7 Best WordPress Slider Plugins

Depicter

Depicter is a new WordPress slider with an impressive visual builder that you will love instantly. It comes packed with many free pre-made templates to make any kind of slider design. There are two versions of Depicter plugin – free and premium. The free version still has powerful tools to create content with pixel-perfect precision. It lets you manage, control, and customize responsive layouts using the built-in options. The pro version gives you advanced customization options for creating professional sliders.

Main Features:

• Massive assets library
• Powerful drag & drop live editor
• 150+ free pre-made slider templates
• Responsive layouts for all device types
• Supports video content and dynamic post sources
• Lightweight and SEO-friendly
• Free version is awesome

Pricing – Free, Pro Yearly ($39)

Meta Slider

It is one of the most extensively used WordPress slider plugins and is very simple to create a slide show with it. Simply select images from your WordPress Media Library, drag and drop them, set the slide captions, and links, add SEO fields and you are done. You can select from 4 different slideshow types – Flex Slider, Nivo Slider, Coin Slider, and Responsive Slides. It lets you use the shortcode to embed the slideshow into any part of the website.

One feature that stands out in Meta Slider compared to Smart Slider 3 is the performance. Meta Slider also works seamlessly with popular page builders like Elementor and Beaver Builder, making it easy for users to add custom sliders to Elementor pages and posts. This can be a great advantage as Elementor free version doesn’t come with a slider.

Main Features:

• Four slider types (Flex, Nivo, Coin, and Responsive slides)
• Simple interface
• Touch navigation for mobile devices
• Lightweight and optimized for fast performance
• Basic configuration options like timing, and autoplay.

Pricing – Free, Pro Yearly ($39.5)

Smart Slider 3

Smart Slider 3 is a smart WordPress slider plugin that lets you create sliders with ease. The best thing about this plugin is that it has a free version that works wonders. It has all the features that you need from a slider plugin. With Smart Slider, you can also add Vimeo, YouTube, and, dynamic post slides. Smart Slider 3 gives you an experience of the next-generation plugin!

Smart Slider 3 uses its built-in page builder with easy drag-and-drop features. More features include advanced animation controls, carousels, and advanced slider controls.

Main Features:

• Responsive and touch friendly
• Customizable controls –Thumbnails, Autoplay, Arrows, Bullets
• User-Friendly Editor – Anyone can build with Smart Slider. The interface comes with a drag and drop builder and live preview.
• Totally integration with WordPress plugins using shortcodes.
• Nine smooth background animations.
• Support Layers – Image, Heading, Description, Icon, and Button.
• The free version offers 15 slider designs, while the pro version is loaded with over 150 slider designs.

Pricing – Free, Pro Yearly ($49)

Slider Revolution

Slider Revolution is a popular WordPress Slider Plugin that stunningly displays your content as slides. Whether it’s a carousel, slider, or hero banner, this drag & drop editor will let you tell your own stories in a snap. We also get the Slider Revolution shortcode that works in posts, pages, and even theme templates.

Slider Revolution also supports dynamic content such as WordPress posts, Custom posts, and WooCommerce products. This is possible with the post layer feature in the editor where you get to create dynamic sliders that automatically update with your content.

Animations are another stronghold feature of this plugin that is unbeatable. The visual editor helps you add animations like fade, slide, and zoom to each layer (image, text, video, buttons) on the slider. It packs something called addons to add transitions to individual sliders for making mesmerizing slides. Advanced animation features like timing and easing are easy to manage using the visual editor.

Main Features:

• Supports video backgrounds and dynamic posts
• Interactive visual editor
• Powerful animation options
• Cool layer animations, 3D parallax effects, Ken Burns effect
• 250+ brilliantly designed templates
• Huge royalty-free assets library
• 25+ powerful addons (out of this world) for slide transitions
• Responsive layout controls and design for every device

Pricing – Yearly (35$), One-time payment (109$)

Kreatura

Do you want to make eye-catching sliders with awesome animations and effects without using any code? Kreatura (previously Layer Slider) is an excellent choice for people, web designers, developers, and agency experts. With visual editor controls that provide a customized interface, it provides stunning sliders without the need for coding knowledge.

