The Editor's Guide to working with DatoCMS Plugins

Every once in a while someone pings us asking which plan they need to buy/unlock "AI translations". Or an editor eventually finds out that the table editor they've been hoping for has been in the marketplace all along. For free. Since forever. 🫠

NGL, that's on us for not talking about it enough. Not many people know about plugins when they start working with Dato...

So here's the guide I should've written ages ago - what plugins are, why you don't pay for them, and how to find the ones that'll make your day-to-day easier, and if they don't exist, how you can bully politely ask your devs to easily create one for you.

Quick links this post will point to anyways:

• The marketplace: https://www.datocms.com/marketplace/plugins

• User guides on working with Plugins: https://www.datocms.com/user-guides/the-basics/intro-to-the-plugin-ecosystem

• The Plugin SDK for your developers to create one for you: https://www.datocms.com/docs/plugin-sdk/introduction

• A guide on working with Visual Editing, one of our most popular plugins: https://www.datocms.com/user-guides/content-management/visual-editing-in-datocms

TLDR

But first, let's address the 🐘 in the room. Headless CMS with plugins? Thought that was WP or Page Builder territory.

For years, the headless pitch (ours included) leaned on the pain of plugin-heavy WordPress setups. So the irony on a marketplace of 100+ plugins is real.

But plugins were never the problem, and headless CMS have had a version of them since ages (integrations, apps, extensions, plugins, everyone names them differently). Every team also works a little differently, and no CMS can cover every workflow out of the box. What matters is how plugins are built, where they run, and what they cost you to use.

A quick comparison to the WP approach

Credit where credit's due. Most plugins in the WordPress directory are free, and that ecosystem is a big reason WP powers such a large part of the web.

Where things get a liiiiiittle more complicated is the freemium model. The free version of most plugins often cover the basics, while the feature you neeeed lives in a "Pro" version with per-site licensing and yearly renewals.

There's also maintenance. WordPress plugins run on your server with access to your database, so keeping them updated really matters. Patchstack's State of WordPress Security 2026 found that 91% of new vulnerabilities in the WordPress ecosystem in 2025 were in plugins, with only six in core. That's not a hit on plugin devs, though. It's what naturally happens when thousands of independent projects need server access to work.

That being said, many WP plugins were dodgy tho, for a bunch of reasons like abandonment, compromises, bloatware, or just straight up malware (like when someone bought 30 plugins and planted a backdoor in all of them).

So there's a lot of excitement about working with plugins, that are often balanced out by some well-justified sceptisism because you can't realistically expect to know the ins-and-outs and source of allllll the plugins you need to make your WP site manageable.

We took a different approach. And the good news for editors is that you really don't need to think about any of it as long as you know that there is ALWAYS an option to achieve a custom idea/workflow you might have, whether the plugin exists on the public marketplace or not.

How plugins in DatoCMS work

DatoCMS plugins are small web apps that run in a sandboxed iframe inside the CMS. They add to your editing interface: a better field editor, a sidebar panel, a custom page, or a connection to another tool you already use. They most often show up in the sidebar when you're editing content, or on the list of your content entries, or inside fields, or.. actually, they can show up almost anywhere. I forgot how damn flexible plugins can get.

What this means for you as an editor though, is

• Your live website isn't affected. Plugins live in the editor, not on your frontend, so installing one won't change how your site looks or performs.

• There's nothing for YOU to update. Your devs will know the best way to maintain private plugins, and the ones we maintain are auto-updated and kept fresh.

If you need a plugin to do more, like reading or writing more content through our APIs for you, you can use the DatoCMS MCP that automates everything your user is allowed to do.

Oh, and ALL plugins on the marketplace are free*. No license keys. No Pro tiers.

Public Plugins are maintained either by us or by the community. Since August, the ones built by us have an official badge in the Marketplace. Those are ours to maintain, so if something doesn't work as expected, just let us know.

A couple of things worth knowing before you install plugins yourself:

• *Some plugins connect to paid services. That's why the free up there comes with an asterisk. The Shopify plugin needs a Shopify store, and Translate Fields needs a DeepL or OpenAI key. The plugin is free, but the service it connects to might not be depending on the tier you use.

• Some need a bit of developer setup. The SEO/Readability plugin, for example, needs a small endpoint on your website to work. Worth a quick chat with your dev team before you install.

