Many WordPress bloggers add sections, such as the most popular articles on their website, to their sidebar and other parts of their site. This is a great way to show off the best content and increase pageviews on any WordPress site. Here are a few of the top popular posts plugins you can use with your WordPress blog.
<h2><a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/top-10/">Top 10 - Popular Posts Plugin for WordPress</a></h2>
<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Top10Popular.png" alt="Top 10 Popular" width="538" height="361" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7048" />

This plugin is one of the best choices simply because it allows you to do so much without much work. The plugin will count your overall page views and those for a single day. The other features of this plugin include:
<ul>
	<li>Ability to Display the Page Counter</li>
	<li>Widget Ready</li>
	<li>Customizable</li>
	<li>Supports Thumbnails</li>
	<li>Supports Short codes</li>
	<li>Works with WP-Super-Cache, Quick Cache ad W3 Total cache</li>
	<li>And More!</li>
</ul>
Even though the plugin sounds like it will display the Top 10 only, you can actually adjust the setting to any number of posts you want. Once you download, install and activate the plugin, it will create its own tab in your dashboard called "Top 10."

Overall, this is one of the easiest plugins to use for displaying your most popular content. It also works with all the best caching plugins, which keeps your site speed from slowing down.
<h2><a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/popularity-posts-widget/">Popularity Posts Widget Plugin for WordPress</a></h2>
<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/PopularityPostsWidget.png" alt="Popularity Posts Widget" width="234" height="370" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7049" />

With this plugin, you can display your most popular posts in your sidebar or other widget areas of your website. The features include:
<ul>
	<li>Flexibility with Display Settings</li>
	<li>Show the Thumbnails for your Posts</li>
	<li>Filter the Categories Displayed</li>
	<li>Show a Time Range for Popular Posts</li>
	<li>Change CSS Styles easily</li>
	<li>Use Short Codes and Template Tags</li>
	<li>And More!</li>
</ul>
This might be the easiest plugin of this type to use. Once it's installed, you can add the widget to your sidebar and select the options you prefer. However, this popular posts plugin does lack features and doesn't allow you to do as much as some of the other plugins will allow.
<h2><a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-popular-posts/">WordPress Popular Posts Plugin</a></h2>
<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/WordPressPopularPosts.png" alt="WordPress Popular Posts" width="276" height="245" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7050" />

With this powerful plugin, you can display the most popular blog posts from your WordPress blog. It's full of features and even comes with a customizable widget. The features include:
<ul>
	<li>Ability to use more than one Widget</li>
	<li>Full Time Range for Posts</li>
	<li>Custom Post-type support</li>
	<li>Ability to Display Thumbnail Images</li>
	<li>Use a Layout of your Own</li>
	<li>Keeps statistics</li>
	<li>Short code support</li>
	<li>Ability to localize to the right language</li>
	<li>And More!</li>
</ul>
This may be the most customizable of the plugins available for displaying the most popular WordPress posts. You can customize it to your specific needs and use it for posts, reviews or other reasons. However, the plugin does store quite a bit of data, which could slow down your site load time, depending on your hosting account.
<h2><a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/nrelate-most-popular/">nrelate Most Popular WordPress Plugin</a></h2>
<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/nrelateMostPopular.png" alt="nrelate Most Popular" width="397" height="154" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7051" />

With this WordPress plugin, you can display your most popular content with short codes, with a widget, with the function in your theme files or automatically before or after any post on your blog. Not only is it easy to use, but it's also very powerful.

Since the plugin comes with built in templates, better resource management than most and many different layout choices, it may be the best choice for shared hosting users. However, you will be using a third party service, so if you don't want to share information with another party, this isn't the plugin for you.
<h2><a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/popular-widget/">Popular Widget WordPress Plugin</a></h2>
<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/PopularWidget.png" alt="Popular Widget" width="270" height="339" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7052" />

With the Popular Widget, you can display the most popular posts by views or comments in your sidebar. This plugin has many features including:
<ul>
	<li>Date range</li>
	<li>Title Length</li>
	<li>Counter Display</li>
	<li>Expert length and option</li>
	<li>Show Thumbnails</li>
	<li>Show Recent Comments</li>
	<li>Calculate page views</li>
	<li>And More!</li>
</ul>
You can do many things with this plugin and it's very lightweight. It's one of the easier plugins to use, but it does come with some issues, if you go over the width of the area provided.

Any of these WordPress plugins will work great for showing off your most popular posts. Some will fit better with specific types of blogs, while others may be a little easier to use. Regardless, you can choose any of these plugins and gain the benefits associated with showing your visitors the most popular blog posts on your WordPress blog.