Welcome to our free WordPress plugin for creating slideshows.
This plugin makes it easy to create beautiful slideshows in your WordPress site. It’s simple, intuitive, and powerful. You can use the plugin to create a basic slideshow with just a few clicks, or you can customize it to fit your exact needs. You can also change the style of the slideshow with one click!
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Free WordPress Plugin For Slideshow
We all know how powerful images can be. Considering that, web designers have been using images to grab user attention in many different ways. One of the most common ways of presenting images on your website is through slideshows.
Slideshows make your website more dynamic and lively compared to a static image on a website. They are attractive and appealing to users. A slideshow can thus make or break your website.
Now, if you’ve got a WordPress site, we’ve got good news for you.
WordPress has a wide range of slideshow plugins available that you can choose from. Some of them are free, while some are premium. In this article, we will discuss some of the best free WordPress slider plugins for 2022. You can create compelling slideshows for your site using any of the plugins listed below.
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Why Use a WordPress Slideshow Plugin?
As an old saying goes, it’s better to show than to tell. Slideshows help you showcase your content and highlight them to the users. People tend to remember things better when they see them.
According to which pictures are more likely to be remembered than words, there’s even a concept called the Picture Superiority Effect. Not just pictures, you can present video, text, shortcodes, and even HTML blocks in these slideshows.
All well-designed sliders can engage visitors like nothing. You can also highlight featured posts using sliders. Special offers or information can be shared through sliders, too, as it instantly grabs users’ attention.
Without further ado, let’s dive in and check out the 11 best free WordPress slider plugins.
Best Free Slider Plugins for WordPress
- Depicter
depicter slider plugin
Released in 2022, Depicter is the next generation of WordPress sliders developed by the Averta team, which has a good experience with sliders.
Depicter has a modern interface with the purpose of creating a slider easier and faster with cutting-edge technology, and you can have complete control to make your slider responsive the way you like. In addition, it does take care of the SEO factors and make your slider an SEO-friendly slider.
Features
Fully Responsive and SEO optimized
Many templates to import
Full-screen, full-width, and boxed layout
Stock, images, videos, shapes, text blocks, etc.
Fancy slide effects
Overlay layer for free
Support videos, YouTube, Vimeo, localhost even on mobile
Elementor compatible
Mobile touch-friendly
Lightweight
DOWNLOAD LINK
- Meta Slider
MetaSlider WordPress Plugin
Meta Slider is the slider that ranks at the top of our rankings. It is lightweight and easy to use, making it an ideal choice for all. The slider is also SEO optimized for better search engine results.
This plugin has a clean and intuitive interface suitable for anyone to use. Features like intelligent image cropping and drag-and-drop reordering make it further easy to set up a slideshow. You can set the captions, links, and SEO fields all from one page.
The MetaSlider includes four different types of slideshows:
Flex Slider 2: It is responsive and has 2 transition effects.
Nivo Slider: Highly responsive and has 16 transition effects.
Responsive Slide: Lightweight and responsive
Coin Slider: 4 transition effects.
Features
Simple and easy-to-use interface
Responsive and SEO optimized slide shows
Full-width slideshow support
Intelligent Image Cropping
Set image crop position
WordPress multisite compatible
Fully localized
Import/Export Slideshows
DOWNLOAD LINK
- Smart Slider 3
Smart Slider 3 WordPress Plugin
If you’re looking for a fully responsive slider, SEO optimized, and compatible with all WordPress themes, the Smart Slider 3 is an ideal choice for you. Create slides using Smart Slider 3 and tell your story in your way.
The Smart Slider 3 comes with a live slide editor that provides you with an interface that lets you create slides fast and efficiently. The plugin also offers unique layouts and layers. You can use the layers to enhance your slider and make it stand out from the rest. Each element can be controlled using the customization options available.
The Smart slider is also responsive and mobile-friendly, considering the increasing number of mobile users. You can start by picking a sample template or a blank slider. Moreover, powerful features like Page Builder Support, Customizable controls, Slide Library, and more give you all good reasons to get the Smart Slider3 for your WordPress site.
Features
Import and export sliders
Intuitive interface
Static Overlay
Full-width and boxed responsive layout
Slide background animations
SEO optimized
Layer snap-in visual slide editor
Adaptive layer font sizing
Slide thumbnail image
WordPress multisite compatible
DOWNLOAD LINK
- Crelly Slider
Crelly Slider WordPress Plugin
Crelly Slider is a clean and elegant plugin that is easy to use and is power-packed with the latest features. For those who want to highlight the content in a post or page, Crelly Slider is an excellent option to opt for.
First and foremost, the Crelly Slider comes with a user-friendly admin panel. Even if you’ve zero knowledge of coding, you will find it easy to use the admin panel in Crelly Slider. The soldier is cross-browser compatible, too, meaning you can access the slider from any browser.
