mega Menu Pro):

10. Sky Mega Menu

Sky Mega Menu is a cheap way to make a basic but professional menu for your homepage. It comes with three mobile-responsive layouts, nine different color schemes, and a library of 361 icons. You can also make your menus fixed or sticky and add input forms for search, login, and registration.

WordPress Mega Menu Example (Sky Mega Menu):

11. Menu Management Enhancer

Slick Menu is a WordPress mega menu plugin that gives your site a sleek vertical navigation hub. This fully responsive menu will render perfectly on mobile devices so your visitors can find the content they need when they need it. 

Add icons, background videos, and even a search box to accent this modern menu and make navigation easier for your visitors. You can even edit your menu in a live customizer that comes built into the plugin so you won’t have to worry about taking your entire site down for maintenance to adjust navigation options.

WordPress Mega Menu Example (Slick Menu):

Perfecting Your Website Navigation

Even if you run a content-heavy WordPress website, users shouldn’t have to spend minutes finding the right page, and you shouldn’t need to spend hours custom-coding your navigation.

Instead, try any of the options above. The right WordPress plugin can help produce a mega menu that helps visitors meet their goals on your site, whether it be locating a product, blog post, or contact form. By putting care into your user experience, you’ll save users time and clicks, and earn yourself more conversions and customers.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.