ElvUI, KuiNameplates, NeatPlates, Plater, TidyPlates, and ThreatPlates faceoff in this World of Warcraft Addon Showdown!
Nameplates are one of the most important parts of a good user interface in WoW. Unfortunately, the default Blizzard nameplates leave a lot to be desired. This means the best option is to use a nameplate addon.
But how do you know which one to choose?
To help you, I put 6 of them to the test to find out what the best nameplate addon is. I chose the most popular nameplate addons I could find, which included:
- ElvUI
- KuiNameplates
- Neatplates
- Plater
- TidyPlates
- ThreatPlates
While ElvUI is not a nameplate addon, I felt it was essential to include it because many players use it for their UI. If you aren’t familiar with it, ElvUI is a total UI replacement that has become very popular over the years.
All 6 of these addons can be used in Shadowlands. If you are playing Burning Crusade Classic, you can use all of them except Tidyplates.
If you are more of a visual person, you should check out the video I made for this article. It covers many of the same points and shows what the nameplates look like in the addons.
Addon FACTS Scores
I compared the addons using the FACTS score approach I came up with. This is where I review each addon across 5 different factors, including:
- Features – What functionality and value does the addon provide?
- Author Support – Is the addon updated frequently? Are developers sensitive to bugs?
- Customization – Can the addon be customized?
- Testing – Does the addon do what it is supposed to? Does it impact game performance?
- Setup – Is the addon easy to set up? Are setup instructions clear?
Addons can earn up to 10 points in each category for a total score of 50.
If you want to read more about the FACTS score, feel free to read my FACTS score guide once you are done here.
Purpose of this Review
Before we jump in and assign scores to the addons, I want to make something clear. The purpose of this review is to help you compare similar addons across several categories. Hopefully, it can help you choose the addon which suits your needs best.
Addons are created as a labor of love by community members. FACTS scores are not intended to discount the excellent work that addon authors do to provide value for players. It takes a lot of work to develop and maintain addons, and we should be grateful for that work.
With that out of the way, let’s look at some features!
Features
To compare features in each nameplate addon, I broke them out into shared and unique features. Shared features can be found in all of the addons. Unique features can only be found in one or a few.
Shared Features
1. Customizing Appearance
You can easily change the look and size of nameplates with any of the addons. If you want smaller health bars, you can easily adjust the width and height. You can also change the colors and fonts used as well.
2. Percent Health Remaining
If you are looking to raid, this feature is vital. As you fight enemies, the nameplate will show you what percent of their health they have left.
3. Automation & Visibility
Automation and visibility are a fancy way of saying that you can decide when you want nameplates to show. If you wish to remove nameplates outside of combat, you can do that easily. Want to remove plates for pets or totems? That is easy as well.
4. Spotlighting
Spotlighting causes your nameplate to glow when you hover over them. This makes it easier to select a particular mob from a group. It also makes your target’s nameplate brighter than the other nameplates.
5. Class Resources
The addons also show class resources like combo points on your target’s nameplate. You can do this on the default frames as well, but the addons give you more control over them.
6. Buffs, Debuffs, and Castbars
The addons also maintain a few other default features, like showing buffs and debuffs above the frame and castbars below enemy health.
7. Quest Indicators
This is one of my favorite features. Simply put, the addons will show indicators for quests where you have to defeat or obtain items from certain enemies.
KUI, ThreatPlates, and ElvUI all add an icon next to quest mobs.
Plater allows you to change the color of the plate for NPCs that are quest objectives. You can also download an additional mod to add an icon if you want as well.
TidyPlates and NeatPlates add additional text under the mob name to indicate quest requirements. However, TidyPlates was bugged for me, and the quest text was being covered by the mob name. I was able to get to work by clicking ‘Force Headline while Out-of-Combat.’
However, this meant that the quest indicator text vanished once I started combat.
Unique Features
With the shared features out of the way, let’s take a quick look at a few of the unique features in the addons.
Let’s start out with KUI.
KuiNameplates
KUI will change the color of the nameplates when you can begin using execute abilities on an enemy. For tanks, you can enable tank mode and set colors based on your threat levels and whether the other tank has aggro.
KUI also has nameplate clamping built-in. This means that you can set it up to keep the bars from going off the screen — which is particularly helpful for large enemies or weird camera angles. While you can enable clamping with a bit of coding, I like that KUI has built it in.
I also like that you can add arrow indicators to your target’s nameplate. KUI also works with boss mod addons like BigWigs and Deadly Boss Mods. It will actually integrate and allow the boss mods to highlight important enemies or spell casts.
ElvUI
ElvUI has several of the same features like clamping, boss mod integration, low-health indicators, and bar coloring for tanks. It also allows you to set arrows on your target and gives you a massive list of styles to choose from.
Overall, KUI and ElvUI are nearly identical in the features they offer.
TidyPlates
TidyPlates has fewer features and does not have built-in clamping, boss mode integration, or execute window indicators.
However, it does allow for dynamic nameplate coloring for tanking.
TidyPlates comes with 4 appearance themes built-in. These allow you to change the overall look of the nameplates without having to manually tweak a bunch of sliders. You can install additional themes, but all the ones I found hadn’t been updated in a few years.
NeatPlates
NeatPlates is a spin-off of TidyPlates and, as such, includes many of the same features. However, it does add a few additional features like more themes, built-in clamping, target arrows, and custom color conditions for things like executes.
Instead of 4 themes, you can now select from 12. You can also get into the settings for each theme and customize them further.
ThreatPlates
ThreatPlates has many of the features of the other addons like boss mod integration, target arrows, and dynamic tanking plate colors. ThreatPlates lives up to its name and also gives you an amazing amount of control over the display of threat levels on nameplates.