Building a slide with Crelly Slider is more accessible than ever; you can drag and drop any elements and place them in the slider area. You can set transitions and animations for each element using the simple selection menu. Moreover, the plugin is responsive, meaning the slider is displayed perfectly despite the screen size.
Depending on your needs, you can choose between a fixed and full-width layout.
Features
User-friendly admin panel
Easy to use
High cross-browser compatibility
Drag and Drop builder
Transitions and animations
Highly responsive
Full and fixed-width modes
DOWNLOAD LINK
- Soliloquy
Soliloquy Free WordPress Plugin
Soliloquy is one of the best free slider plugins for WordPress that lets you create attractive sliders for your website. This plugin enables you to develop outstanding sliders within a few minutes with its inbuilt drag and drop builder.
With this plugin, you can add responsive images and videos to your sliders, enhancing the user experience. No matter what device you use to access the site, you will always have an uninterrupted browsing experience.
Besides, this plugin is highly optimized for speed and performance. Not only that, but it is also optimized for SEO, which means your content ranks high in search engines. If you like to add additional features, you can use any of the 10+ addons that let you add features like carousel, lightbox, custom CSS, and more.
This plugin has numerous transition effects that you can add to your slides. Furthermore, you can use templates and extend or customize slides to fit your needs.
Features
Supports Guttenberg Blocks
Well-designed templates for customization
Highlights featured content
Supports Woocommerce
Create Lightbox and Carousel
Super fast and lightweight
100% responsive and mobile-friendly
Drag and Drop builder
DOWNLOAD LINK
- Slider Revolution
Slider Revolution WordPress Plugin
Slider Revolution is a revolutionary plugin when it comes to slider plugins for a WordPress site. You can build sliders with advanced features adding an unlimited number of layers and separate animation for each layer.
Sliders from the Slider Revolution help create fantastic-looking websites that can grab visitors’ attention instantly. This plugin is easy to use, even for those who do not have any coding knowledge.
The plugin offers several pre-made templates that you can use to get started with your project right away. You can also use the drag and drop builder that is user-friendly and intuitive. Other features like Lazy Loading, SEO optimization, and loaded core file size further make the Slider Revolution stand out from its competitors.
Features
Works fast and more efficiently
Eye friendly dark interface
In-depth animation settings
Premade layer groups
Quick style layer presets
Search and highlight the option
2000+ elements object library
20+ powerful addons
Excellent support
DOWNLOAD LINK
- Slider by 10Web
Slider by 10Web WordPress Plugin
Slider by 10Web is a powerful plugin for anyone looking to create beautiful slide shows easily and fast. It lets you add fast-loading, responsive, and SEO-friendly sliders to any pages, posts, theme header, or any other location.
This plugin supports videos and images and also lets you add transition effects. The style and design can be customized, including text size, navigation buttons, loading icon, etc. Adding a slider is equally easy with the short codes available.
The good thing about the slider by 10Web is you can add your improvements as the slider supports custom CSS. You can add extra elements like music, timer bar, watermark, bullets, etc., to spice things up.
Features
Unlimited slides and slider
Multiple layers
Multiple transitions and layer effects
Image Watermarking
Social Sharing Buttons
Parallax and Carousel support
Slider export/import
Settings/ Customization
DOWNLOAD LINK
- Master Slider
MetaSlider WordPress Plugin
Master Slider is a powerful, free, and responsive slider that supports both images and video slider. It is SEO-friendly and supports smooth hardware accelerated transitions. Unlike any other plugin, Master Slider supports touch navigation with a pure swipe gesture.
There are 8 starter templates that you can choose to get started fast and easily. Since Master Slider is built using standard coding practices, it is robust and intuitive. It is cross-browser compatible, which means it works on any browser. It is also one of the most SEO-friendly plugins on the market.
Likewise, the interface is easy to use with a drag and drop option. To make your sliders more dynamic and interactive, Master Slider comes with 6+ interactive slide transitions. Moreover, it also supports CSS3 transitions with jQuery fallback.
Features
Excellent SEO-optimization
Easy to use interface
Fully responsive and mobile-friendly
Lightweight
HTML 5 valid and clean markups
Touch Swipe navigation
24 hours support
Smart Loading Assets
Loop and Linear Sliding
Exclusive widgets and shortcodes
DOWNLOAD LINK
- Slide Anything
Slide Anything PRO WordPress Plugin
Slide Anything is another efficient yet straightforward slider plugin. With Slide Anything, you can create sliders that support any content from images, text, HTML, and even short codes. You can add exciting effects and transitions too.
Owl Carousel 2 jQuery plugin powers the Slide Anything plugin. Sliders you create using this plugin are beautiful and responsive. You can specify the breakpoints for different screen sizes. Additionally, the plugin comes with touch and drag support, which enhances your browsing experience.
