Wondering what type of WordPress Portfolio plugins to use to showcase your work? Read our recommendation and choose between these top eight I present to you today.
One of the best ways to present all the stuff you create – whether it’s paintings, pictures, products, designs – is to use a WordPress Portfolio plugin. But, with so many of them in the market – both free and paid ones, it’s hard to know which one to choose. That’s why I came up with this list of tried and tested WordPress Portfolio plugins. Read about their features and benefits and then decide which one’s the right for you. But, before we come to that, let us quickly cover the basics.
What are WordPress portfolio plugins?
Portfolio plugins are tools you use to portray your images, videos, products, or another type of project within a post or a page. It’s a more professional and elegant way of showcasing your work, one that doesn’t make your site too heavy or slow. In cases where you don’t have a niche-specific portfolio website, these types of plugins step in to transform your posts and pages into genuine portfolios.
Top 6 WordPress portfolio plugins to choose from
Easy Photography Portfolio Plugin
Easy Photography Portfolio is an extremely flexible free plugin that you can use to turn your website into a portfolio one! It’s designed as a way to categorize your photography work and showcase it in the best possible way, with no interfering.
Once you install it, simply go to Portfolio Settings to customize the options. By default, albums and images are displayed in a masonry gallery, but you can further define it by choosing:
- The type of Portfolio Entries
- Portfolio layout
- Pop-up Gallery settings
- Titles and descriptions
Once you’re satisfied with the outcome, click Save and you’re done!
Gallery – Flagallery Portfolio Plugin
The Gallery – Flagallery plugin is a freemium portfolio plugin that provides a comprehensive interface for managing photos and images. It does so through a set of admin pages, and it displays photos in a way that makes your web site look very professional and portfolio alike. Whether you want to show your paintings and images, music and video playlists or another type of artwork, you can create it with this plugin. Some of the portfolio/gallery types of showcases are:
- Photo gallery
- Mp3 and video player
- Slideshow widgets
- Banner rotator and more.
To use it, simply install and activate it, then head over to create a new gallery. It will open a folder to store the images, upload the ones you want to show and define the features:
Afterward, head over to FIAGallery to choose skins and give your gallery portfolio unique look.
In addition to this, a more detailed how-to about the Gallery plugin use is on their website.
A premium license gives you:
- Multiple skin gallery/portfolio to choose from
- Free iOS app for managing galleries
- Lifetime membership
- Free support
The price is $29 for lifetime use.
GridKit Portfolio Gallery Plugin
GridKit Portfolio Gallery is a plugin that helps you not only create and manage portfolios but so much more! It comes with features like:
- eCommerce product catalog – Convert your website to the eCommerce platform. Showcase your product catalogs, offer discounts, allow clients to leave feedbacks and reviews, and finally place online orders.
- Gallery slider – Sliders are fundamental for each website. You can showcase your galleries as inline and mobile-friendly slides. You can set up website banners, image slides, or video slides in less than a minute.
- Instagram feed gallery – Do you want to share your Instagram feed on your website instantly? It’s not an issue anymore. GridKit will pull your Instagram feed and will show on your site automatically.
- YouTube video gallery – YouTube videos can be part of your portfolio, gallery, or album. You can have inline playable YouTube video galleries, or you can showcase them in the popups.
- Vimeo video gallery – Vimeo videos function the same way as YouTube videos. They can be part of your portfolio projects or galleries.
- WordPress native video gallery – Almost every website or project has its promotion video. It’s easy and elegant now to showcase them with GridKit.
- Clients portfolio gallery – You have several clients, let your customers know about your clients using our predefined templates.
So, no matter if you have a product or a service-based business, this is the plugin to use to showcase it all! Once you install it, go to Grid Kit > Portfolios to create New Portfolio/Add Project:
Where you’ll define all the features and the way to show your work:
And, once you’re satisfied with the outcome, click on the Save icon, go back to Portfolio to copy the shortcode and embed it wherever you want a portfolio to show.
Similarly to the previous one, GridKit Portfolio too has a premium version as well. It has features like:
- Three layout styles
- Product catalog
- Image slides
- iFrame
- Overlay captions
- Lazy loading
- Auto Slideshow, and more.
The price starts at $29.99 one time payment for single-site use.
Portfolio Gallery – Image Gallery WordPress Plugin
Portfolio Gallery is another freemium and super easy plugin that helps you create a beautiful and responsive portfolio for your WordPress websites. Free features include:
- Multiple Column layout
- Masonry
- Numbering and Title
- Filters
- Bootstrap Lightbox and more
To use it, install and activate the plugin, then head over to Portfolio Gallery to Add new Gallery and define all the options and customize portfolio. Once you finish, copy & embed shortcode (from the right sidebar) into any Page/ Post / Text Widget to display your image gallery on site.
Pro features include:
- Multi Layout
- Portfolio filtration
- Unlimited filters
- Link Portfolio Gallery
- Unlimited Filter colors
- Load More Portfolio and more
The price starts at $25 for single-site use.
Visual Portfolio Plugin
Visual Portfolio is a free and straightforward WordPress portfolio plugin created for WordPress 5, so you’ll need the Gutenberg Editor to be able to use it. Once you install it, go to Visual Portfolio > Portfolio Items and Add New. It will open the Gutenberg Editor, where you search for the Visual Portfolio Block, ad whatever type of content you wish to showcase, customize it, and optimize and click Save.
The other way of doing it is through Portfolio Layouts > Add New, choose the content source, add the items or the content and Custom CSS if you choose so. When you finish, click Publish, copy the Shortcode, and embed it wherever you want your portfolio to show.
While customizing your Portfolio, you can choose between several predefined layouts:
- Masonry
- Grid
- Justified (Flickr)
- Tiles
- Slider
Furthermore, you can choose whether to use hover effects, Infinite scroll, Custom Image sets, Popup gallery and more and once you’re done with it, click Save, copy the shortcode and paste it wherever you want your portfolio to stand out.
For a more in-depth guide on how to use Visual Portfolio plugin, visit its How-to documentation, or check out their demo page to illustrate the plugin in real-time.
Portfolio Slideshow Plugin
If you want to portray your Portfolio as a slider, then this plugin is the perfect one to use. Portfolio Slideshow adds a simple slideshow builder to posts and pages on your site. It has a drag-and-drop interface that allows you to upload, order, and edit images “on the fly” right on the page.
You’ll find the plugin features in your Settings on the left sidebar, where you can customize them and define how you want your portfolio to show:
Once you finish all that, just use the shortcode anywhere in the post or a page, and you’ll get a responsive portfolio slideshow on your site, just like in the example above.
Bonus tip – WordPress Photography Portfolio theme
Now, you’ve noticed at the beginning of the article I wrote, „one of the best ways.“ It’s because there are some WordPress themes specifically created to serve you as a portfolio website. Like our Pinhole, for instance. Whether you want a website to showcase your art photography portfolio or to offer photography services, this theme has it all:
- Clean and light design that puts your artwork in the front row
- Over 30 gallery layouts to choose from and customize to your needs
- Private gallery feature
- Exif Metadata display option
And more. Finally, if you’re looking for a new niche-specific photography theme, look no further! Try and test our Pinhole 7 days for free!, and let us know what you think of it.
Wrapping up
Building a photography portfolio for WordPress should be easy. Whether you use some of the recommended portfolio plugins or niche-specific themes – now it is! Check out this list and pick the one that meets your criteria. And, feel free to share with us which plugin worked best for you and what are your thoughts on our theme as well!