linux4me2

This widget allows you to insert arbitrary Text and/or HTML code (optional) to precede a list of recent posts by category. It makes it easy to add introductory comments and to achieve interesting effects like wrapping your posts list around an image. It’s designed to be lightweight and easy on resources.
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Note: Widget Blocks, added in WordPress 5.8, make this plugin no longer necessary. The same results can be obtained by using a Widget Group, Heading Block, Custom HTML Block, and the Latest Posts Block. The latter also allows the use of multiple categories, which is not available with this plugin. Unless something major happens to change things, I won’t be developing the plugin beyond the current version (2.0.0).
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HTML Plus Recent Posts by Category Widget

Like the Legacy Recent Posts widget, but adds the ability to select the category and add text or HTML before the list of posts.

Eugen Bobrowski

News In Stack Widget plugin is developed flexible and simple to provide you maximum customization of your widget. Realy userful and helpful for developers.

News In Stack Widget

Just another recent post widget. Simple but flexible.

HTML Plus Recent Posts by Category Widget vs News In Stack Widget