5 Best WordPress Gallery Plugins Available in the Market: A Hands-on Comparison

Congratulations on creating your website on WordPress, whether for your clothing business, travel blog, or photography portfolio. You've achieved a significant milestone! However, is your website exactly what you envisioned? Do you open it and feel everything is as you wanted? Or do you find that something is lacking?

We hope your website meets your expectations, but it's worth examining where things might have gone awry if it doesn't. Perhaps you're using WordPress's built-in photo gallery, which can be rather basic and uninspiring. In this article, we will introduce you to some of the latest WordPress gallery plugins that have the potential to transform your website, making it even more impressive and functional.

Why Should You Install a Photo Gallery Plugin on Your WordPress Site? 

The default WordPress gallery is functional but lacks aesthetics and advanced features. It's limited to the basics and can quickly become mundane. You've invested significant effort in creating your website and want to maximize its impact. You should aim for higher click-through rates and more views, but achieving this requires extra effort.

Your website should be visually appealing and user-friendly. This can be achieved with the help of a WordPress photo gallery plugin. Nearly every website incorporates images and relies on WordPress photo gallery plugins to showcase them in the most visually pleasing and effective manner.

5 Best WordPress Gallery Plugins 

1. FooGallery

FooGallery, developed by FooPlugins, is a notable Freemium WordPress photo gallery plugin. It offers a range of impressive features that enable you to create various layouts. The premium version unlocks additional benefits like premium support and software updates.

This plugin focuses on providing a user-friendly experience, offering retina-ready and responsive layouts while optiming your site for speed.

FooGallery offers a multitude of customization options, making it a top choice. It fully supports video galleries and album creation, catering to beginners and experienced users.

One standout feature is the use of the built-in media library, which streamlines content access and management with attractive templates. If you're looking for a versatile and feature-rich gallery solution, FooGallery is definitely worth trying out!

2. NextGen

NextGen Gallery sets itself apart from other WordPress gallery plugins with its unique features. It comes with its own media library, which means you don't have to clutter your WordPress media library with thousands of images. Instead, NextGen provides its directory infrastructure, allowing you to keep your photos organized and neatly arranged.

While NextGen offers a free plugin, its features are quite limited, offering only three gallery styles – thumbnail, slideshow, and image browser. With paid plans, you gain access to a wider range of gallery styles and powerful e-commerce functionality. It's also the only plugin that can handle the automated shipping of printed photos to your customers through a fulfillment print lab, making it easy to distribute photos to your fans without the hassle of printing them yourself. Pricing for NextGen Gallery's paid plans starts at $21 per year for one website. 

3. Modula

Modula has emerged as a current top choice for a WordPress photo gallery plugin, and it's gaining popularity for good reason. This user-friendly gem from Macho Themes is truly exceptional.

It's a perfect blend of creativity and modernity, offering you the flexibility to customize your gallery to your heart's content. With its array of customization tools, you can effortlessly craft eye-catching videos and photos.

One standout feature is the ability to resize your images within Modula themes while maintaining their aspect ratios, length, and width to suit your preferences. Simply switch from 'creative gallery' to 'custom grid' to accomplish this. The introductory plan, known as the Starter, is priced at $39 and is designed for single-site usage. With this plan, you receive a lightbox feature that enhances the viewing experience for your website visitors.

4. Envira Gallery

Much like WordPress's built-in image gallery, Envira Gallery seamlessly integrates with the Gutenberg block editor. When you wish to include a gallery in your post or page, simply add a block and select Envira Gallery. Once you've uploaded your photos, you can easily rearrange them, configure settings, and create a visually stunning gallery.

Envira Gallery is not only responsive but also mobile-friendly, ensuring that anyone viewing your photos can appreciate them, regardless of their device. Beginners will appreciate its user-friendly interface, seamlessly blending with the WordPress backend. Making changes is a breeze and doesn't require any complex coding.

For advanced users, there's the option to use the template tag, making it effortless to incorporate the gallery into any WordPress theme they're developing.

Envira Gallery operates on a freemium model. The free version, Envira Gallery Lite, provides basic functionality right out of the box but is limited to displaying a single-column gallery, with advanced customization options disabled. For enhanced features, pricing varies depending on the number of sites and desired functionalities. The Basic plan, allowing gallery creation for one site, costs $29 per year. The highest-tier plan, Lifetime, is ideal for professionals, offering the license for unlimited sites at $299 per year.

Conclusion:

Capturing your visitor's attention takes only seconds, and losing it can happen in the blink of an eye. If your WordPress gallery plugin lacks the necessary features, your photos may never realize their full potential.

To maximize the beauty of your photographs, we've thoroughly reviewed five of the top-rated gallery plugins to see if they live up to the hype. FooGallery plugin stands out as the best choice for most users due to its extensive range of pricing options. It strikes a perfect balance between simplicity and functionality.