Best WordPress Gallery Plugins Compared (Free and Premium)

Introduction To Best WordPress Gallery Plugins

If you are a designer or photographer and you don’t like the default WP gallery, you will need a dedicated WordPress photo gallery plug-in to handle your images. In this article, we will give you ten great options, some free, some premium, that will allow you to share images in ways like never before. These photo gallery plugins are compatible with any WordPress theme.

Here are Our Best WordPress Gallery Plugins compared:

1. Modula Galleries
2. WP Portfolio
3. Envira Gallery
4. Jetpack Tiled Galleries
5. FooGallery
6. Photo Gallery by 10Web
7. NextGen Gallery
8. Essential Grid Galley
9. Gmedia Gallery
10. Justified Image Grid
11. Photo Gallery by Supsystic

1. Modula Image Gallery

Modula is a modern photo gallery plug-in in WordPress that offers a lot of options. It has a free version, but to get the best features, you will have to grab your wallet and get the premium version.

Modula is a very simple to use plug-in, and with it, you will be able to create great-looking photo galleries in your WordPress site in no time at all. It covers all the essentials with style, and it will give enough tools for most user needs. With Modula, you don’t need to go through a bunch of complex settings just to add a few images to your page. Yes, you can tweak settings, but only if you want to. Everything is very straightforward, and you will not need to read manuals to set up a simple gallery.

Modula galleries look great. Even on default configuration, they fit any WordPress theme. You can add multiple galleries to the same page, which is great, all of them fully responsive. There is also an option to show galleries inside WordPress widget.

There are also advanced features, visual options such as choosing hover effects, complex grids, animated captions, filters, and also social sharing. The only thing missing is eCommerce. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to sell your photos through Modula.

Overall, Modula is a great option for people who are looking to quickly set up a gallery plugin, without any needed initial configuration, and we like it because of that.

2.WP Portfolio

WP Portfolio is the perfect way to show off your work in an appealing and professional manner.
With features like customizable layouts, infinite scrolling for large galleries or videos on one page, this plugin will make sure that no detail goes unnoticed when it comes time for you to showcase what you’ve got going on!

The stunning galleries come with a lot of features such as lightbox view, mobile responsive and multiple screen options for website demos. You can create galleries for both images and videos with this plugin.

It has an easy-to-use dashboard that helps you create, customize and manage your graphic elements. It is compatible with all popular page builders like Gutenberg, Brizy, Elementor, Beaver Builder and other page builders.

It also offers shortcodes that you can add to different pages and sections. You can also easily customize them as you need. One of the best things about WP Portfolio is that the galleries are responsive to different screen sizes and different devices.

It is very lightweight in terms of code size and does not slow down your website or hurt website performance. You can also lazy load your images and video thumbnails to improve performance using this plugin.

WP Portfolio has an annual plan and a lifetime plan. Both plans come with unlimited website usage. The annual plan starts from $39 and the lifetime plan starts from $189.

3. Envira Gallery

Envira is probably the best WordPress photo gallery plug-in available today. The reason for this is its flexibility. There is a free option with a limited amount of (still good) features. But there are also so many premium add-ons that will let you create galleries just the way you want them. These include standalone galleries (with a unique URL), Lightbox gallery, custom CSS, password protection, Gallery Themes, deep links, watermarks, tags, breadcrumbs… There are also social media sharing features through Pinterest, Instagram and share buttons for the rest.

Moreover, if you are looking to sell your photos, you can do it with Envira, as it has WooCommerce integration. As for the import, you can use NextGen images but also import from Dropbox and .zip archives.

However, don’t think that because it has this many features Envira Gallery is hard to use. The interface is great and self-explanatory, and you will create a nice-looking gallery in no time at all. You can adjust the more advanced settings later. Galleries made with Envira look modern and clean, very minimalistic which is a trend in web design nowadays.

Envira Photo Gallery WordPress plugin will definitely supplement any WordPress website. While you can get it for free, we suggest you invest in a Premium version. It does cost, but it will give you so many interesting features and is well worth the money paid.

4. Jetpack Tiled Galleries

Jetpack is a great solution for different purposes. You can use it for everything, from contact forms to security. Here we mention it again, as a gallery plugin.

For users who are looking to add tiled galleries, and already have it installed on their site, Jetpack works excellently. Adding more plugins will likely slow down your site or cause errors. Why confuse things with more installations when you can use Jetpack to get the job done. This plugin also had the Gallery Widget, but from WordPress 4.9, that is included in the core, so Automattic removed it from Jetpack.

Jetpack lets you choose from three image layouts – rectangular, square, or circular. There are also options to show hover-over content, to save up space, but only in the first two layout styles. Jetpack also has Image CDN which will notably improve image load and with it page load times. If you want to dedicate a specific gallery width, you can do that through shortcodes.

As we said, you can’t expect too much from Jetpack, but if you are looking for tiled galleries, it gets the job done, and we suggest you to use it since you probably already have it on your site anyway.

5. FooGallery

 FooGallery has both a premium and a free plan. The free version will get you started, and it might be just what you need, so we suggest you to try it. FooGallery is above all very user-friendly, and if you are used to WordPress interface, you will feel right at home. Mainly because you will see a dedicated button on your WP editor, so you can quick-access it.

FooGallery supports drag and drop reordering, which will simplify the editing process, making your galleries just the way you want them, hassle-free. Also, if you are not sure where to start, you can choose one of their many templates, designed with different needs in mind.