Slide Anything works like a charm on any popular browser as it uses hardware acceleration with CSS3 translated transitions. The lazy loading feature lets you load images of slides only when the relevant slide is displayed. Furthermore, the plugin supports new transition effects, including Slide, Fade, Zoom in, Zoom out, Rotate, Bounce, and much more.
Features
Touch and Drag support
Fully responsive
Supports all major browsers
Lazy Load
Infinite Looping
Slide Link Feature
Cool transition effects
Rearrangement facility
DOWNLOAD LINK
- Block Slider
Block Slider WordPress Slider Plugin
Here’s the Block Slider that makes creating sliders easier like never before. Unlike any other plugin, Block Slider lets you create sliders using the Gutenberg editor, one of the classic editors for WordPress.
The block editor is a flexible editor that does not limit you to specific elements and layout for your sliders. It gives you the freedom to add Gutenberg blocks as your slide’s content. This lightweight plugin does not use extra resources and works within the Gutenberg Editor.
With Block Slider, you get a built-in animator block. Put your content inside the animator block, and apply the animation you like. To further ease the process of creating sliders, this plugin provides you with ready-to-use slider templates.
Features
Power-Packed with Gutenberg Editor
Easy to use
Simple and intuitive
Built-in animator block
Ready to use slider templates
DOWNLOAD LINK
- SlideDeck
SlideDeck Responsive WordPress Slider Plugin
Lastly, we have the Slide Deck slider plugin. Slide Deck is a powerful and easy-to-use plugin. The best thing is you do not need to write a single line of code to build a slider that stands out from other sliders.
This plugin lets you create responsive sliders that work great on all devices. You can create a full-width slider and highlight your content easily. Users can also swipe slides using simple touch navigation. Other than that, there are 50+ transitions to style your slide as you like.
One of the unique features in the SlideDeck slider is that it allows content sourcing, which means you can pull content from social media websites like YouTube, Vimeo, etc. You can customize every element of your slider, including colors, fonts, and font sizes.
Features
Responsive sliders
Full-width slider
Touch Swipe Slider
50+ slider transitions
Custom Colors and Typography
Custom Slide Navigation Styles
Content source options
30+ premade design templates
SEO friendly and cross-browser compatible
Excellent support
DOWNLOAD LINK
Frequently Asked Questions
What should you look for in a slider plugin?
While looking for a slider plugin, there are a few things you need to consider. These include ease of use, features, design, layout, and support. Look for all these aspects in a slider and plugin and check to see if it fits your needs.
How to choose the best slider plugin?
Choosing the best slider plugin becomes when there are so many options out there. Some plugins have highly advanced features, while some are extremely easy to use. Thus, every plugin has its pros and cons. When looking for the best slider plugin, choose the one that fits your business idea and the website design. Just because a plugin is filled with features doesn’t mean it is the best for you, so look closely.
Which slider plugin should you choose for your website?
We recommend the Meta Slider plugin. It is a highly lightweight plugin that is highly optimized for better SEO ranking. It is easy to use and offers four different options for slideshows. It is the modern plugin that fits all.
If you need countless features and trustworthy plugins, then you can rely on Soliloquy years ahead. Soliloquy is a popular slider plugin that comes in both a free and a premium version. It is also optimized for speed and performance.
Conclusion
Well, that’s it. That’s the list of the 11 best free WordPress slider plugins. Hopefully, you have found the right slider plugin that suits your website. Though all of these sliders are exceptional, you should always choose what goes well with your business idea and the website’s design.
Do let us know about your experience of using these slider plugins in the comment section below.
If you’re just starting with WordPress blogs, you can take a look at the following resources:
Best WordPress SEO Plugins
Best WordPress Image Optimizer Plugin
best carousel plugin wordpress free
I have a love-hate relationship with WordPress slider plugins. On the one hand, they’re great for adding flare and displaying extra content without having to give away extra real estate on your home page.
At the same time, most slider plugins are slow, clunky, and just a pain to work with. Over the years, I’ve tried dozens of slider plugins available to WordPress, and there are only a small number that are well-coded, fast, visually attractive, and highly customisable.
Below, in descending order, is a list of the best WordPress slider plugins, ordered from best to worst.
1 Soliloquy
After trying all of the options in this post and many more, Soliloquy is my go-to slider plugin. It’s coded incredibly well and makes the least HTTP requests out of all the sliders I’ve tried (reducing the impact on page speed). It’s responsive, really easy to use, and has lots of flexibility to customise how you use it.
Soliloquy
What’s most impressive about Soliloquy is how they’ve thought about everything you could ever want from a slider – and built it. Not only have they nailed the basics, such as being able able to edit the slider size, ensuring it’s SEO friendly, and accepting multiple formats for the image captions. They’ve also made sure that everything in the slider is translation ready, compatible with touch-swipe enabled devices, has API support for embedding videos directly from Vimeo and YouTube, and much more.
