Introduction
You just created a website on WordPress, maybe for your clothing business? Maybe you’re a travel blogger? Are you running a photography website? Whichever it is, you achieved it, voila!
However, is it the ideal website for you? Do you open it and are like yes, this is just what I wanted, everything is just right there. Or is the situation somewhat different?
We hope that it is that way, but if it’s not, you should consider asking yourself where it all went wrong. Maybe you are using a WordPress built-in photo gallery which is rather basic and dull.
In this article, we will suggest some real-time WordPress photo gallery plugins that will change your life(and your website) for good.
Why Bother Installing a photo gallery plugin on your WordPress Site?
The default configuration of WordPress comes with a gallery but it’s not very aesthetic. It lacks many features and you cannot do anything extra other than the basic stuff. It gets boring.
You have put great effort in making your website and now you are looking for maximum returns. You should be getting maximum click rates and views, but these things don’t come easy. It’d be best if you put some extra slack from your end to make it more appealing.
Your website should be pretty catchy and user-friendly. This can be done with a WordPress plugin photo gallery. Almost every website uses images and WordPress photo gallery plugins to present relevant images in the most aesthetic manner.
What should an ideal WordPress photo gallery Plugin have?
With these gallery plugins, you get the chance to avail the features of both free photo gallery plugins for WordPress and paid ones, they prove pretty helpful and change the whole outlook of your website. They optimize the images so that you get to the results fast whilst ensuring the arrangement is classy.
Here are some features an ideal photo gallery plugins WordPress should have:
- It should have a lot of customization tools so that you can personalize the website according to your taste as much as you want.
- There should be a great number of gallery templates so that you don’t have to start from scratch and do all that effort.
- Image protection is also a useful aspect for those who don’t want their images plagiarized or misused.
- Ease of use is also an important feature. You don’t want the website to be all fussy and confusing. Everything should be going smooth and flawlessly.
- Speed is one of the most important factors. It should be greatly optimized and properly working. No user wants to take hours to load a single image on the website.
- There should be many linking options available with the website so that you can direct people to your descriptive portfolio with more relevant data.
- There should be plenty of animations and other effects to grab maximum attention for users.
- A must-have feature in a photo gallery is the E-commerce support which will help you sell your photos in a better way through a WordPress website.
- There should be image sharing and support for both videos and photos in order to link with websites like YouTube.
- Image sharing and commenting must be enabled so that you can get maximum views and user engagement.
It should have many gallery templates for you to choose your favourite.
Our list of 20 Best WordPress photo gallery Plugins
When you start searching on the internet, you’ll realize it’s not a piece of cake. Finding the best match for your website with equal amounts of features, attractiveness and user-friendliness becomes quite tricky.
The purpose of writing this article is to ease that toil of yours. We did the difficult part ourselves and you are only supposed to make the right choice from a selected number of best WordPress photo gallery plugins. Without any further ado, let’s get started:
- Modula
Modula is currently the trending WordPress photo gallery plugin in use. It is extremely user-friendly and attention-grabbing. This amazing piece of art from macho themes is one of a kind.
It is a mixture of creativeness and contemporariness. You can also easily change the gallery according to your taste. The interesting options of customization tools help you create very catchy videos and photos.
You can easily resize your images in the Modula themes and maintain their aspect ratios, length and width according to your likings. For that, you’ll just need to switch from ‘creative gallery’ to ‘custom grid’.
The Modula plugin is very versatile and is designed to cater to all types of users. Easy to use drag and drop features are very inviting which allow you to change the main theme as you like and create the best possible combination based on your preference.
You can choose the ‘random factor’ to control the randomness of your gallery. This is a very useful feature and will allow you to control the arrangement very effectively. It is one of the ideal WordPress plugins photo gallery for a modernistic user. You should definitely give this plugin a try!
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- EverlightBox Gallery
EverLightBox gallery is also one of the good free photo gallery plugins for WordPress. This is a gallery with versatile collaboration options as you can add it with WordPress default gallery and other amazing gallery plugins like Final Tiles and PhotoBlocks gallery.
Also, by selecting custom CSS selectors, you can accommodate it with almost any gallery plugin you wish. Ever Light comes with an edge of fantastic experience on the user end.
Whether you are using the website from a mobile phone or your computer. It promises the best user experience with eye-catching features and options that everyone desires. Users can also comment on the images if they wish.
It’s a touch of both modern experiences and conservative likings. If you have something like that in mind, you’ve found your best match!
