Looking for a free gain / clean gain boost VST for guitar.

[acousticglue]

post gain elephant audio carve and Flower child filter works wonders. Vertigo at PA or Phils Cascade

[kPere]

I also recomment using your DAWs' built in utility if it has one.

Speaking of blue things, BlueLab Audio set all of their plugs free right before they went out of business, and they're nice, including their gain plugins.Their site is gone, but the plugs can still be downloaded at:

https://plugins4free.com/dev/606/

Those Blue Lab Audio effects look interesting, had never heard of them before, thanks for the link.

Checked their stereo widener, and its very interesting. Im keeping it, along with my Ozone one

[Halonmusic]

There is also GreeG by Sonalksis:

https://www.sonalksis.com/freeg.html