Ross Cornell

This plugin adds a simple widget that allows you to display a number of recent blog posts from a specific category. You have the options to choose a title, category, number of posts and whether or not to show the post date. The posts will be ordered by date just like the default Recent Posts widget included with WordPress.

very easy to use

Very usefull

Just like the default Recent Posts widget except you can choose a category to pull posts from.

Ga Satrya

Idenovasi

Due to WordPress 5.8 major update for Widgets, if you want to use this plugin, you must use WordPress 5.8.x
Smart recent posts widget provides flexible and highly customizable <a href="https://idenovasi.com/projects/smart-recent-posts-widget/" rel="nofollow ugc">recent posts widget</a>. Allows you to display a list of the most recent posts with thumbnail, excerpt, date, author, comment count also you can display it from all or specific or multiple categories or tags, post types and much more!
<h4>Install, Activate, Done!</h4>
Using the widget is super easy with clear inline information. It provides a lot of options to fit your needs, need more option? Please ask on Support forum.
<h4>Features Include</h4>
<ul>
<li>Style: Choose 3 different posts list style</li>
<li>Open link in new tab</li>
<li>Show/hide post title</li>
<li>Allow you to set title url</li>
<li>Selected or multiple post types</li>
<li>Selected or multiple categories</li>
<li>Selected or multiple tags</li>
<li>Include or Exclude Categories</li>
<li>Post status</li>
<li>Custom html or text before and/or after recent posts</li>
<li>Orderby date, comment count, random, and more</li>
<li>Display thumbnails</li>
<li>Display excerpt, with customizable length.</li>
<li>Display post date</li>
<li>Display modification date</li>
<li>Display comment count</li>
<li>Display post author</li>
<li>Exclude current post</li>
<li>Custom CSS</li>
<li>Multiple widgets</li>
</ul>
<h4>Support this project</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/smart-recent-posts-widget/" rel="nofollow ugc">Translate to your language</a>.</li>
<li>Contribute on <a href="https://github.com/idenovasi/smart-recent-posts-widget" rel="nofollow ugc">Github</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://paypal.me/satrya" rel="nofollow ugc">Donate</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Style Explanation</h3>
There are 3 style you can choose:
<ul>
<li>Default</li>
<li>Classic</li>
<li>Modern</li>
</ul>
Default 
This is just a basic style, the posts list style follow your theme stylesheet.
Classic 
Classic style is a basic style with some little improvement, it adds a nice border bottom to each list to seperate them and change the font color and size of the post meta and excerpt. This style works with whatever setting you choose, either small thumbnail or big thumbnail with centered position.
Modern 
Modern style adds a nice opacity to the thumbnail and display the title on the corner of the thumbnail. This style only works perfectly with some condition, if you want to get the best result please follow below steps:
<ul>
<li>Switch the Thumbnail Size to medium</li>
<li>Only display the title, please uncheck another data such as date, comment count, author, etc.</li>
<li>Remove everything inside the Custom CSS box.</li>
<li>Switch the Style option to Modern</li>
<li>Done!</li>
</ul>
Please open the Screenshot tab above to see the style design.

Smart Recent Posts Widget

Would be nice if you could choose from custom taxonomies, too. :)

Works well

Provides advanced recent posts widget,you can display it with thumbnails, excerpt, date, author, comment count and more.

Recent Posts by Category Widget vs Smart Recent Posts Widget