Carousels can be a great addition to your website that can improve user experience and interactivity. However, the problem is that creating even a basic carousel in WordPress requires a plugin.
That’s why to make the plugin hunt easier for you, we brought out this list of the 10 best WordPress carousel plugins!
WordPress Carousel Plugins | Types of Sliders | Premade Layouts | Pricing |
DiviFlash | 4 | 113+ | Starts from $49/year |
Divi Carousel Module 2.0 | 2 | 13+ | Starts from $15/year |
DiviGear Product Carousel | 2 | 15+ | Starts from $19/year |
DiviGear Blog Carousel | 2 | 10+ | Starts from $19/year |
WP Carousel | 6 | – | Starts from $39/year |
MetaSlider | 4 | – | Starts from $39.50/year |
Soliloquy | 1 | – | Starts from $19.50/year |
Slider Revolution | 1 | 250+ | Starts from $35/year |
Smart Slider 3 | 1 | 174+ | Starts from $49/year |
Master Slider | 1 | 90+ | Starts from $39/year |
Let’s discuss more about the best carousel plugins for WordPress.
01. DiviFlash
We have crowned DiviFlash as the best WordPress carousel plugin because of its versatility, ease of use, abundance of features, and superior support. To sum it all up, it’s an all-rounder plugin to create awesome carousels.
What’s unique about DiviFlash is that it’s not a single carousel plugin but rather a complete plugin that has 8 different modules for carousel creation. What we mean is that it has separate modules for creating logos, testimonials, Instagram feeds, WooCommerce products, posts, CPT, and more.
So, it has a different carousel module to solve different carousel requirements.
Now, you may wonder if using so many different modules can impact your site performance-wise. Well, DiviFlash allows you to turn on or off any module you don’t need, which ensures a smooth website performance.
However, the best part about using DiviFlash is the customization options it offers. There’s literally nothing you can’t customize. From typography, colors, background, and spacing to loop, autoplay, and animations, everything is customizable.
Moreover, you get hundreds of unique premade carousels which you can simply download and use on your webpage.
As a bonus, you will get 40+ other modules that serve different purposes.
So, to sum up, DiviFlash is not only the best plugin for carousels but it’s one of the best plugins for WordPress in general that gives you a complete solution for everything.
Best Features
- Types of Carousel Layouts: 4 different types of carousel layouts that include slider, 3D coverflow, flip, and cube.
- Mobile Responsive: Decide how many slides you want to show based on device type and other relevant customization options.
- Item Ordering: Re-arrange the items of each carousel as you wish.
- Dynamic Content Integration: Supports dynamic content, so you can pull and display content directly from your website’s database.
- Customizable Effects: Allow effects such as loop, autoplay, pause on hover, animations, etc.
- Multiple Navigation: Gives you the option to use arrow and dot navigation.
- Lightbox: Allows you to display slider images and content in Lightbox with a download button.
Major Drawbacks
Only works with the Divi theme and the builder.
02. Divi Carousel Module 2.0
If you are a Divi user then you’re in luck because we have another state-of-the-art carousel plugin that lets you create any kind of carousel, which is named the Divi Carousel Module 2.0.
The Divi Carousel Module 2.0 is the most popular WordPress carousel plugin among Divi users because it offers the most value for money compared to other WordPress carousel plugins. The plugin only costs $15 for single and $29 for unlimited sites and the deals will last for a lifetime.
As for features and design options, the Divi Carousel Module 2.0 can serve you all purposes. You can create basically any type of carousel with any type of content.
So, comparing the features you get from this plugin and its price, we believe that it’s the most budget-friendly WordPress carousel slider plugin.
Key Features
- Flexibility and Functionality: Suitable for content carousels, image sliders, testimonials, logos, and team showcases.
- Carousel Style Options: Offers regular sliders and 3D coverflow sliders with a wide range of element variations for customization.
- Premade Section Layouts: Offers a free premade section layout that works on all devices, saving time and ensuring a great appearance across different screen sizes.
- Mobile-responsive: Decide how many slides you want to show based on device type.
- Item Ordering: Re-arrange the items of each carousel as you wish.
- Customizable Effects: Allow effects such as loop, autoplay, pause on hover, animations, etc.
- Multiple Navigation: Gives you the option to use arrow and dot navigation.
- Lightbox: Allows you to display slider images and content in Lightbox with a download button.