You can also set up custom nameplates from scratch. ThreatPlates also comes with several other widget features that allow for an incredible amount of customization and control.
You can dive deeper into the settings of Threat Plates with my guide here.
Plater
The last nameplate addon I looked at for features was Plater. This addon has so many features and customizations that it has a search tab in its settings. It also allows you to load custom scripts and mods from other players, so the number of features is nearly endless.
You can learn how to apply many of these customizations in my Plater guide.
The main place where people share Plater scripts is on wago.io. There are hundreds of scripts and profiles that do everything from adding quest icons to changing bar colors for dangerous abilities that need interrupting.
Feature Scores
So, how does each addon stack up on features? Based on the factors I discussed above, I gave the following scores to each addon:
- ElvUI — 8
- KuiNameplates — 8
- Neatplates — 8
- Plater — 10
- TidyPlates — 6
- ThreatPlates — 9
Author Support
The second factor I considered was author support. I wanted to know if the addons were up-to-date and if the authors responded to community bug reports and feature requests.
At the time of writing, all of the addons were up-to-date except Kui. Obviously, this could change in the coming weeks, so you may want to check for yourself.
It is a little unfair to look only at whether the addon is up-to-date today, so I decided to look at a longer time frame. I ended up counting the number of updates each addon received in the last 12 months. Overall, TidyPlates and Kui received the fewest updates (around once per month). The other addons all had more than 50 updates in the last year.
Fortunately, all the authors were active in responding to community requests.
Given this, I assigned the following scores.
- ElvUI — 10
- KuiNameplates — 7
- Neatplates — 10
- Plater — 10
- TidyPlates — 9
- ThreatPlates — 10
Customization
The next factor I reviewed was customization. To compare the addons, I graphed the level of customization available on this curve. The farther to the top-right an addon falls, the more customization it offers.
From the graph, you can see that TidyPlates has the lowest amount of customization in the addons. Plater, on the other hand, has a phenomenal amount of customization settings available.
Based on this curve, I scored the addons as follows:
- ElvUI — 8
- KuiNameplates — 8
- Neatplates — 8
- Plater — 10
- TidyPlates — 7
- ThreatPlates — 9
Testing
I used each of the addons with their default settings for testing as I did mythic plus, daily quests, and Torghast runs. Based on default settings alone, I liked the look and function of Kui and ThreatPlates best. That is just my opinion, and you might have a different preference, especially if you have made changes to the default settings.
In addition to using the addons, I want to see how lightweight each one was. To be accurate, I turned off all other addons, including all non-nameplate features in ElvUI. What I found was that Kui was the most lightweight. Plater and ElvUI were the heaviest of the addons, as both consumed more CPU than Kui, TidyPlates, ThreatPlates, and NeatPlates combined.
For many players, you won’t need to worry about how lightweight these addons are. However, if you are playing on an older computer or find that your frame rates are dropping while playing, it may be worth trying an addon that uses less CPU.
Based on my testing, I awarded the addons the following scores:
- ElvUI — 7
- KuiNameplates — 10
- Neatplates — 8
- Plater — 8
- TidyPlates — 9
- ThreatPlates — 9
Setup
Setup is the last factor I looked at. I wanted to know how easy it was for someone new to the addon to get started.
Installing the addons is easy and can be done with an addon manager. If you don’t know how to use an addon manager or install addons, check out my Addon Installation Guide.
Once you have installed the addons, they should all work out-of-the-box. Unfortunately, some require more setup to get the most out of them.
If you are new to nameplate addons, TidyPlates and NeatPlates provide the most user-friendly starting point. Their menus are easy to navigate, and changing styles with themes is straightforward. Setting up Kui and Threat Plates is also pretty easy as well.
On the other hand, setting Plater up to leverage its features is much more complex and intimidating. Fortunately, you can get some help with setting up Plater by downloading other players’ profiles.
I would say a similar thing about setting up ElvUI for the first time as well. It is pretty intimidating, but you can find profiles to help.
Given the varying difficulty in setup, I scored the addons like this:
- ElvUI — 7
- KuiNameplates — 9
- Neatplates — 10
- Plater — 6
- TidyPlates — 10
- ThreatPlates — 9
Which nameplate addon should you use?
With every factor scored and reviewed, it is time to add it all up. According to the FACTS score, the overall winner and best nameplate addon, with a score of 46, was… ThreatPlates!
ThreatPlates was closely followed by Plater and NeatPlates, which both posted a score of 44. Kui scored a 42, followed by TidyPlates and ElvUI at 41 and 40, respectively.
ThreatPlates came out on top due to its balance across each category. It is lightweight, easy to set up, and has a robust set of features included.
If you are using these scores to choose an addon to try, I would think about what is most important. For the most powerful features and customization, you should choose Plater.
If you are looking for something that is easy to manage, TidyPlates or NeatPlates might be more your speed.
If you are already using ElvUI for the rest of your UI, it might make sense to stick with it for nameplates.
If you have a moment to stick around, feel free to check out my list of the Best Addons in World of Warcraft!
Final Thoughts
In this addon showdown, I compared 6 major nameplate addons for World of Warcraft. I found that ThreatPlates was the best overall addon because it is easy to use and is packed with features.
However, I don’t think you can go wrong with any of these addons.
I hope that these FACTS scores can serve as a useful comparison to help you decide which addon might be the best for you. If you liked this article, I recommend you check out my similar article where I reviewed the Best DPS rotation addons!
Fantastic! Big Thank you!
This was a really well written article. I am impressed with the research done. Good job.
Thanks Amerian!