nickpdx

PageSpot uses private Pages as groups of content to be inserted in various 
other places in your Page or theme. By default it creates two special 
private Pages:
PageSpot Snippets are pieces of another Page. To create a new snippet, 
just 
create a child Page of the [PageSpot] Page Snippets page. PageSpot will 
ensure your new snippet remains Private and inaccessible on its own. 
PageSpot then expects you to assign the snippet to a Spot on one of your 
public Pages.
To do that, you will first need to create custom templates in your theme 
directory. If you create a template with “pagespot” in the name, and select 
it in the Page editor, the PageSpot admin box will become active for that 
Page. PageSpot will parse the template for annotations that look like 
“[[PageSpot:Foo]]”, and allow you to assign a PageSpot Snippet to the 
“Foo” spot.
The final result is that when viewed from the front end, your Page will have 
the assigned snippet Page’s content inserted in place of your [[PageSpot]] 
annotation. This lets you build up complex layouts for a Page, composed of 
other Pages. content which you can edit and replace independent of each 
other.
Sidebar Items are pages that together comprise a sidebar for your theme. 
To create a sidebar, just create a private Page named “[Sidebar] Foo”. All 
child pages of that page constitute the Foo sidebar. PageSpot will add a 
meta-box in the Page Edit screen to select the sidebar to use for the 
current Page. Adding some simple PHP code to your sidebar template is all 
you then need to bring this functionality into your custom theme:
<pre><code><?php PageSpot::print_sidebar(); ?>
</code></pre>

PageSpot

PageSpot facilitates more complex layout options for Pages, and dynamically assignable sidebar content on a per-Page basis.

bankofcanada

Nick

Jairus

XWidgets lets you choose your widget layouts and settings for each individual page and post, instead of only having one layout applied to the whole site! For example, you could have a Twitter feed in your website’s sidebar, but have your ‘about me’ page also display Flickr/Last.FM widgets in that page’s sidebar, with a completely different widget layout from the rest of your site — or you could have each page of your site pull in a different Google News feed via RSS — or you could add a poll to the sidebar of a specific post, without changing any others.
This plugin was developed alongside the PBox plugin. Using the two together greatly simplifies CMS-like layouts and functionality.
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Choose widget settings from each indivdual page/post edit screen.</li>
<li>Pages can inherit widgets from their parent.</li>
<li>Pages/posts without widgets can use the global widgets (or if you prefer, none at all).</li>
</ul>
<h4>Tips</h4>
<ul>
<li>Use the <a href="https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/pbox/" rel="ugc">PBox</a> plugin to add highly customizable content widgets to your page sidebars.</li>
<li>Visit <a href="http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/25/advanced-power-tips-for-wordpress-template-developers/" rel="nofollow ugc">Smashing Magazine – Advanced Power Tips For WordPress Template Developers</a> for ideas about Multiple Column Content Techniques.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Future Plans</h4>
<ul>
<li>Add widgets to taxonomies (Categories, Tags…)</li>
<li>Improve support for customized post types.</li>
</ul>

XWidgets

Gives you the ability to configure widgets on a per page basis.

PageSpot vs XWidgets