WordPress slider: An overview of the seven best slider plugins

A slider offers the pos­sib­il­ity to present different pieces of content prom­in­ently on a website and to summarise them clearly in one module. WordPress has practical plugins that enable the user to add pro­fes­sion­al sliders to their website. We present the best WordPress slider plugins.

Sliders are well suited, for example, for prom­in­ently dis­play­ing the most important website content in the header and for linking to subpages. This means that new blog posts, shop deals, or other updated content can be ad­vert­ised at the top in an eye-catching way.

Sliders are also fre­quently used for image galleries, for example, on subpages. When using sliders, make sure that the amount of content shown in the slider is limited to what is necessary. A slider con­sist­ing of ten slides for various subpages distracts from the important content and therefore you’re missing the actual point of this form of present­a­tion.

WordPress has lots of plugins to make creating sliders a lot easier.

Plugins that can be used to create WordPress sliders differ in their func­tion­al­ity and operation depending on the provider. Good WordPress plugins should be easy to use, es­pe­cially for WordPress beginners, so that results can be achieved with just a few clicks. For this purpose, a simple in­teg­ra­tion of the plugin is just as helpful as the drag-and-drop ar­range­ment of the content.

Most important is the com­pat­ib­il­ity of the WordPress slider with the most common WordPress themes and other fre­quently used CMS plugins. Regular updates ensure that the slider also adapts to any updates these themes may need to carry out.

Image elements, due to their file size, also have a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on a website’s loading speed and therefore on search engine ranking. Therefore, WordPress slider plugins should offer ad­di­tion­al options to reduce the size of image files. This ensures that pages load quickly, which results in a positive ranking from search engines. The WordPress slider plugins presented here offer options for search engine op­tim­isa­tion. There are also other ways that you can make WordPress faster.

Ad­di­tion­ally, a WordPress slider should be re­spons­ive. This ensures that the embedded content such as photos and text are auto­mat­ic­ally scaled for different devices. There are also plugins that remove the slider, for example, when viewed on a mobile device, so that the content is displayed stat­ic­ally. This can help to direct the user’s gaze to the es­sen­tials.

A slider’s cus­tom­isa­tion options when it comes to design ensure that a slider can be in­teg­rated optically into an existing website. Many WordPress slider plugins provide design elements within a library and also allow images to be edited, for example, by cropping them directly in the slider. This makes it a lot easier to adapt them to the desired design and means there is no need for image editing programs.

The WordPress slider plugins presented here meet most of the above criteria for a good plugin.

Last updated: April 2022

With MetaSlider you get an easy-to-use plugin that even beginners can achieve good results with. The plugin is available with a limited range of functions as a free version. The most important functions such as theme editor or editing options for in­teg­rated images are included in this version. The fee-based packages start at around £32 per year and offer ad­di­tion­al functions, such as the option to embed YouTube or Vimeo content.

This means that, in addition to image galleries, thumb­nails can also be created via drag-and-drop. Video galleries can be in­teg­rated into a website as well. The free variant allows image titles and de­scrip­tions to be adapted for optimal search engine op­tim­isa­tion.

The fee-based version of the plugin is rounded off by various themes and designs you can select. This makes it easier to adapt the slides to your existing website’s design.

Slider Re­volu­tion’s plugin scores points by offering a variety of design templates and themes with which you can create graph­ic­ally appealing WordPress sliders. According to what’s written on the website, the plugin is primarily aimed at ex­per­i­enced web designers.

Slider Re­volu­tion is not available as a free plugin. Instead, you can choose between three different packages, with the cheapest one starting at around £23 per year. As usual, the number of features increases the more expensive the package.

Due to the functions that this WordPress slider plugin offers, it’s clear its target group is primarily designers. There are more than 200 templates for designs of hero elements, special effects or carousels for image galleries, a separate media library for an­im­a­tions of all kinds, and the option to adapt re­spons­ive effects to certain types of end devices. All these emphasise the focus on design aspects in the WordPress slider.

For those who mainly want to integrate a slider into their website without ad­di­tion­al gimmicks, Roy­alSlider is a good place to start. The plugin is es­pe­cially suitable for beginners, as the range of functions is reduced to a minimum.

Roy­alSlider provides a total of ten templates and five designs so that simple slider modules can be in­teg­rated into a website. Image galleries can also be created quickly with the plugin. However, this can also be achieved with special WordPress gallery plugins.

The WordPress slider plugin is one of the more af­ford­able fee-based solutions at around £11 and provides the option to connect to YouTube, Flickr, or Vimeo as well as slider in­teg­ra­tion.

The Master Slider plugin gives you a com­pre­hens­ive package of different templates and functions, with which you can not only design and embed sliders, but also make ad­di­tion­al cus­tom­isa­tions. Master Slider relies on an easy-to-use drag-and-drop mechanism that allows you to quickly create pro­fes­sion­al WordPress sliders even without prior knowledge.

Master Slider is free in terms of basic func­tion­al­ity — you get ad­di­tion­al features with the WordPress edition, which is available for a one-time fee of around £27. This includes around 100 slider templates as well as further cus­tom­isa­tion options such as parallax effects or extensive cus­tom­isa­tion options for the slider templates.

You can get a WordPress slider plugin that is strongly designed to look pro­fes­sion­al with Slider by 10Web. In addition to many graphic templates for different types of sliders such as galleries and carousels or zoom sliders, the plugin also offers the unique pos­sib­il­ity to watermark image elements. This means that the slider is aimed primarily at graphic designers and pho­to­graph­ers who are then able to protect their work.

With Slider by 10Web, slider elements full of im­press­ive effects can be added to a website in just a few steps. Search engine op­tim­isa­tion options and con­nect­ing videos via YouTube or Vimeo round off the overall package. WordPress SEO plugins, however, offer a more extensive search engine op­tim­isa­tion of your existing content.

Slider by 10Web offers a free variant with limited features that can be gradually expanded with the Premium package starting at around £16.

WordPress slider plugin Lay­erS­lider is another solution for all website owners who want to create suitable WordPress sliders with a variety of different templates and designs and use them for different purposes.

A variety of visual effects and ease of use allow you to customise sliders to your own re­quire­ments and also to your website’s existing design, and to edit images in a slider even after the slider is finished.

Lay­erS­lider is only available as a fee-based solution, which starts at around £18 per year. The extensive Pro­fes­sion­al version costs around £53 per year. A special feature is offered to companies such as agencies that want to offer a slider solution to their customers: The In-Stock solution for a one-time fee of around £112 enables the slider to be adapted to the customer’s existing themes.

Unlike the above­men­tioned ways to create WordPress sliders, Touch­Ca­rou­sel is limited to combining a slider with blog posts. For this purpose, a post is marked with a specific post type after creation, which is connected to the slider plugin in the next step.

From this, Touch­Ca­rou­sel generates a slideshow that updates auto­mat­ic­ally as soon as a new blog entry is posted. The plugin’s complete operation takes place in the WordPress dashboard, meaning that all functions are con­trolled centrally.

This makes the plugin par­tic­u­larly suitable for websites that regularly post new content in the form of articles. These can be prepared with Touch­Ca­rou­sel for the readers in a more visually appealing form. The plugin is available for around £9.