danielauener

A widget that simply gives you related posts by taxonomy. It provides four 
settings to customize every widget and there are no global settings to worry 
about.
Widget settings
<ol>
<li>The title of the widget (default: Related Posts)</li>
<li>The taxonomy by which terms the posts are related (default: Tags)</li>
<li>How many related posts to show (default 5)</li>
<li>excludet terms</li>
</ol>
The widget is visible only when <code>is_single()</code> is true, it doesn’t shows up on 
archives, search templates etc.
Translation credits
Thanks to Borisa Djuraskovic from <a href="http://www.webhostinghub.com" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.webhostinghub.com</a> for the Serbian translation!

Simply Related Posts

A widget that simply gives you related posts by taxonomy. Four settings to customize the widget: title, taxonomy, related posts count, excludet terms

keesiemeijer

Quickly increase your readers’ engagement by adding related posts in the sidebar or after post content with a widget or shortcode.
Posts with the most terms in common will display at the top!
This plugin is capable of finding related posts in multiple taxonomies and post types. Include or exclude terms from the search for related posts. Change the look and feel by using your own templates in a (child) theme.
<a href="http://keesiemeijer.wordpress.com/related-posts-by-taxonomy/" rel="nofollow ugc">plugin documentation</a>
Plugin features:
<ul>
<li>Widget and Shortcode.</li>
<li>Display related posts as post thumbnails, links, excerpts or full posts.</li>
<li>Small Footprint. Doesn’t slow down your site!</li>
<li>Automatic display of related posts after the post content.</li>
<li>Exclude or include terms and posts.</li>
<li>Search for related posts in single or multiple taxonomies and post types.</li>
<li>Limit the search for related posts by date, number or post meta.</li>
<li>Use your own HTML templates for display of the related posts.</li>
<li>Extensive <a href="http://keesiemeijer.wordpress.com/related-posts-by-taxonomy/" rel="nofollow ugc">plugin documentation</a>.</li>
<li>Follows WordPress coding standards and plugin best practices.</li>
<li>Highly Adjustable!</li>
</ul>
For the following features you need to be somewhat familiar with WordPress <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/hooks/" rel="nofollow ugc">hooks</a>. The <a href="http://keesiemeijer.wordpress.com/related-posts-by-taxonomy/" rel="nofollow ugc">plugin documentation</a> has many examples to help you along.
Extended features:
<ul>
<li>Use a persistent cache for the related posts query. (opt-in feature)</li>
<li>Use the WordPress REST API to get related posts. (opt-in feature)</li>
<li>Load related posts after the whole page has loaded (with Ajax). (opt-in feature)</li>
<li>Use plugin functions in your theme templates to display related posts yourself.</li>
<li>Use Filters to change the default behavior of the plugin. </li>
</ul>
Follow this plugin on <a href="https://github.com/keesiemeijer/related-posts-by-taxonomy" rel="nofollow ugc">GitHub</a>. 
Search the <a href="https://keesiemeijer.github.io/related-posts-by-taxonomy" rel="nofollow ugc">code reference</a>
See the <a href="https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/related-posts-by-taxonomy/faq/" rel="ugc">FAQ</a> to have related posts automatically display after the post content without using the shortcode or widget.
Default usage for the shortcode is:
<pre><code>[related_posts_by_tax]
</code></pre>
Attributes for the shortcode are:
<ul>
<li><code>post_id</code></li>
<li><code>taxonomies</code></li>
<li><code>post_types</code></li>
<li><code>posts_per_page</code></li>
<li><code>order</code></li>
<li><code>orderby</code></li>
<li><code>before_shortcode</code></li>
<li><code>after_shortcode</code></li>
<li><code>title</code></li>
<li><code>show_date</code></li>
<li><code>before_title</code></li>
<li><code>after_title</code></li>
<li><code>include_terms</code></li>
<li><code>include_parents</code></li>
<li><code>include_children</code></li>
<li><code>exclude_terms</code></li>
<li><code>exclude_posts</code></li>
<li><code>format</code></li>
<li><code>gallery_format</code></li>
<li><code>image_size</code></li>
<li><code>columns</code></li>
<li><code>caption</code></li>
<li><code>link_caption</code></li>
<li><code>limit_posts</code></li>
<li><code>limit_month</code></li>
<li><code>meta_key</code></li>
<li><code>meta_value</code></li>
<li><code>meta_compare</code></li>
<li><code>meta_type</code></li>
<li><code>public_only</code></li>
<li><code>include_self</code></li>
<li><code>post_class</code></li>
</ul>
Example to show 10 related posts instead of the default 5.
<pre><code>[related_posts_by_tax posts_per_page="10"]
</code></pre>
See the <a href="https://keesiemeijer.wordpress.com/related-posts-by-taxonomy/#shortcode" rel="nofollow ugc">documentation</a> for more information about these attributes.
<h4>Translations</h4>
<ul>
<li>Dutch </li>
<li>French (by <a href="http://www.artisanathai.fr" rel="nofollow ugc">Annie Stasse</a>) </li>
<li>Spanish (by <a href="http://www.ludobooks.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Ludobooks – Cuentos personalizados</a>) </li>
<li>Catalan (by <a href="http://www.ludobooks.com" rel="nofollow ugc">Ludobooks – Cuentos personalizados</a>) </li>
<li>Polish (by <a href="http://rekolekcje.net.pl" rel="nofollow ugc">koda0601</a>)</li>
</ul>

My goodness!

Display a list of related posts on your site based on the most terms in common. Supports thumbnails, shortcodes, a widget and more.

Simply Related Posts vs Related Posts by Taxonomy