Almost every website uses images in some way, and it’s easy to see why. It has long been known that people remember images better than words. Plus, images bring variety to a very simple website.

WordPress’ default image handler is fine for simple images, but if you want something more, you’ll need the WordPress Gallery plugin.

Like most WordPress plugins, galleries add a host of features, design options, display options, and other elements to your website. WordPress gallery plugins allow you to better integrate your images with your brand or web design and display them the way you want.

What Is a WordPress Gallery Plugin?

A WordPress Gallery plugin replaces the default image handler in WordPress. A good WordPress gallery gallery plugin offers a variety of gallery formats. Supports videos as well as images, offers options to protect images, a drag and drop page builder, light-box viewing options, and sometimes includes sharing options.

In today’s WordPress Wednesday of plugins offers some or all of these features.

Each of these plugins works flawlessly within WordPress, provides excellent performance, does not slow down page load times, and allows you to freely integrate galleries into your website design with minimal effort.

Why should we use a Gallery Plugin?

Images are an important part of running a website. A strong image sets the tone for your website and brand and helps promote your products and services. If you’re in a creative industry, images can also help showcase your work and show the world how good you are.

WordPress’ default image handler is fine for blogs and simple websites, but if you want something more, you need the WordPress Gallery plugin.

If you have images you want to share on your website, they need to look their best. That’s where the WordPress gallery plugin comes in.

So let’s start with the 8 Gallery plugins for this WordPress Wednesday plugin roundup.

1. Modula

Modula is a very easy-to-use WordPress gallery plugin. Macho Themes lets you quickly create exciting photo and video galleries. Modula’s flexible customisation options make it easy to customise the gallery to your liking.

Modula’s Custom Grid feature allows you to freely resize images within a gallery container, controlling height, width and aspect ratio.

Now all you have to do is switch the gallery from Creative Gallery to Custom Grid and click and drag the lower right corner of the image in the gallery to resize the image.

If you decide to try Modula, you will quickly find that the plugin is suitable for all WordPress users, regardless of experience. With an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface and customisation options, you can create a gallery that looks exactly like one of the demos in less than 5 minutes.

Modula has an advanced customisation panel for advanced users where users can add CSS that can be applied individually to the gallery. This, along with well-written documentation, contributes to what we consider to be a truly great user experience.

A free version of Modula is available in the official WordPress plugin repository and also includes custom grid functionality. You can change the look of the gallery by playing around with settings such as borders, shadows, and border radius.

Price: Free and plans start at $39 for a single site, up to $149 for the Agency option with up to 99 sites.

2. NextGEN Gallery

Photographers and other visual artists should consider NextGEN Gallery. Which is a very popular and feature-rich gallery plugin for WordPress. It’s built for pros, which is evident from the features it provides.

There are many gallery options for displaying photos. Such as tiles, slideshows, mosaics, wall grids, and more. Most of these are premium options. However, the free version offers two styles, but it’s enough to work in a basic gallery. You can also use the plugin to fine-tune gallery details such as animations and image sizes.

The professional plan, also includes features to leverage your gallery in your online business. Including deep links, eCommerce tools, photo organising and uploading tools, watermarks, built-in gallery management, digital downloads, light boxes and even coupons. There is also personal support in case of problems.

The NextGEN is perfect for sites displaying photos. Big sites that occasionally want to include galleries will probably find it overkill. However, creative professionals who want fine-grained control over how images are displayed and how they are sold to clients can benefit greatly from this high-quality plug-in.

Price: Free version and four paid versions: Starter $69.00 per year, Plus $99.00 per year, Pro $139.00 per year, and Lifetime as a one-time payment of $349.00.

3. Envira Gallery

Envira Gallery is the leading WordPress gallery plugin for images and videos. It is flexibility, customisable features, templates, and ease of use make it an outstanding option among hundreds of competitors.

This freemium plugin is designed for both beginner and advanced WordPress site owners. For new users, the interface is based on a drag-and-drop system. So you can easily place and re-size images without touching the code. It includes some free mobile templates, and paid plans include more templates so you don’t have to start from scratch every time.

The free version is only available so far. Subscriptions give you access to unlimited galleries, Dropbox imports, WooCommerce integration, organisational tools, video galleries, social sharing, watermarks and password protection to limit unauthorised sharing. Most of the advanced features of plugins come from add-ons. The more you pay, the more add-ons you will be allowed.

