Photo galleries and sliders are great dynamic elements to add to your WordPress website. They pique curiosity and increase engagement among your visitors. You can also use them to organize and display your content in a more interesting way.
There are hundreds of gallery and slider plugins for WordPress and luckily, there are a few free, powerful options you can use to elevate your website design.
Continue reading to learn more about:
- NextGen Gallery
- Gallery Photo Blocks
- Supsystic
- Lightbox Gallery
- Portfolio Gallery
- Video Gallery
- Meta Slider
- Smart Slider 3
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NextGen Gallery
NextGen Gallery sees 1.5 million downloads a year, and for good reason. The popular photo gallery plugin allows you to create your own custom templates and easily move pictures from one gallery to another gallery. You can also create sliders, batch upload images, import metadata, configure gallery design options, and more.
Gallery Photo Blocks
The free version of Gallery Photo Blocks comes packed with features. This gallery plugin comes with a drag and drop builder for custom gallery creation, mouse hover effects, social sharing, lightbox functionality and more. It is the perfect gallery plugin if you need a powerful, basic solution. It does not have a slider option.
Supsystic
Photo Gallery by Supsystic is another popular WordPress gallery plugin. With the free version, you can add animated effects, social sharing, lightbox functionality, import Instagram images, and configure other gallery customization options. This gallery plugin does not include a slider option.
Lightbox Gallery
Lightbox Gallery offers a different style than other galleries but still includes the same basic functionality. Also, Lightbox’s instructions have been translated into more than a dozen languages, so that if English is not your first language you can still receive a full guide for using the plugin.
Portfolio Gallery
The free Portfolio Gallery plugin gives you more categorization and display options than a regular gallery plugin. With this plugin, you can group galleries under a single title, add longer text descriptions, enable numbering to help guide your visitors, and more.
Video Gallery
Video Gallery allows you to add responsive video galleries to your website. Made specifically for displaying videos, this user-friendly plugin supports YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, and MP4 videos. Enjoy features like a sleek lightbox, beautiful hover effects, nine gallery layouts, design integration, and more.
Meta Slider
Meta Slider is a popular WordPress slider plugin that will allow you to add an SEO optimized slider to your website in minutes. Easily navigate the interface to create responsive sliders from one of their themes or create your own. Access free stock images via Unsplash.com, add your own flair through many customization options and, more.
Smart Slider 3
Smart Slider 3 is also a favorite among WordPress users. The robust plugin gives the ability to create dynamic hero image content with layer functionality similar to a graphic creation platform. The interface is intuitive and allows you to configure many customization options easily. It’s no wonder why this plugin is a class favorite.
Try one of the above gallery and slider plugins for WordPress by downloading and activating it in your WordPress dashboard. For more WordPress tips and tricks, check out our WordPress Education Channel!