FooGallery plugin is also Gutenberg ready. You won’t have any issues with it once you move to WordPress 5.0. It has all the favorite features like lazy loading, image pagination, Retina thumbnail support and more. The Pro version will extend the functionality by adding hover effects, infinite scroll, filtering options, advanced gallery templates and more.

FooGallery is filled with options, and we definitely suggest you checking it, as it is very flexible and fit for different purposes.

6. Photo Gallery Plugin by 10Web

Photo Gallery by 10Web (formerly WD) is another great solution that lets you create unlimited galleries with great looking layouts. You can choose one out of the seven layouts, including Carousel, Slideshow, and Mosaic. You can also include music background to your slideshows. That will make them even more fun. There are also three group layout options. All of your galleries can be placed in the widget area.

Your users can view the pictures in full size, share them on social media, and navigate through, which is optimized by 15 animation effects. You can also promote your galleries on different social channels. Or do the opposite, by embedding pictures from Instagram and Facebook on your website.

The free version of Photo Gallery plug-in by 10Web is available on the WordPress market. It will get you started, but to get the full power of the premium plugin, you will have to get your credit card.

7. NextGen Gallery WordPress Plugin

 NextGen is a powerful gallery plugin that has a rich bag of tricks. It can turn your simple blog into a beautiful piece of art. It is also the most popular with over 1.5 million active installations. With it, you can batch upload images while keeping metadata, create albums or slideshows. There are many customization options including size, the timing of the auto-advance, lightbox effects, styling and more.

You can extend the functionality with premium add-ons. There are also two NextGen premium plans, Plus, and Pro. They give you many premium add-ons as well as premium support. What’s more, NextGen gives you prospects to sell images, which is great if you are a professional photographer. You can also protect your images with watermarks, and pro versions also include image deep links. However, the free version will help you start, and we suggest starting with that one first.

8. Essential Grid Gallery

 This is a premium plugin, which you can get on the CodeCanyon market. However, for the price you pay, Essential Grid offers plenty of features. First, it lets you create not only image but also video and audio galleries. This will make your pages richer and your visitors will love it.

What’s more, Essential Grid can show albums from other plugins, like NextGen, which is very interesting. It also allows you to connect popular image solutions such as Flickr easily. Also, connect social media channels and stream images to your galleries, all of which you can show in beautiful templates, fully responsive.

There are also filtering options, to allow users to cycle through galleries themselves. Visual Skin Editor will let you customize how everything looks to your liking. But if you don’t want to bother, just choose a premade one. Essential Grid will give you an option to import and export grids, skins, and metadata. You can use those with your theme or other WordPress sites.

As you can see, this plugin has a bunch of very interesting and unique features. Because of that, it is worth the money, especially considering the affordable price. 

 You can find Gmedia Gallery on the WordPress market and download it free. But don’t let that fool you as it has a vast amount of great features. It handles not only images but audio and video too.

You can create albums, tag images for easier management. You can also import images from other plugins such as the popular NextGen, and from your WordPress Media Library. For quick control, set up automatic gallery creation. It will show fitting images with the same tags.

One interesting feature is that you can choose Gmedia items to show in the regular WordPress search, as a regular post with comments. There is also a WaveForm music player, to play audio. Gmedia Gallery is fully mobile responsive, ready for any screen size. There is also an iOS app, which will let you handle and upload images from your iPhone.

All things considered, Gmedia Gallery is a very comprehensive software. It surprises us that it offers this many features free of charge. Because of that, we warmly suggest it.

 If you are looking for horizontal photo grids, Justified Image Grid is a perfect option. Galleries will scroll from left to right, which is very natural, and won’t draw attention away from the images. Every photo will retain its original aspect ratio.

JIG will let you load images from Facebook or Flickr, and remodel NextGen galleries as well. You can add special effects to pictures, boosting their looks right inside the plugin. There are also filtering features, that will let your users find what they need quickly. Load more and infinite scroll is also included. Everything you create with JIG will be both mobile and Retina ready. Through RSS you can include the most popular social media and image sharing sites.

What’s more, the plugin is easy to use. No wonder it is one of the best selling gallery solutions on the huge Envato market. The other reason for that is the price tag, which is fair.

 With this plug-in, you can quickly create responsive photo and media galleries for your WordPress site. You can choose from different gallery types – Grid Layout, Masonry, Carousel, Post Feed, Fixed, Video, Polaroid, or Full-Width. Choose shadow presets, colors, and also the thickness of borders.

There are options to highlight images, customize border types, and add descriptions for each image. Advanced loading options like lazy load, load more and pagination are also present.

Every gallery you create with Photo Gallery by Supsystic is fully optimized for mobile devices and SEO friendly, which will boost your website’s visibility. You will push this even further by social sharing buttons. One of the great features of this plugin is CDN and image compression and optimization, to decrease the load times of your pages.

Best WordPress Gallery Plugins – Conclusion

Having images displayed with quality will boost how any website looks, and you should definitely check out and install one of the WordPress plugins we mentioned above. However, make sure you do it right. Unoptimized images can severely impact website performance. For more plugins check our best WordPress plugins article.

If your WordPress site runs slowly, or you have any issues with it, don’t delay to contact FixRunner Support. Our team of experts will make sure your website is optimized for speed, and working faster than ever before, with zero downtime. For more WordPress tutorials check our WP blog.

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