Overall, this plugin is a balance between very simple gallery plugins and advanced gallery plugins. However, this is certainly not the cheapest option and is perfect for companies and websites that generate enough revenue to spend on image galleries.

Price: A free version is available, and there’s some paid version (four tiers): Basic $29.00 per year, Plus $69.00 per year, Pro $99.00 per year, and Lifetime a one-time payment of $299.00.

4. FooGallery

Foo Gallery is a freemium gallery plugin. However, this option stands out with the features that come with the free version. FooGallery gives you free access to 6 responsive image gallery templates, including a masonry grid, thumbnail gallery, and light-box also after installing additional free plugins created by FooPlugins.

The gallery is also quite customisable, even in the free version. You can customise borders, hover effects, load icons and effects, sort your gallery into albums, and track your assets better. FooGallery also has a drag-and-drop interface for placing images, and you can place the gallery using Gutenberg blocks or short codes. Combined with custom CSS, FooGallery Free can go quite far.

A pro version is also affordable, with three additional templates, video gallery support, image filtering, gallery filtering, lazy loading, hover and loading effects and more. Another great premium feature is infinite scrolling. This makes it easier to fit more images on the page, eliminating pagination and extra clicks by the user.

Price: a free version and also three paid subscriptions: Starter $29.99 per year, Expert $59.99 per year, and Commerce $99.99 per year.

5. Meow Gallery

Meow Gallery is known for being extremely easy to use and fast. It offers a very streamlined image uploading and ordering process, creating a gallery takes seconds. Customize it, add filters and effects, use the Retina display and Lightroom features, and use the included Gutenberg editor. You can use it to create different galleries.

Free version of Meow Gallery comes with 5 gallery types, Gutenberg editor, some light-box effects, Lightroom tools and the ability to add audio to images. Premium version adds lazy loading, infinite scrolling, carousel slider, map layout, animations and other tools.

Price: Free, premium starting at $24.00 per year for 5 websites.

6. Portfolio Gallery

Portfolio Gallery brings stunning galleries to your WordPress site without the need for complex coding. No Gutenberg blocks, but the gallery design process only takes a few minutes. Both advanced users and beginners can use the Portfolio Gallery to create beautiful presentations.

The core plugin is a free download, but you have the option to upgrade to the premium version. This gives you great support, more templates, unlimited filters, and a longer list of features that make your gallery stand out.

One reason why you will like this compared to other WordPress photo gallery plugins is because of the simplicity of the backend. First time you might think it’s cluttered at first, but it only takes a few moments to realise where the large Upload button is located. Along with the short-codes for placing the galleries elsewhere on your website.

Price: Free or upgrade to the premium version $39.00

7. Everest Gallery Lite

Everest Gallery Lite is the ultimate gallery plugin that offers heap of options with great functionality. Just add, edit, and manage any number of gallery items. The plugin offers various layouts. Including grid layout, masonry layout. And each of these layouts has multiple sub-layouts and different configuration options.
You can easily enable or disable gallery hover effects. Overlay hover effect with five pre-designed layouts – choose any that better fits your need.

It is a fully responsive and short-code ready plugin. It is an easy-to-use plugin with an intuitive interface. No coding skill required! Showcase your gallery in the best way with Everest Gallery Lite Plugin.

Price: Free

8. Photo Gallery by Supsystic

Supsystic’s freemium Photo Gallery Plugin is perfect for WordPress site owners. Who want the simplicity of a premium photo gallery plugin. In addition to the powerful free version, Photo Gallery offers only paid options that allow you to create stunning displays of different types.

Eight different customisable galleries included in this plugin. Including carousels, post feeds (if you want to try content other than images), and polaroid-style presentations where you can place captions to add a nostalgic feel. You can access the layout. There’s an affordable premium versions that allow you to unlock video galleries, tags, and albums for better organisation, or use a CDN to quickly deliver images to your device.

Despite everything this plugin offers, its gallery is mobile friendly and easy to set up. You can also enable watermarks in the free version to prevent unauthorised use.

Price: free version and a paid version, starting at $46.00 for a one-year license on one site.