CrestaProject

FREE Crest Posts Widget is a simple but powerful WordPress Widget which displays your posts with thumbnail and many other options like the ability to show the date, the number of comments, to change the length of the excerpt, change the size of thumbnails and much more.
Some features:
<ul>
<li>Easy to use interface</li>
<li>Change post title heading tag</li>
<li>Display the date</li>
<li>Display the comments count</li>
<li>Choose thumbnail size</li>
<li>Choose excerpt lenght</li>
<li>Order posts by date, title, comment count and random</li>
<li>Filter posts by category</li>
</ul>

Plugin Homepage 
http://crestaproject.com/downloads/cresta-post-widget/

Cresta Post Widget FREE

Widget for show all posts or filter by category. Many options available including show thumbnail, excerpt, date and comments count.

Eugene Holin

Introducing new feature in 0.6.13 version: the embedded video instead of the Post Featured Image
You can use the embedded video (first movie) instead of the Post Featured Image in Responsive Grid Layout. This feature is experimental and now the plugin support Youtube video only. If you have any ideas about this feature or it work not properly, please write me in special topic on <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/topic/new-feature-in-0613-the-embedded-video-instead-of-the-post-featured-image">Support Forum</a>.
See the <a href="http://demo.lp-tricks.com/recent-posts/responsive-grid-light/" rel="nofollow ugc">live demo of this feature</a>.
In version 0.6.4 added new color scheme (both widgets and shortcode) – natural image colors, without any overlay 🙂 If you choose this scheme – add in files lptw-recent-posts.css or style.css in your theme some styles, read more in the FAQ.
Advanced Recent Posts plugin shows the latest posts with thumbnails in two areas:
<ul>
<li>widget in your sidebar</li>
<li>shortcode in any place of your post or theme.</li>
</ul>
Customization of the plugin is wery simple an flexible:
<ul>
<li>Widgets are configured into Dashboard -> Appearance -> Widgets</li>
<li>Shortcodes are configured in plugin shortcode builder, you will see it in the admin menu of your WordPress</li>
</ul>
There are two predefined color schemes (for Basic and Grid layouts): dark and light, but you can set up your own scheme. Or use natural images.
Better to see once than read a hundred times – see the <a href="http://demo.lp-tricks.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">live demo</a> on my website 🙂
Like my plugin? Please, rate 🙂 ★★★★★
Contributing
You can make suggestions and submit your own modifications to this plugin on <a href="https://github.com/eholin/WP-Advanced-Recent-Posts" rel="nofollow ugc">Github</a>.
For more information and support, please visit <a href="http://lp-tricks.com" rel="nofollow ugc">my website</a>.
Have any ideas or suggestions? Please write me – i will try to make them in the new version of the plugin.

Advanced Recent Posts

Plugin that shows the latest posts with thumbnails in the widget and in other parts of the your blog or theme with shortcodes.

Cresta Post Widget FREE vs Advanced Recent Posts