Major Drawbacks
Only works with the Divi theme and the builder.
03. DiviGear Product Carousel
As a WooCommerce store owner, you need a product carousel plugin to display your products and for that, we have just the right plugin for you, which is the DiviGear Product Carousel.
With the DiviGear Product Carousel plugin, you get all the must-have carousel features with a full suite of WooCommerce elements and painless WooCommerce integration. The plugin also supports dynamic content, so you can just pull your products from your store.
However, the best feature of this plugin is that it allows you to create targeted product carousels based on specific categories. So, you can showcase different product types with unique presentations!
Apart from these, the carousel is also responsive, lightweight, and performance-optimized.
Best Features
- Product Display Options: Lets you showcase products by filters, such as recent, featured, best-selling, top-rated, or sale products.
- Responsive Design: Carousels adjust to perfectly fit desktops, tablets, and mobiles and also let you decide how many carousels to display based on device types.
- Customization: Lets you configure the carousel to automatically play at a set speed, pause on hover, continuously loop for uninterrupted browsing, highlight a single product in the center, and control the transition speed between slides.
- Regular or 3D Coverflow: Choose between classic slide transitions or a modern 3D effect.
- Navigation Customization: Design arrows and dots to match your website’s style or you can use both if you want.
- Extensive Design Options: Customize the look and feel of your carousels.
- Product Image Effects: Add hover scaling and overlays for product images.
Major Drawbacks
Only works with the Divi theme and the builder.
04. DiviGear Blog Carousel
Up until now, we have talked about carousels serving different types of WordPress user bases but not about bloggers. Now, we have just the right carousel plugin for bloggers: DiviGear Blog Carousel.
The DiviGear Blog Carousel plugin is specifically designed for displaying blog posts dynamically. That means it will automatically display the blog posts as a carousel once you install and activate the plugin.
If you are worried about design options, this plugin gives you plenty of choices, such as controlling the speed and spacing of the carousel items, setting navigation, loop and animation effects, etc.
However, if you’re not used to designing your carousels, you can just download one of the premade carousel designs and use it on your site.
Last but not least, the plugin is also fast, mobile-responsive, and has all the other necessary carousel features.
Key Features
- Mobile-Friendly Design: Carousels automatically adjust to desktops, tablets, and mobiles, and you can even control how many appear on each device type for optimal viewing.
- Fully Customizable: Set autoplay speed, pause on hover, enable continuous looping, highlight a product in the center, and adjust slide transition speed.
- Classic or Modern Carousel: Choose between classic slide transitions or a trendy 3D coverflow effect for a touch of modern flair.
- Navigation Options: Design arrows and dots to match your website’s aesthetic, or even include both for a better user experience.
- Featured Image Customization: Add hover scaling and overlays to the featured images for an interactive and visually appealing presentation.
Major Drawbacks
Only works with the Divi theme and the builder.
05. WP Carousel
For Gutenberg or Elementor users, the WP Carousel plugin can be a great option because it is simple, lightweight, and also mobile-friendly. However, the best feature of this plugin is that it offers 6 different types of carousel layouts: Carousel, Grid, Masonry, Tiles, Justified, and Thumbs Slider.
However, to enjoy all the important features of the WP Carousel plugin, you have to purchase the pro version because the free version doesn’t offer much. But, in our opinion, the pro version is worth your money comparing the features you will get.
One thing we did not like about this plugin is that it doesn’t come with any premade layouts. They have some wonderful demos on their website, but they are not downloadable.
However, if you do want to use them, you can knock their support and they will send you the JSON file, which we felt was kind of a hassle.
Best Features
- Types of Carousel Layouts: 6 types of different carousel layouts to choose from.
- Responsive and touch-friendly: Fully responsive design that works smoothly on mobile
devices.
- Layout options: Supports standard carousel, center mode, ticker mode, and multi-row layouts.
- Customizable: Extensive options to customize the appearance, behavior, and functionality of carousels.
- Image handling: Options for image sizing, cropping, lazy loading, and watermarking.
- Drag-and-drop interface: Easy-to-use interface for creating and managing carousels without coding.
- Lightbox support: Built-in lightbox functionality for images and videos.
Major Drawbacks
The free version is super restricted. Also, the plugin doesn’t come with pre-built layouts.
