All of the main block collections come with a “button” block (default blocks, Advanced Gutenberg, Atomic Blocks, Kadence, Qodeblock, Stackable, and Ultimate Addons). The purpose is simple — add some text, add a URL, add some styling, and when the user clicks on it, it goes to the link.

The default Buttons block is relatively simple, as most of them are…you can choose whether it opens in the same window or a new window, the size of the button (small, medium, large or extra-large), the button shape (square, rounded square or circular — more like ovals), button colour, and text colour, and of course the URL. Easier than using shortcodes as I used to have to do before Gutenberg. They work, they’re functional, but the real challenge is they only really work if you want one. Which is ironic since they name the block in the plural, but do not have any options to put several side-by-side, unless you wrap them in some sort of table or other type grid block.

Kadence calls their block Advanced Button and it solves the challenge of having multiple buttons side by side right off the bat. You can set the number of buttons and then align the group to the left, right or centred. After that, each button has its own options — text size, button size (with paddings), button width, hover options, backgrounds, borders, colours, and spacing before the next button. You can even add an icon inside the button. It has almost everything you would want, and definitely more than the default.

Advanced Gutenberg also calls their button block the Advanced Button and seems to have a few more initial styles (default, outlined, squared, squared outline) but when you look at them more closely, you see that it is really a round one or squared one, with either the button filled or just an outline. Text and fill colours are standard options, but I like the 8 different types of borders it offers. Except I have no real need for dotted button borders. Not sure I ever would.

Atomic Blocks and Qodeblock both just call their block Button and they are almost as basic as the default one.

Ultimate has two button blocks, one called Multi Buttons and one called Marketing Button. Multi sets you up with two initially and a click of a button will add more across the page. Each one starts off pretty basic, and you can tweak colours for the text, background, border, and hover. And, as mentioned above, you can change border weight and type (solid, dashed, etc.) for each button. By contrast, the Marketing Button is a little more robust. It is designed to be a single button on the row, but you have the ability to add a button icon to help style your “call to action”, change the typography of the text which has two lines — one title, one description — as well as all the colour attributes. Pretty decent, and the only option that allows you “officially” two lines of text…however, most of the others allow a second row if you just hit a hard enter in the main text.

Stackable by contrast does its usual job of blowing the doors off the competition. It starts with them just calling it “button” (singular), but there are five separate layouts as soon as you create one. The layout shows three and it gives you the option of three basic buttons side-by-side, three spread farther apart across the page, one going the full width of the page, and then, just for fun, options to group the set of three so there are two to the right and one to the left or one to the right and two to the left. Way beyond anything the others were offering. Of course, Stackable also gives you some specific designs to get you started…One option they include is a button that doesn’t look like a button, whereby they have two that are styled as different colours, standard looking buttons, and then the third one just says “Learn More” and looks like a link. However, it is a third button — with transparent background, no border, and no fill. Until you hover over it. My only lament is that you are limited to three buttons. And since it is Stackable, you can massage the heck out of all the settings for typography, backgrounds for the block, spacing, separators, etc. Yeah, yeah, same old, same old awesome. Of course, I’m keeping this one.

But I’m also going to keep “multi-buttons” in case I need a simple option that goes above 3.

Update: To see my current collection of blocks, check out the blocks I use.