Ever wanted to include a slideshow of content on your website. This can help showcase multiple options at the users’ disposal, which can they browse through very quickly. However, if you are running a website with WordPress, then it is sad to point out that the CMS doesn’t have native support for the technology. But at the same it, it can be easily integrated by using a WordPress plugin.
Why Do You Need a WordPress Slider Plugin On Your Website?
Sliders can make your website all the more engaging, fun, and interactive. You can take advantage of the technology and showcase users’ featured content that might have otherwise slipped their attention. Sliders can also make your site more vibrant and feel more animated when compared to bland websites made with simple text and images.
But with that being said, sliders aren’t useful for all types of websites and might even harm your UX in some cases. The best way to utilize sliders is for purposes of giving a product tour, showcasing your photo galleries, displaying your portfolios and the likes. As you can see, it is most useful for business related purposes.
Now if this is something that interests you, then you should consider installing a WordPress slider plugin today. And in fact, to help with your choice, we have included a short list of the 12 Best Slider Plugins for WordPress. So without further ado, let’s get started:
The Best Slider Plugins for WordPress
1. MetaSlider
MetaSlider WordPress plugin gives you access to a powerful set of tools to create feature rich SEO-optimized slideshows for your website. You will get a drag and drop interface with direct access to the WordPress Media library, from where you can easily select images, and place them on your slider. You will even get options to attach captions, add links, and provide metadata for each element in the slider.
Features:
- 4 different slideshow types: Flex Slider 2, Nivo Slider, Responsive Sliders, and Coin Slider.
- 11 professionally designed slideshow themes.
- Unsplash integration gives you access to millions of free photos.
- Support for drag and drop slider reordering.
- Option to include metadata to create SEO optimized slideshows.
- Shortcode and widget support.
And much more.
2. Smart Slider 3
Smart Slider 3 is one of the most powerful and intuitive WordPress slider plugins in the market. You will get access to a bunch of slider templates which you can use as a base for creating your slideshows. On top of this, you will get a drag and drop interface to help you tweak the templates to your liking. The plugin also supports layers to help make the slideshows even more unique and grandiose.
Features:
- Content Slide builder with access to 10 slider templates.
- Canvas Slide builder with support for layers.
- Plenty of customization control.
- Mobile-friendly with support for touch controls.
- Sliders can be used to showcase different content including images, videos, and posts.
- Compatible with popular page builder plugins like Elementor page builder, Divi, SiteOrigin, and so on.
And much more.
3. Slide Anything
Slide Anything WordPress Slider plugin can help you create sliders and carousels to showcase all type of content including videos, images, text, basic HTML files, and even shortcodes. It also makes use of the OWL Carousel 2 jQuery plugin to help you create mobile-friendly sliders with support for touch input.
Features:
- Helps integrate OWL Carousel 2 jQuery carousel and slider builder on your WordPress website.
- Support for lazy loading images.
- Infinite looping slideshows.
- Awesome transition effects.
- Option to attach a hover-over link button to each slide in the slideshow.
- Mobile-friendly sliders with touch and drag support.
- Get access to modal popups, hero slider, thumbnail pagination, and showcase carousels. (premium)
And much more.
4. Master Slider
Master Slider is another popular WordPress slider plugin that can help you create responsive touch sliders for your website. You will get access to an intuitive users panel from where you get to create awesome slideshows for your website, all of which are responsive, and SEO optimized. The plugin also acknowledges and utilizes all WordPress best practices to deliver optimized performance with hardware accelerated transition effects.
Features:
- 8 professional designed slider templates to help you start out.
- Over 6 different interactive slide transition effects.
- Hardware accelerated CSS3 3D transforms.
- Built-in cache boosting.
- Extremely intuitive with support for drag and drop slider creation.
- Support for CSS3 transitions and jQuery fallback.
- Over 30 new slider templates. (premium)
- Animated layers. (premium)
- Support for different transition effects including parallax swiping. (premium)
And much more.
5. Slider Carousel
Slider Carousel is a simple and easy to use WordPress Slider plugin fitted with all necessary features and functionalities to help you quickly create working sliders for your website. You can attach images, add posts, include pages, and even showcase templates using the slider plugin. Shortcode support is also included so that you can easily add the sliders almost anywhere on your WordPress website.
Features:
- Option to create unlimited sliders with unlimited images and layers.
- Drag and Drop slider creation support.
- Support for three different layout styles – boxed, full-screen and full-width.
- Offers super smooth hardware accelerated CSS3 transitions with jQuery fallback.