• Marketplace plugins are not the end of the line: You might be thinking that you need a plugin that can play back remixed bird sounds from microphones you stuck up all over Tokyo (please don't do that). Of course there isn't a public plugin for that because no one thought of needing this, but if you really need it, talk to your dev about using our Plugin SDK to build one for you. The possibilities are endless, and I hope your ideas are more useful than mine.

As for working with plugins IN the CMS:

Head to Configuration → Plugins → Add a new plugin. That opens the Marketplace right inside your project, where you can search, filter by category, or browse recent releases.

If you're not sure what you need but need a little inspiration, then check out the Editor Favorites and Dev Favorites collections. They're the most popular picks, grouped by who they're built for.

Click on any plugin to see what it does and how it's configured, then hit Install. Most plugins need a quick setup afterwards, like choosing which fields they apply to, etc. etc..

Can't see the Plugins option? That's not a paywall. It just means your role doesn't include plugin permissions. Plugin installs are usually handled by a developer or project admin, so share the plugin link with them along with the problem it solves for you. They can go ahead and configure it for you.

Some Plugins worth knowing about

With 100+ plugins to choose from, it's easier to think about them by the problem they solve. Here are some of the most popular ones (and some of my personal faves) 👇

When your content has a lot of complexity

Computed Fields fills in a field automatically based on other fields. Think building a slug from a title and a date, or generating internal labels. It's live in over 1,200 projects.

JSON Table turns raw JSON into a simple, editable table, so you can manage key-value data without worrying about brackets and commas. It's live in 750+ projects.

Both were built by Victor and the team at De Voorhoede, who've contributed a big chunk of plugins to the Marketplace over the years.

Inverse Relationships shows you everything that links to the record you're editing, so you know what you'll affect before making changes.

Hide Field From Role lets admins hide fields that aren't relevant to certain roles, which keeps busy records a lot cleaner.

When you publish in more than one language

Translate Fields translates fields in one click, including modular content and blocks, using DeepL or OpenAI. It's used in almost 500 projects.

AI Translations let you translate fields and records directly within DatoCMS using multiple LLM models.

It's not meant to replace human translators. It takes care of the copy-paste work so they can focus on reviewing and refining.

When you want a more WYSIWYG experience before publishing

Web Previews shows you how your content will look on your actual website, across different screen sizes, before it goes live. It also includes the frontend editor that lets' you make changes on your website within a few clicks.

SEO/Readability Analysis gives you live SEO and readability feedback as you write. Fun fact: it's powered by YoastSEO.js, the open-source library behind one of WordPress's best-known SEO plugins. IYKYK. Oh, and for images, there's also the nifty little Alt-text AI that auto-generates alt-text.

When you just want a quality-of-life upgrade

Content Calendar gives you an overview of everything that's scheduled.

Sidebar Notes lets you leave Post-it-style notes on records for your team.

Word Counter does exactly what it says. And on that note, so does Character Counter.

Tile Picker turns plain dropdowns into visual options with colours or images.

Record Bin lets you manage and keep a record of deleted records in the CMS.

Project Exporter lets you export records and assets from your project, while Schema Importer & Exporter lets you do the same for your Schema.

And lastly, but not at all least-ly, the DatoCMS Agent brings all the AI capabilities of the DatoCMS MCP into your UI.

Cool, but why isn't this just in the CMS to begin with?

We're pretty open about keeping the core of DatoCMS lean, and not throwing in too many bells and whistles. That lets us ship improvements without disrupting your setup, and keeps the default experience simple for every team with features that are applicable to most users.

Plugins handle the rest: the specific needs your team has that another team might not. Every project has a few of those, and plugins let you add them without waiting on our roadmap.

You said I can tell my dev to build something specific?

If you can't find what you're looking for, your devs can build it.

The Plugin SDK supports plain JavaScript, React, Vue, or Angular, and comes with UI components that match the CMS, so custom plugins feel like a native part of the product.

Plugins can stay private to your organisation, or be published to the Marketplace for everyone to use. Plenty of the most popular plugins started exactly this way - one team, one problem, and a fix that turned out to be super helpful to lots of other teams too.

As an editor, the most helpful thing you can do is describe the problem as clearly as possible to your dev, and they can go ahead and build it for you.