- Envira Gallery
Envira Gallery plugin is also very popular among big-time website owners. The reason it is celebrated as a WordPress photo gallery plugin is that it can provide you with many amazing features and a deluge of options.
It is very user-friendly and has a large number of downloads available for various upgrades. Most users of this gallery have rated it 5-star which means they found it ideal for their website.
Envira has both free and premium versions. While many users think that the free version is enough to make their website amazing, the premium features are really something different.
Nevertheless, Envira is famous for its free gallery plugins options on which many users suffice. It is a ‘drag and drop’ design layout which requires zero effort from the user’s side. There are no coding and design knowledge prerequisites for this one.
This photo gallery optimizes the website to an amazing extent, making those images load super-fast. It also keeps the search engine smooth. There is an amazing combination of sleekness and simplicity which will definitely attract you!
- FooGallery
FooGallery from FooPlugins is among the Freemium WordPress plugins photo gallery. It helps you in creating different layouts using its amazing features. The premium features activate the options for premium support and software updates.
This is a face forwarded WordPress gallery plugin that allows you to get a retina ready and responsive layout with maximum site optimization for required speed.
There are many available options with this gallery to make it the best out there and it gives full support for video galleries and album creations. It is ideally suited for both new users and veterans.
There is a built-in media library that allows you to access and manage all your content with beautiful templates. There should be no hesitation for trying this one out!
- NextGen Gallery
NextGen Gallery is one of the most famous WordPress gallery plugins out there. With a huge fan following, they promise classic user experience with amazing details in everything from the main layout to customization tools.
NextGen is the big plugin of WordPress bagging a whopping one million downloads. It looks quite basic at first, however, it doesn’t lack the best touch for all types of users with its vast range of features.
You can show your content online as either a slideshow or a thumbnail gallery which is not a bad deal at all. You can have full access to features like lightbox effects, transition and image size.
There are premium versions available too with many more features. The basic one is enough for many users. Get ready to build, manage and maintain many websites with this amazing addition!
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- Gmedia Photo Gallery
Gmedia is also the go-to choice for many users worldwide. It might not be the top priority for many people; however, once you install it you’ll find out there are pretty good options with some powerful tool for optimization.
You can either install the plugin and launch the website for free or get the premium version for more features. It is a very powerful tool and at the same time, fairly basic and useful for many. If you like something between simplicity and fanciness at the back end, you should opt for this one.
- Easy Media Gallery
Easy Media Gallery is an amazing WordPress photo gallery plugin which is easy to use, and it takes a very short time to set up for you. Also, this one is equipped with a lot of features and tools for better configuration and optimization of your website.
With Easy Media Gallery, users get special benefits and can browse plus flip through your content even more. This amazing plugin with boasting features will adapt to any screen like it was made for it.
It supports all formats from photo to video to media galleries and you’ll have no problem setting it up. You can also place the content on a post with the shortcode generator and eliminate the need of uploading it again. All in all, it’s a fair option.
- Photo Gallery by 10Web
This is one of the best free photo gallery plugins for WordPress. The design is very easy to understand, and you can get photos accommodated pretty easily. You can also mix and match galleries with photos and videos.
You also get some useful features such as image watermark and right-click protection, social sharing buttons, e-commerce add-ons and whatnot.
You can customize your website with the free version or get upgraded to the premium one with a very reasonable investment.
- Portfolio WP
Portfolio WP is among some great photo gallery plugins WordPress, and you can easily build a grid photo gallery with this one. The useful features include composer, shortcode, customer support and layout composer.
You can use these features for many tasks including photography and video making. For basic users, these features are more than enough and bring a great number of customers to your website.
You can customize the website pages in whatever way you want and use it for a variety of tasks. If you are a new user, this is not a bad option!
- Jetpack
It is not a very heavy-duty gallery; however, it will support your needs if you are looking for something basic that gets you started. An interesting thing about the Jetpack gallery is that it is totally free to use and there are no costly updates required.
You can replace many other plugins with just Jetpack and having fewer plugins can actually boost your site performance.
- Photo Gallery by Supsystic
Like many other WordPress photo gallery plugins mentioned here, this one is also a freemium product. There are many features loaded inside with investment requiring upgrades available on the go.
You can create unlimited photo galleries with this one using a large number of templates available. After that, you can also customize them using different tools.
- Grand Flagallery
Grand Flagallery is an all-in-one amazing WordPress gallery plugin that can do a lot of tasks for you. You can use this plugin to showcase any type of content from cinematic videography to travel sceneries.