06. MetaSlider
If you are looking for a WordPress slider plugin that’s simple to use, MetaSlider is what we recommend. That’s because the plugin features drag-and-drop functionality, so you just drag and drop to build your carousel and see the changes right away with the live preview.
What even makes this plugin easy to use is its smart crop functionality; the images you upload for your carousel items will be automatically resized to fit the carousel card. Because of these features, it’s considered the best free WordPress carousel plugin.
However, what’s disappointing is that the plugin doesn’t offer any premade layouts, which we think could help the new users a lot. But to make up for it, the carousel plugin offers Unsplash integration so you can import images from Unsplash directly to your website.
Best Features
- Easy to Use Interface: MetaSlider has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that allows users to create slideshows quickly and easily.
- Multiple Slider Types: Offers four different slider types – Flex, Nivo, Coin, and Responsive.
- Responsive Design: All MetaSlider slideshows automatically adapt for desktop, mobile, and tablet displays.
- Smart Crop Functionality: This feature ensures slides are perfectly resized without distortion.
- Unsplash Integration: The plugin allows users to access free images from Unsplash.com directly within the interface.
- Accessibility Features: MetaSlider is designed to be accessible for people using screen readers or with disabilities.
Major Drawbacks
Some users have reported that they have faced technical issues while using the Meta Slider plugin. Also, they do not offer any premade layouts.
07. Soliloquy
For those who don’t want to create a carousel but rather want a simple slider for your webpage, then you have to get Soliloquy; it’s considered the best WordPress slider plugin.
Normally, it only allows you to create sliders, so it’s perfect for users that only want them. However, if you want to create carousels with Soliloquy, you can do so by using their carousel addons.
Just like every other top carousel plugin for WordPress, it also offers a drag-and-drop interface for simplicity. To add to it, they check all boxes for the essential carousel features, such as mobile responsiveness, Lightbox, etc.
The best feature of Soliloquy is that it lets you import your Instagram feed directly to the slider. This keeps your content fresh without any manual effort.
Best Features
- Drag & Drop Builder: Easily create image and video sliders with a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface.
- Responsive Design: Sliders are fully responsive and mobile-friendly, working well on smartphones, tablets, and desktops.
- Performance Optimized: Built with performance in mind to avoid slowing down your website.
- WooCommerce Integration: Create product sliders for WooCommerce stores.
- Lightbox Feature: Enable slideshow display in a fullscreen lightbox mode.
- Dynamic Content: Create sliders from featured blog posts, Instagram images, testimonials, and more.
Major Drawbacks
Soliloquy is only a slider plugin, so you cannot technically create a carousel with it. To create a carousel with Soliloquy, you will need to use their Carousel add-on.
Also, the premade templates they offer don’t come with the free version or even the personal pack.
08. Slider Revolution
Slider Revolution is a plugin that’s overloaded with design features. So, if you want to design carousels or sliders that are visually appealing, it can be an excellent choice.
Being a design-rich plugin, you may think it lacks performance features. But that’s not the case; Slider Revolution is performance-optimized and mobile-responsive.
However, what sets Slider Revolution apart is its huge collection of premade templates; it offers more than 250 layouts. But the layouts are not just of carousels or sliders, they give you full-page layouts that include a carousel, which is just great!
Also, you get 20+ add-ons for animations and special effects and 2000+ royalty-free images at your disposal.
Best Features
- Drag-and-drop: Features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface with live previews, categorized options, and a dark mode for better usability.
- Superior Animation: Offers keyframe animations, multiple animation steps per layer, various easing types, animation presets, and even special effects add-ons for creating intricate animations.
- Premade Layouts: Offers 250+ customizable templates, 2000+ royalty-free media assets, premade layer groups and quick style presets.
- Responsive Design: Layouts adapt perfectly to any device, with additional options for fine-tuning the look on specific devices.
- Add-ons: 20+ powerful add-ons covering special effects, dynamic content, social media integration, and more.
Major Drawbacks
Even though Slider Revolution is feature-rich, it is too complex for beginners.
09. Smart Slider 3
For users who think Slider Revolution is too complex, you can use Smart Slider 3 as an alternative.
Just like Slider Revolution, Smart Slider is also enriched with design options, animations, and effects but is comparatively easier to use. Smart Slider also gives you free full-page layouts; however, the number of templates is slightly less than Slider Revolution.