Price: $19
Download
2 Revolution Slider
I use Revolution Slider a lot, just because most of the websites I build use WordPress themes from Themeforest – and they often include this plugin. It’s hard to say anything bad about it – while not quite as heavily customisable or well-coded as Soliloquy, it’s still very good compared to most of the buggy free and cheap sliders.
Revolution Slider
Revolution Slider’s compatible with most plugins, including WPML (a translation plugin), WPMS (WordPress Multi-Site), and more. This plugin is also available in jQuery-only, Prestashop, and Concrete5 versions for those not using WordPress.
Price: $19
Download
3 Smart Slider 2
Smart Slider 2 is another good responsive WordPress slider – and is what we used to use on the Venture Harbour home page. This plugin is well-coded and is compatible with most browsers, including IE7. The customisation options on Smart Slider are very powerful, and include hundreds of Google Webfonts, and more transitions and styles than you could ever need.
Smart Slider
Smart Slider 2 is also one of the few slider plugins that also works with Joomla and Magento sites. It’s also extremely good value at just $19 for a one-off license.
Price: $19
Download
4 Meta Slider
Meta Slider is a beautiful WordPress slider plugin with a really easy to use backend. At $19 per license, it’s an affordable option with lots of customisability. As you’d expect, it’s fully responsive, optimised for SEO, and enables HTML overlays. This is also one of the best options for video integration.
Meta Slider
Price: $19
Download
5 Nivo Slider
The selling point of the Nivo Slider is how beautiful it looks. If you want incredible transition effects and retina-ready display, while remaining lightweight and well-coded, this is the option to go for.
Nivo Slider
This slider is completely open source, meaning that it’s been developed on by a whole community of developers who’ve contributed to iron out as many bugs as possible. What’s left is a near-immaculate slider that’s fast, secure, and beautiful.
Price: $29
Download
6 SlideDeck
SlideDeck is one of the most popular WordPress sliders, and has some of the most attractive ‘lenses’, making it really easy to get whatever look and feel you’re after from your slider.
SlideDeck
SlideDeck supports dynamic content sources, so you can automatically pull in frehs content from feeds and APIs of sites including Flickr, YouTube, Pinterest, and more. You can, of course, also add content manually through the visual WordPress editor, or using shortcodes.
SlideDeck costs $49 for installation on one site, which is a tad on the pricey side for a WordPress slider, but might be worth it for some.
Price: $49
Download
7 Easy Parallax Slider
Easy WP Parallax Slider is a beautiful slider built with CSS3 and jQuery. While not the fastest or best coded slider featured here, the parallax feature is what sets it apart. If you’re looking for a parallax effect and don’t want to pay for Revolution or Smart Slider, then this is a good option – but it’s not nearly as well-built as those above.
Price: Free
Download
8 WP Orbit Slider
WP Orbit is a jQuery Slider that uses custom post types and taxonomies to display content in a slider. This isn’t the fastest or most customisable slider, and it also hasn’t been updated for a long time, so I’d only recommend this one if you must use jQuery – and if none of the other jQuery-based sliders work for you.
WP Orbit Slider
Price: Free
Download
9 Responsive 3D Slider
Responsive 3D Slider isn’t the most attractive WordPress slider out there, but it does the job. Fully compatible with all major browsers and devices, this slider is a good choice from a technical perspective. Installation and integration is based on shortcodes, making it easy for non-coders to add it to their site.
Price: Free
Download
10 Easing Slider
Easing Slider is a premium WordPress slider with a free ‘lite’ version. While the lite version is limited in terms of customisability, it’s a nice lightweight slider that won’t impact your page load speed (the slider adds a total 16kb to your page size once minified), thanks to the use of CSS3 transitions and efficient use of Javascript.
Screen Shot 2014-04-20 at 12.33.04
Price: Free
Download
11 Smooth Slider
Smooth Slider is an image and content slider with customisable slide intervals, transition effects, and support for displaying recent posts using featured images. The slider has an intuitive user interface that requires no knowledge of PHP, CSS, or HTML. That said, there is the option to add custom stylesheets if you do know a thing or two about CSS.
Price: Free
Download
12 Wow Slider
WOWslider’s selling point is that it’s a slider designed for non-coders. With a drag and drop interface, this fully responsive slider is really intuitive and has a good variety of transitions, and image effects. While nowhere near as fast or well-coded as some of the premium ones listed above, it does the job and won’t kill your page load time.
Price: Free
Download
13 vSlider
If you’re looking for a free WordPress slider that hosts an unlimited number of image sliders, then the VibeThemes slider is a good pick. This slider gets a lot of good feedback, and is generally one of the faster and better quality free image sliders.
Price: Free
Conclusion
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