Each type of content including photos and videos you post are pretty easy to access and already search engine optimized for maximum results. There is a tutorial for websites available as well.
You can choose from the skins available on the go and avoid any extra effort or customize the layout based on your preference. This is a very promising option as it seems.
- Justified Image Grid
As the name suggests, Justified Image Grid is a very reasonable WordPress photo gallery plugin which comes with desirable features and powerful tools. You can be justified for opting this amazing plugin as it is good enough.
It is also a best-seller at CodeCanyon. Preserve the original aspect ratios of your images with its amazing horizontal grid and enjoy catchy looks of it. The Justified Image Grid stands out in the crowd as it lets you import content from many external sources like Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo etc.
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- Robo Gallery
You can now stop using your default WordPress gallery and shift to something more organized and properly managed. Robo Gallery is a perfect pick for you if you prefer a quick and effective solution.
You can easily adjust Robo Gallery and make it look good with a boosted appearance. You should also read the installation and usage guide to go about implementing Robo gallery on your site more easily.
With its amazing hover animations, flexible thumbnails layout and easy compatibility with different screens, you will not meet any interruptions and mishaps.
- Everest Gallery Live
Everest Gallery live is one of the new WordPress photo gallery plugins available in the market. It is developed by the team AccessPress Themes who is famous for the creation of high-quality themes.
You can get to choose from a large number of layouts including a masonry layout and a grid layout. The free version of the gallery plugin is not really the ideal solution, but you can get started with it and plan the upgrades for later.
Even with the free version, you get hover animations and 30+ seamless gallery layouts which are enough for a basic user. You should definitely try this one out!
- Meow Gallery
This gallery is developed by Meow Apps, a small Japanese team made by some French and Japanese members. The free versions include five free layouts for you. There is also a Gutenberg block and a shortcode for optimized usage.
This is attributed to be the fastest WordPress Photo Gallery Plugins. This gallery cuts the time for uploading and posting an image by a great amount and you can be very comfortable with this plugin, all credits to its ease of use.
The free version can suffice the needs of a normal user but if you want that little extra for your dear website, you can always pay for the upgrade and get additional features.
- Vimeo and YouTube Gallery
Vimeo and YouTube Gallery is the ideal choice if you are looking to put a video gallery to your website. There are a lot of options for different plugins and extensions to add charm to your website.
Create a gallery to make your content eye-catching and attention-grabbing. This plugin gives you a very responsive gallery with flawless results on all types of screens be them smartphones, computers or tablets.
There is a great number of designs available for you to get the best match. There is also a content slider, blog-style view, pop up and justified design to add spice to your website.
- Responsive Lightbox and Gallery
Responsive Lightbox and Gallery is a very popular option among website users. It is a common choice of veterans and has thousands of positive reviews online.
There are many extensions for you to get the features you need for the improvement. Others come at a price, but they are pretty affordable.
The amazing outlook of galleries and lightboxes make it one of a kind and it looks very refreshing from the very start.
- WordPress Portfolio Builder
The WordPress portfolio builder is a very powerful and exciting WordPress plugins photo gallery which will add charm to your default dull website gallery. It supports both video and photo layout and it has maximum performance rates.
You can add and create as many portfolio galleries as you like and use your own content or go with already available content on YouTube/ Vimeo.
There is an automatic shortcode generator which makes life pretty easy for you. It is user friendly and very easy to use.
- Photo Gallery by GT3
The Photo Gallery by GT3 offers a perfect balance of simplicity and compactness one can expect. After installation, you get a Gutenberg block to instantly add a group of pictures into any post or a page, with just a few clicks.
All the adjustments are made in a single area i.e. the Gutenberg editor, so it’s pretty clear how easy it is to use. The GT3 can add charm to your website by generating awesome photo galleries and nicely formatted presentations.
You can also create a masonry gallery or a standard grid for your website. The free versions seem good enough and if you don’t want anything extra, you’re good with it!
Which one is Ideal for you?
Well, that’s a tricky question. We’d like to suggest that you try the demo and trial versions of all of the above-mentioned WordPress photo gallery plugins as they are filtered as the cream in the market.
The ideal match for you strictly depends upon your personal preferences and likings. It also depends on your requirements. If you require extensive features and less powerful tools, you can go for such a product from our list.
Everybody likes a good template with good response rates. Speed matters a lot. Always go for a faster version of the gallery plugins. This is a fast world, and everyone wants to make less effort.
You should choose your best match with utmost consideration as it will be the outlook of your website. It affects how the viewers are going to respond to your page and how hooked up they are with it.
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