- Fully responsive and mobile-friendly.
- Add video, lightbox, and slideshow effects. (premium)
And much more.
6. Video Slider
As you can guess by the name, Video Slider will help you create sliders for showcasing videos on your website. The WordPress slider plugin comes equipped with a full set of features that will help you easily create slideshows, and also adds support for different video sources including YouTube videos, Vimeo, Vevo, and self-hosted MP4 files.
Features:
- Drag and drop enabled slider creation interface.
- Smooth CSS3 animations with jQuery fallback.
- Plenty of customization options.
- Support for different slideshow effects. (premium)
- Automatic Image Cropping. (premium)
And much more.
7. Ultimate Responsive Image Slider Plugin
Here we have a WordPress slider plugin solely devoted to helping showcase image slideshows on your website in the best light possible. The plugin not only allows you to create infinite image slides but also allows you to add as many images you like using multiple image uploaders. It even throws in a bunch of customization options to adjust the look and feel of the sliders to complement your site’s aesthetics.
Features:
- Multiple image uploaders
- Option to create and add unlimited image sliders.
- Plenty of customization options to tweak the look and feel of the sliders.
- Shortcode support.
And much more.
8. Slider by Nivo
Nivo is by far the best jQuery WordPress Slider plugin in the market. It sports an intuitive easy to use interface which allows you to easily create post sliders, image carousels, and homepage slideshows, right from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard. All slideshows are responsive and optimized for mobile viewing.
Features:
- Option to create sliders from categories, galleries and sticky posts.
- Support for plenty of custom themes.
- Ability to build carousels, and lightboxes.
- A premium version is available with more advanced functionalities.
And much more.
9. Slider by 10Web
Slider by 10Web offers an easy to use interface to help you create responsible and functional sliders on your WordPress website. You will get access to a drag and drop enabled interface to help you create sliders and add layers. The plugin also seamlessly integrates with your WordPress Media Gallery, so you can attach images in a matter of few clicks.
Features:
- Drag and drop slide creation with support for layers.
- Support for video sliders and wide sliders.
- Option to add multiple text, images, video, media, social and hotspot layers. (premium)
- Plenty of customization options with over 27 transition effects. (premium)
- Support for carousels, parallax sliders, and post slideshows. (premium)
- Responsive sliders optimized for mobile viewing.
- SEO optimized.
And much more.
10. Slider by Soliloquy
Soliloquy allows you to create beautiful responsive sliders for your WordPress website in a matter of minutes. The WordPress Slider plugin gives you access to a drag and drop interface which you can use to create slideshows for your images and videos. It also capitalizes on all the latest coding practices to deliver optimized web and server performance.
Features:
- Drag and drop enabled responsive slider builder.
- Comes with many pre-made slider templates.
- Plenty of customization options.
- Lightbox support.
- Access to carousels, dynamic sliders, Instagram sliders, and much more.
- Unique transition effects.
And much more.
11. Crelly Slider
Crelly Slider is a responsive WordPress Slider plugin to help you create mobile-friendly slideshows for your website. The plugins give you access to a simple and easy to use drag and drop interface which you can use to create slideshows for text, images, videos, and so on.
Features:
- User-friendly user panel to help you create and customize sliders.
- Drag and drop slider builder.
- Support for a huge array of animations and transition effects.
- Full and fixed width modes.
- Fully open source and developer-friendly.
And much more.
12. WP Responsive Recent Post Slider
And now for the final entry in our list, we have WP Responsive Recent Post Slider. As you can guess by the name, the plugin allows you to create sliders to showcase all the recent posts published on your website to create awareness amongst your users. You will even get access to a dedicated Gutenberg Block, so you can easily embed the sliders using the WYSIWYG editor.
Features:
- Create slideshows for your recently published posts.
- Four different design styles for the slider.
- Recent post slider with 25 different design variations. (premium)
- Recent post carousel with 30 different design variations. (premium)
- Recent post grid box with 8 different design variations. (premium)
- Shortcode support.
- Comes with a dedicated Gutenberg block.
And much more.
In Conclusion
So these were our top picks for the 12 Best Slider Plugins for WordPress in the market. Do let us know if you found this read to be helpful, and which WordPress slider plugin you picked for your website and why.
Also, if any user has used the plugins mentioned here on the list, then you are welcome to share your experience with your fellow readers. Your insight will be highly appreciated, and it might even help a user find the right plugin for their personal project.
In case you may also interested in creating a image gallery on your site, Here is our hand-picked list of the best image gallery plugins.