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Pictures speak louder than words, perhaps nowhere better than on a website. That’s where WordPress slider plugins come in, allowing you to do much more than display captivating images.
The best WordPress slider plugins can give your site a dynamic, interactive experience for your visitors, complete with videos, improved navigation, highlighted site content and much more.
Best WordPress Slider Plugin Winners
Are you looking for a WordPress responsive slider? We’ve got you covered. All of the plugins we’ve reviewed here are fully responsive, meaning your site’s sliders will look outstanding on any device (the slider “responds” and resizes accordingly to the screen size, from a large wide projector screen to tiny flip phone). Other features we considered in our rankings include page load speed, usability, customization options, features, tech support and more.
Before we launch into our reviews, a word of caution about page load speed when using sliders. Sliders can really slow down your site if you’re not careful with your file sizes. And slider plugins use Javascript, typically jQuery, which load separately as scripts, so this too can affect your site’s performance. All of the WordPress slider plugins included in our article have solid reputations for fast loading speeds.
Slider Revolution Review
[logotable rank=1]
Slider Revolution is the best-selling WordPress slider plugin on CodeCanyon and our number one winner. This plugin comes loaded with robust features and the ability to create stunning, dynamic sliders. You can easily pull content from WordPress posts, YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Flickr.
Slider Revolution also supports an unlimited number of layers with each slide, which allows you to stack multiple media in one place, including text, images, videos, buttons, shortcodes and HTML content. Slider Revolution has so many advanced features and custom options that it can take beginners some time to master this plugin. But their tech support gets rave reviews from users, in case you run into any problems. And their site resources are excellent for beginners and pros alike.
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Pricing
A Slider Revolution license comes with 6 months of support and future updates. You can extend support to 12 months for an additional $7.88.
- $26 for Regular License
- $120 for Extended License (allows you to sell your end product)
- One site only per license
- Buy now
LayerSlider Review
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Our number two pick, LayerSlider, could be your perfect choice if you’re looking for mind-blowing visual effects. This plugin has a great reputation for its stylish animation features. LayerSlider includes 13 unique skins and more than 200 transition effects (more than any other WP slider plugin), including 2D and 3D effects. And LayerSlider supports video, audio, featured content slides, themes and more.
You can add unlimited layers to each slide and customize just about every aspect. Like Slider Revolution, LayerSlider may not be the best choice for beginners — it’s pretty advanced and has a ton of features that can make slide creation a bit complicated if you’re new to sliders. Otherwise, this slider plugin is a fantastic choice.
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Pricing
A LayerSlider license comes with 6 months of support and future updates. You can extend support to 12 months for an additional $6.75.
- $25 for Regular License
- $125 for Extended License (allows you to sell your end product)
- One site only per license
- Buy now
Soliloquy Review
[logotable rank=3]
Soliloquy wins our number three spot as the best WordPress slider plugin. Soliloquy is an excellent choice for beginners, people who want a low-frills, easy way to set up sliders or developers who want a slider plugin for multiple websites. Although this plugin doesn’t have all the visual bells and whistles of our top two picks, Soliloquy gives you all the tools you’ll need to create slick slideshows with a lot of customization capabilities.
This plugin’s drag-and-drop builder makes it incredibly easy to create a polished slider within minutes. You can upload video from YouTube, Vimeo and Wistia and use CSS customizations, all with the basic plugin. Upgraded versions give you up to a dozen add-ons, including WooCommerce, Instagram, Pinterest and advanced effects like carousel, scheduling, the ability to disable right-click and much more. You can’t go wrong with Soliloquy if performance and ease of use are top priorities.
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Pricing
Soliloquy offers a 14-day money back guarantee. Visit their website for all license and pricing options.
| Personal | Multi | Developer | Agency | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| License Price | $19 | $49 | $99 | $249 |
| Number of Sites | 1 | 3 | 25 | Unlimited |
| Updates | 1 Year | 1 Year | 1 Year | Lifetime |
See Soliloquy In Action (Video)
Watch this brief video to see the sweet simplicity of Soliloquy’s user interface.
Other Best Slider Plugins For WordPress
We couldn’t limit our best WordPress slider plugin reviews to just three products! The following three plugins are each worthy of consideration, depending on your needs.
Meta Slider | Nivo Slider | Royal Slider
Meta Slider Review
Meta Slider packs a pretty powerful punch for a free slider plugin. Meta Slider’s free version offers four different slideshow types, combining the functionality of Flex Slider, Nivo Slider, Responsive Slides & Coin Slider plugins. This combo deal gives you touch-enabled, fully responsive sliders, carousel mode, 22 transition effects, and four unique themes, all for free.
If you want more features, Meta Slider’s Pro version gives you animated layer slides, post feed slides, video slides (supports YouTube and Vimeo), HTML slides, and thumbnail navigation. Meta Slider is a good choice for beginners or developers looking for multisite license options.
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Meta Slider offers a free version and a 30-day money back guarantee for its paid Pro versions.
| Personal | Multi-Site | Developer | |
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| License Price | $19 | $39 | $99 |
| Number of Sites | 1 | 5 | Unlimited |
| Support & Updates | 1 Year | 1 Year | Lifetime |
Nivo Slider Review
If simplicity and high performance are your top priorities, Nivo Slider could be the slider plugin for you. This plugin doesn’t support videos or other multimedia, and it’s not as feature rich as some of our other reviewed plugins.
Nivo Slider makes building and managing multiple sliders on your WordPress sites a breeze. You can add unlimited sliders into your posts and pages using a simple shortcode. And Nivo Slider gives you a host of pre-built themes, automatic image cropping,16 transition effects, ranging from slicing and sliding to fading and folding, and more.
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Pricing
- $29/year Personal License for 1 site
- $59/year Business License for 3 sites
- $99/year Company License for 30 sites
- Buy now
Royal Slider Review
Royal Slider is a popular responsive touch-enabled WordPress plugin found at CodeCanyon that gets high praise from users for its solid performance, stability and full SEO optimization.
This plugin doesn’t have all the snazzy effects you’ll get with Slider Revolution or LayerSlider, but it still supports many customizations, including a variety of slider templates, five different skins, animated blocks and more. You can even pull images directly from Flickr, Instagram, 500px, or featured posts of any type, like WooCommerce products. And Royal Slider supports YouTube and Vimeo videos.
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Pricing
A Royal Slider license comes with 6 months of support and future updates. You can extend support to 12 months for an additional $7.13.
- $23 for Regular License
- $115 for Extended License (allows you to sell your end product)
- One site only per license
- Buy now
Kick Up Your Visual Effects
There’s a ton of pressure these days to have the most interactive and visually appealing site for your visitors or customers. After all, you want that wow factor to keep their attention once they get to your site. The best WordPress slider plugins deliver on that front as well as helping you steer your audience to the most important content on your site — all for a minimal cost.
See our suggestions for other WordPress Plugins, including calendars, maps and menus.
What advice do you have for building sliders in WordPress?
Tagged With: Reviews, WordPress