Slideshows, sophisticated animated sliders, and hero sliders can all be easily made with Kreatura. Experience how simple it is to create hero scenes, popups, expert animations, compelling product pages, one-page templates, or even entire websites. Build websites that will make an impression on your visitors by using the powerful features of Kreatura.

The Shape Builder tool in Kreatura is an absolute game-changer for adding custom and unique shapes to your projects. Whether you’re looking to add simple or complex shapes this tool offers a vast range of options like polygons, blobs, and waves. You may even experiment with the settings to craft your own, one-of-a-kind shapes by customizing your shapes based on their size, color, and other properties, enabling you to produce eye-catching visual effects that stand out.

Kreatura provides you with the flexibility to bring your vision to life, that personalized touch to a bland looking website will create a lasting impression on your audience.

Main Features:

• 210+ Modern Templates for next-generation website designs
• Visual Transition Builder for individual slides
• Easy Shape Builder to add impressive layer effect
• 200+ Slide Transitions & special effects
• Popup support alongside sliders
• 8 layout modes to manage fixed, fullscreen

Pricing – One-time payment (74$)

Master Slider

Master Slider comes in two versions: a free version and a premium version. This slider still performs exceptionally well despite the introduction of its prospective successor, the Depicter.

The premium version gets all the advanced features like cool effects, 90+ premium slider templates, woocommerce sliders, animated layers, video support and transitions. Although the free version is feature-limited, it’s an excellent plugin for beginners looking for a decent slider plugin. Also, it includes eight free slider templates to speed up your design process. If you need a cost effective and powerful slider then go with Master slider.

Main Features:

• Drag and Drop style editor
• Realtime preview with seeker
• Visual Transition Editor
• Smooth slide transitions and special effects
• 90+ premium sliders
• Hotspots and dynamic content support
• Smart preloading to optimized delivery
• SEO friendly code output

Pricing – One-time payment (34$)

Soliloquy

Get ready to transform the content on your website with the Soliloquy slider! This is a well-known WordPress plugin that makes it easy to create customisable and responsive sliders without the need for coding, regardless of your level of experience.

Soliloquy includes a plethora of features and possibilities for creating dynamic presentations using photos, videos, and post content. You can create gorgeous sliders that represent your business and captivate your audience using drag-and-drop capabilities, pre-built templates, and custom CSS support.

Soliloquy stands out from competitors because it focuses on performance and SEO.

Main Features:

• Drag and Drop for slider generation
• Mobile friendly design that looks great on all devices
• 15 Pre-Built demo designs
• Supports sources like WooCommerce, custom post types, pdf & social media feeds
• Slider supports carousel, slideshows & lightbox

Pricing – Free, Yearly Multi (44$), Yearly Dev (89$), One-time payment (209$)

Conclusion

If you need a slider plugin that will get you started for free then you have Smart Slider 3 & Depicter. If you need powerful features especially dynamic content from woocommerce, premium templates, layout control then Slider Revolution or Kreatura or Master slider or Depicter. I have picked these list from over 20+ WordPress image sliders. My personal favorite and yet the best WordPress Slider plugin, however, is Slider Revolution(its just awesome).

Personal opinions

Soliloquy is just costly (99$/yr) compared to others based on the number of features and designs. It sure boasts of high performance which I have not tested fully. I will update this topic with an in-depth review of every feature soon.

Slider Revolution is a great slider plugin no doubt, I have used them on some sites for my clients (sttoman.com). If you use too many effects it will slow down your website. But the same idea applies to any slider plugin that supports special effects like parallax, particles etc. Use it wisely. The responsive controls are just perfect, however the learning curve is a bit steep for beginners. Once you know the ins and outs you will not need any other slider plugin ever. :)

SmartSlider 3 is great for those who need a free slider for simple purposes. It does a great job of helping you design a custom slider in no time. The shortcodes wil allow to add this slider in page builders and gutenberg editors. Worth a try. This maybe the first slider most of us will try as it has a free version. When compared to meta slider (another free plugin) this one is way ahead in terms of features.

So what about Depicter? Its a bit better than Smart Slider 3 and even most sliders in the list. The free version of Depicter will get you started on advanced website projects. This is a new slider coming from the developers of the ever popular Master slider plugin. Its very popular among WordPress users(WordPress.org) as its free version has many free slider designs which many dig.