NextGEN Gallery Review: The Most Powerful WordPress Gallery Plugin?
If you’re looking for the best WordPress gallery plugin for your site, you’ve probably come across the name NextGEN Gallery.
NextGEN GalleryBut why is it so popular, and what all does this gallery plugin offer?
In our NextGEN Gallery review, we’ll dig into this popular WordPress gallery plugin and show you everything that it has to offer.
NextGEN Gallery Review: Taking a Look at The Features
NextGEN Gallery offers a deep feature list, which I think is a big part of why it’s so popular with photographers, graphic artists, and other professionals.
You can find plenty of WordPress gallery plugins that can help you create a simple, attractive gallery. But the field gets a lot slimmer when you start looking for advanced image management features, eCommerce integrations, client proofing, and more.
NextGEN Gallery really shines when you start looking at those advanced features. For example, it even has a print lab integration that lets you sell physical prints of your images and automatically fulfill those orders via White House Custom Colour, which is something I’ve never seen in any other WordPress gallery plugin.
But before we get to those advanced features, let’s start at the beginning, because NextGEN Gallery also does the little stuff well.
15 Gallery and Album Display Options
NextGEN Gallery comes with 15 different gallery templates to help you display your images. Five are free, while you get access to another 12 display options in the premium version.
You get basic galleries like a simple thumbnail or slideshow gallery, as well as advanced layouts like mosaic, filmstrip, masonry, and more.
For example, if you just want a simple gallery, you can use the basic thumbnail gallery that’s available in the free version (you can also let people open each image in a lightbox):
free plugin at WordPress.org. Then, there are two premium options.
The free version at WordPress.org makes a good option for simple galleries and lets you create unlimited galleries using five of the free display options.
Then, the two premium versions are NextGEN Plus and NextGEN Pro.
With NextGen Plus, you get access to 12 new display options as well as helpful new features like social sharing for individual images, image commenting, and more advanced lightbox options.
Then, NextGEN Pro adds support for the eCommerce features, client proofing, and the Lightroom integration.
Here’s how the pricing shakes out:
- Plus – $79 for one year of support and updates and use on a single site.
- Pro – $139 for one year of support and updates and use on up to three sites.
- Pro LIFETIME – $399 for one year of support and updates and use on unlimited sites.
While NextGEN Gallery works with any WordPress theme, the developer also sells a number of photography-focused themes that make a great pair with NextGEN Gallery.
Final Thoughts on NextGEN Gallery
NextGEN Gallery is by far the most popular WordPress gallery plugin, and it’s popular for a reason.
If you’re just a blogger looking for a simple way to create great-looking galleries, there are lots of free gallery plugins that can get the job done.
But if you’re a photographer or other image professional, NextGEN Gallery is definitely at the top of the game.
It’s a great option for:
- Working with lots of images because you can upload images to your server via FTP and then quickly import them to NextGen Gallery. You also get those convenient bulk management tools.
- Selling images online because you can sell both digital and physical prints and automatically fulfill print orders via WHCC.
- Working with clients because you get that nice built-in client proofing feature and Lightroom integration.
If you want to get started with NextGEN Gallery, you can play around with the free version at WordPress.org to see how you like it.
Then, if you do like what you see, you can upgrade to one of the premium versions to get access to more gallery types and advanced features like client proofing and eCommerce support.