WordPress Portfolio Plugins Compared: Features, Pros & Cons

If you are a professional of any kind and your work is worth flaunting, then you need a Portfolio. There are various WordPress Portfolio Plugins available out there. However, they are all best in their own individual ways. But choosing the one best for your site can be perplexing. Therefore, I have compiled a list of reputed and functional WordPress portfolio plugins along with their features, Pros, and Cons. So, let’s get dig deeper now!

I hope this guide will help you decide which WordPress portfolio plugin you want for your website. Remember that with a creative plugin for your portfolio, you also need a creative website to flaunt it. So, in order to create a website, you can make use of any unique and creative site builder. Let’s now see which are best WordPress Portfolio Plugins are there for you.

Best WordPress Portfolio Plugins Compared

1. Portfolio Gallery

It is one of the most popular and widely used plugins in the WordPress plugin library. It offers the easiest way to launch a beautiful gallery on your website. Portfolio Gallery offers unlimited lightbox options, filters, and great assistance of responsiveness. Moreover, it offers a highly flexible and functional free version that is useful to most small businesses.

Features of Portfolio Gallery

• Free version: It offers a functional free version that the majority of small businesses can take advantage of.

• Affordable premium plugin: In case you need to buy the premium version, it is available for just $25 and offers far more tools and functionalities.

• Variety of formats: It offers a wide variety of formats such as multiple columns and column sizes in the cleanest and latest styles.

• Upload options: It allows you to upload pictures as well as videos as well.

• Flexibility with filters: You or even your clients can sift through filters in an organized fashion, before deciding the final one.

• Bootstrap lightbox: You also get Bootstrap Lightbox that adds an essential effect and is also mobile optimized.

• Sorting: You can sort your gallery as you desire in descending order or by date.

• Publish as a shortcode or page: With the free version, you can only publish your portfolio as a shortcode. Whereas the premium version allows you to publish it as page and post types and widgets as well.

Pros

• Good for startups or freelancers
• Ability to publish portfolios as shortcodes, pages, posts, and widgets.
• Wide variety of filters

Cons

• Some features need custom CSS tools.

2. WP Portfolio

WP Portfolio is another popular WordPress portfolio plugin. It offers three different paid plans i.e. website portfolio, image portfolio, and video portfolio. Basically, people can get the plan according to their profession. With shortcodes, you can design your portfolio in a matter of minutes. Also, it offers a lot of other features that can give you an advanced portfolio website in a matter of a few clicks.

Features of WP Portfolio

• Affordable premium plan: It is a premium plugin that offers the majority of features at just $39 a year to support your portfolio.

• Option of yearly or lifetime membership: You have two options for payment. You can either pay yearly or get a lifetime membership.

• Dummy portfolio: If you are an agency then this feature is helpful to you because you have to work with many clients.

• REST API: REST API is available with every plan that allows you to customize just about any aspect of your portfolio.

• One-time payment: It is a great option for the individual who wants to make a one-time payment by getting a lifetime membership. It is cheaper and handier.

• Shortcode portfolio: You can design and publish your portfolio within a couple of minutes with the shortcode feature.

• Large portfolios: With the agency plan, you can get access to the Astra Pro theme that is perfect for designing a large portfolio.

• Add-ons: With the Agency plan, you get various add-ons like page builders and other premium WordPress plugins.

Pros

• Supports everything from screenshots to videos
• Various effects and formats are supported including masonry grid, lazy loading, infinite scroll, etc
• Easy integrations with page builders

Cons

• No free version available

3. GridKit Portfolio Gallery

GridKit Portfolio Gallery is a little more than just a standard image portfolio and has a loyal following of WordPress users. Moreover, it also offers a YouTube Gallery with the ability to quickly paste a YouTube link into the gallery. It offers an impressive range of items like client logos, maps, audio clips, team member pictures, and of course standard items like image slider and portfolio. It offers a free version and a premium version. The premium version starts at a $29.99 one-time payment. It also offers a Lifetime Extended License for $49.99 that can be used on five websites.

Features of GridKit Portfolio Gallery

• Premium portfolio plugin: Considering its remarkable grid portfolio layouts and several filtering options, it is the ultimate premium portfolio plugin.

• Predefined templates: It offers several predefined templates and options including portfolios for clients’ logos, team members, photos, and videos.

• Free version: It also offers a free version that offers a handful of features, enough to support a standard portfolio.

• Various effects: GridKit offers various effects including animations and hovers styles and you can easily customize it as you like.

• Unique layouts: It offers some unique layouts you won’t find in any other plugin, like masonry and puzzle form.

• Shortcode integration: It makes it easier to integrate your portfolio on your website with shortcode integration.

• Lazy Loading: Lazy loading is an important and unique feature that assists in only loading images that are on-screen.
• Slideshow option: if the user doesn’t want to scroll or click through the portfolio with the mouse, there is also a slideshow option.

Pros

• Offers stunning predefined templates
• Can also include audio clips or logos in the portfolio
• Great value for money

Cons

• Only a handful of features in the free version

4.Visual Portfolio

Visual Portfolio has a significant user base and is available for free. Basically, it is an open-source plugin, which means no upgrade to the premium version needed for better features. Moreover, it offers a visual builder for you to preview how your gallery is going to look once you make it live on your website. Using the builder is easy as it is pretty similar to the WordPress editor, except it offers a full preview along with settings for adjusting the layout, changing the images, finding the shortcode, etc.

Features of Visual Portfolio

• Open source: It is an open-source plugin. Therefore, no need to upgrade to an expensive plan for advanced features.

• Developer friendly: It is developer-friendly when it comes to areas like saving templates or CSS.

• Preview option: Its builder offers the preview option, which means you can see the final look of your portfolio before making it go live.

• Shortcode integration: You have the option to integrate your portfolio anywhere on your website with the shortcode integration option.

• Predefined layouts: It offers four predefined layouts: titles, sliders, grids, and masonry.

• Professional-looking effects: Visual Portfolio offers some rather professional-looking effects with advanced features like flying in, emerging, and fading.

• Complementary options: it offers filtering and sorting options complemented by the ‘Load More’ button.
• Pop-up gallery: It offers the ability to receive a pop-up gallery with support for photos and videos from YouTube and Vimeo.

Pros

• Various animation features
• Free of any price tag
• Clean portfolios with various templates and themes

Cons

• Some features need CSS custom code blocks

Best WordPress Portfolio Plugins – Wrap Up

Ann online portfolio plugin can be a great way to showcase your creative work and get more clients and an audience. This feature is more useful to artists or creative professionals. It is totally your decision which plugin you pick for your portfolio. However, we hope that this article helped you get a better idea of which plugin would work better for you. Representing your work in a creative way is just as important as your work. With the sheer amount of WordPress portfolio plugins available in the market, there’s no excuse for having a dull and unimpressive portfolio.