WordPress is an incredibly flexible, easy-to-set-up and manage web publishing platform that has been downloaded more than 60 million times since its launch in 2003. As of August 2013, WordPress is used by nearly 19 percent of the top 10 million websites. The content management system’s popularity has spawned thousands – nearly 30,000 in fact – of plugins that expand the basic functionality of WordPress. At Connect4, we routinely use 45 WordPress plugins. We use some plugins, for security, admin, and SEO, for example, on nearly every site we create.

The problem with WordPress plugins is that many of them present as much trouble as they do opportunity on a website. Not all plugins play friendly in the same sandbox. And not all plugin developers continue to provide updates for their plugins. Plugins that haven’t been updated in a year make for a security risk. So make sure you consult with your webmaster or web developer prior to installing any of these plugins. It’s always a good idea to make sure you have a backup before trying out a new plugin.

Today we take a look at the best wordpress plugins – gallery and portfolio.

Gallery & Portfolio

Awesome Gallery 

• Top priority – easy to use admin interface. No tech skills and rocket science required, just follow step by step instructions.
• 3 layout modes – horizontal flow, vertical flow and classic grid. You can read more about them below.
• 7 image sources. All most popular services included and counting
• 10 style presets
• Custom styling support
• Load more / Infinite scroll support + easily handles hundreds of images.
• Built-in lightbox
• Unique builtin support
• Responsive and Retina-ready

Next Gen Gallery

 

The Next Gen gallery is the most-used wordpress gallery. It is very common because it’s easy to use and offers the following features:

• Centralized gallery management. Enjoy a single location where you can see and manage all your galleries.
• Edit galleries. Add or exclude images, change gallery title and description, reorder of images, resize thumbnails.
• Thumbnail Management. Turn thumbnail cropping on off, customize how individual thumbnails are cropped, and bulk resize thumbnails across one more galleries.
• Edit Individual Images. Edit meta data and image tags, rotate images, exclude images.
• Watermarks. Quickly add watermarks to batches or galleries of images.
• Albums. Create and organize collections of galleries (“albums”), and display them in either compact or extended format.

Tumblr Photoset Grid/Masonry Gallery for WordPress

• Support batch upload, and convert the large image to small thumbnail via PHP automatically, help you to add a gallery in a minute, keep the gallery load fast too.
• Live preview in the backend, what you see is what you get.
• Flexibility layout, you can customize each row image number just via a number sequence.
• Responsive, works fine in the small screen device (like iPhone, iPad) too.
• You can drag the thumbnail to re-order the item easily in the backend.
• Optional padding between each image.
• Optional lightbox or image link.
• Optional slideshow and slideshow delay.
• Multiple and unlimited photoset instance on same page.
• Compatible with latest jQuery and latest WordPress.
• Enqueue the js and css only when needed. Keep WordPress page size smaller.
• You can add/edit the chart without touching the code. Customize/update the image with WordPress backend.
• FAQ and source code are included in the package. Free update in the future.

 GO – Responsive Portfolio for WP

 

This is our favorite new responsive portfolio/gallery option for WordPress sites.

• 4 default styles (FLEX, DOOR, VARIO, DELUX).
• Reponsive grid layout or horizontally slider layout (up to 10 columns).
• Flexible, percent based grid system with customizable vertical and horizontal spaces.
• Optional responsivity with custom settings.
• Huge Admin Panel with tons of options.
• Unlimited portfolios.
• Unlimited custom post types.
• Works with your existing custom post types and regular blog posts.
• WooCommerce support – Product showcase.
• Advanced post query options to show posts, setting the limit and order of the posts, filtering by taxonomies and terms.
• Different thumbnail and lightbox types:
  • Image (JPG, PNG, GIF)
  • Video (Vimeo, Youtube, Screenr, Dailymotion, Metacafe)
  • Audio (Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Beatport)
• Thumbnail and lightbox image size selecting options using your existing images.
• Thumbnail aspect ratio settings option to use the their default aspect ratio or a custom one.
• Built-in Template & Style editor with adding, editing, importing options.
• System and Google Web Font (600+ fonts) support.
• Translation ready with .mo .po files.
• Advanced Import & Export settings.
• Supports all modern browsers (including IE8).