Image galleries are a well-liked method of showcasing images, movies, products, portfolios, and more on the internet.
Making your image galleries stand out from the competition, whether you are a photographer, blogger, or small business, is crucial for marketing and user experience. WordPress gallery plugins are a fantastic tool for adding variety and flair to your website or blog by enhancing the appearance of your photographs. I’ve highlighted some of the top gallery plugins for WordPress in this post.
What is a Gallery Plugin for WordPress?
An image gallery is a collection of images that are presented using multiple layouts, styles, and functionalities to increase user engagement. Compared to other simple or alternative techniques, a WordPress gallery plugin makes the process of generating elaborate image galleries much simpler. They make it simpler to include personalised hover effects, responsive layouts, and/or interactively communicate more information with photos.
Although though the WordPress Editor does contain a default gallery block, developers have been working hard to offer hundreds of distinctive and configurable gallery plugins to elevate your image galleries to entirely new levels. These WordPress gallery plugins give you all the resources you’ll need to build your dream gallery, but with so many options, it might be challenging to pick the best one.
You should take into account price, speed, built-in effects, overall quality, and versatility when choosing the best gallery plugins for your WordPress website. This WordPress Wednesday is a summary of my top picks to assist you in selecting the ideal WordPress gallery plugin.
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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.