Awesome Gallery Plugins for Your Photo-Sites

Everyone using WordPress knows that it comes with a built-in gallery feature by default. But we also know that this gallery lacks some important functions and visual appeal that many users need for their photo websites. That’s why many website owners prefer installing gallery plugins to extend the functionality of standard WordPress gallery.

When choosing a gallery plugin, decide what features you require. May be you want to display more than one gallery, or probably you need animation, lightboxes, pagination, navigation or albums. Depending on your needs, choose a plugin to your taste.

Pay attention at how fast your gallery loads because it will impact the user experience of your website. Learn the demo or trial version if it’s available and check the loading speed of the gallery plugin. Check how easy your chosen plugin is to use.

We’ve found a few interesting gallery plugins for your portfolio or other related WordPress websites. All of them have different features, pros and cons, and different tasks, so just select the most suitable one for your purposes.

3D Spherical Image Gallery for WordPress

This is a unique WordPress plugin which can transform a media gallery into an interactive spherical one. The plugin allows to upload unlimited number of images, supports jpg, png, bmp and gif formats, has the auto crop and scale option as well as allows to generate a thumbnail. As the plugin works on mobile devices, touch and swipe functions are enabled. It also allows to include images by category or tag.

Pros:

This is a 3D gallery. The plugin is very easy to use. You’ll just have to activate it and configure the settings through the admin gallery. After that, you get the ready shortcode and just paste it to any page or post, that’s it.

Cons:

To assign tags or categories to media library items, you’ll have to use one of the free media library plugins. This will help you either to categorize or tag your images, and select specific categories or tags when creating 3D spherical image gallery.

PhotoCluster 1.3 | Gallery Module for Gmedia Plugin

A splash gallery for your albums, categories and tags from Gmedia library. Photocluster is a module for Gmedia which is a WordPress gallery plugin. This module is optimized for any widget area, it is responsive and mobile friendly. The module is built with Ajax, allows to play audio files, easily sort photos.

Pros:

This module allows to share either a collection or a single photo. It has a lot of settings, so you can adjust it up to your needs. It comes with optimized preloading and works on all major browsers.

Cons:

You should first buy and install Gmedia premium gallery plugin to use this module.

Zoom Gallery – WordPress Image Grid

A powerful and responsive WordPress grid gallery plugin which will help you showcase your images in the very gorgeous way. The plugin is designed with simplicity in mind, comes with lightweight and clean code, so your website will load quickly providing your visitors with amazing user experience.

Pros:

Just install the plugin and then insert the shortcode to any page or post. Zoom gallery is very easy to use.

Cons:

Compare this premium plugin with free grid gallery plugins available for WordPress.

Portfolio X – WordPress Plugin

A premium WordPress plugin for creating portfolios. It includes unique designs and lots of shapes as well as portfolio showcase and widgets. Pagination and single page for project details allows for great SEO friendliness.

Pros:

The plugin includes 16 truly unique templates to choose from. It comes with 7 portfolio showcase templates, portfolio filtering and navigation between portfolios.

Cons:

Just check the available layouts to make sure they fit the needs of your project.

Justified Image Grid – Premium WordPress Gallery

A powerful WordPress gallery plugin designed to showcase your images in a gorgeous and authentic way. Whether you are a wedding photographer, a creative designer, a talented artist or a skilled architecture expert, this gallery solution has you covered. Help your photos show their full glory.

Pros:

You can take content from recent posts, Facebook, Flickr, Vimeo, YouTube, and more. Easily share and customize your gallery and preview it using WPBakery page builder.

Cons:

Only horizontal photo grid is available. For more variations of displaying your images take a look at other similar plugins.

Conclusion:

You decide yourself what plugins suit your needs the most and what type of gallery you would like to see on your website. We’ve collected just premium plugins, but there are also a lot of free ones available for WordPress. It’s up to you what to choose, just compare their features, check out the demos and possibilities of every plugin before you buy it. You define pros and cons individually depending on what you expect from a certain product.