However, the problem with Smart Slider 3 is that it is not compatible with older browsers.
Best Features
- Drag-and-drop Builder: The drag-and-drop builder lets you easily create and change sliders on the spot, with a live preview to see how everything looks right away.
- Templates and Slide Library: Offers over 180 pre-designed templates and a slide library that users can import and customize.
- Animations and Effects: Includes a variety of animations such as Ken Burns, parallax, and particle effects, as well as background animations and layer animations.
- Shape Dividers: Allows the addition of shape dividers at the top and bottom of slides for a unique visual effect.
- Mobile-Ready Sliders: Ensures that sliders are fully responsive and look great on all devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
- Advanced Positioning: Offers more control over the placement of elements within the slider, including absolute positioning.
Major Drawbacks
The plugin does not support older browsers and devices well. For instance, has issues with older versions of iOS and certain Samsung devices.
10. Master Slider
Master Slider is a WordPress slider plugin that has three different versions: two WordPress versions and one jQuery version. So, this plugin caters to all sorts of WordPress and non-WordPress users.
However, the best feature of Master Slider is its speed and performance. It’s one of the fastest slider plugins for WordPress that’s also responsive and SEO-optimized.
As for design options, it uses hardware-accelerated transitions for smoothness and supports parallax effects, which is not so common among other WordPress carousel plugins.
Best Features
- Responsive Design: Master Slider is fully responsive and works seamlessly on all major devices, ensuring a consistent user experience across desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
- Smooth Transitions: Utilizes hardware-accelerated transitions for smooth and visually appealing animations.
- Parallax Effect: Offers easy-to-use parallax templates to create engaging parallax sliders.
- Visual Style Editor: Includes a visual style editor for real-time preview and customization of slider elements.
- Dynamic Content Integration: Features advanced filtering tools to create dynamic sliders from WordPress posts, including custom post types.
- WooCommerce Integration: Supports creating product sliders for WooCommerce stores, showcasing products dynamically.
Major Drawbacks
Older versions of this plugin were reported to have caused security issues.
Features to Look For in a Carousel Plugin for WordPress
Here are some of the essential features that you should consider while choosing a carousel plugin for your WordPress website-
Ease of Use
No matter how many exclusive features a carousel plugin offers, it’s of no use to you if you can’t implement it. That’s why your priority should be ease of use, not features.
Now, when it comes to ease of use, a plugin that supports drag-and-drop features and live visual building options is your best bet.
Also, you should investigate if the plugin developer provides well-written documentation and active support.
Mobile Responsiveness
By default, carousels can be difficult to browse from smaller devices. When you use a carousel plugin that’s not mobile-responsive, it makes it impossible to navigate. In such cases, your users will become annoyed and your site’s bounce rate will skyrocket.
That’s why, mobile responsiveness should also be a top priority when buying a WordPress carousel plugin. A mobile responsive carousel plugin will let you decide how many items to show on different devices among other customization options.
Customization
With a bunch of customization options, a carousel plugin lets you make your image slider truly unique.
A great carousel slider plugin for WordPress should let you change things like different types of sliders, support multiple navigation options, allow item ordering, and offer lightbox features among others.
Premade Layouts
Premade layouts are a big help with carousel plugins because they make it super easy to get started.
Instead of needing to design everything yourself, you can pick a layout that already looks good and just customize it to make it fit your site. This saves you a bunch of time, and even if you’re not a design pro, you can still have a carousel that looks amazing.
FAQs About WordPress Carousel
What is the difference between a slider and a carousel in WordPress?
The main difference between a slider and a carousel in WordPress is the number of images they display. Sliders usually display one slide at a time, whereas carousels display multiple slides. Also, carousels have more advanced features compared to sliders.
When to use a carousel?
The best place to use a carousel is when you have limited space and multiple items to showcase, like products or featured content. They can also be used to highlight important information or promotions.
How do I optimize my carousel?
To optimize your carousel, first, you should use a carousel plugin that’s mobile responsive. Also, try to use optimized images with proper sizing and format with alt texts.
Say No to Boring Web Page Designs
With the best WordPress carousel plugins at your disposal, you will never have to worry about user experience or high bounce rates. You can easily create amazing, interactive carousels that your users will love to interact with.
However, the key to achieving that is to choose a carousel plugin that offers the necessary features and is also easy to tweak.
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