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FotoGrids vs Visual Portfolio

Visual Portfolio is a modern, block-first gallery builder with a genuinely good free layout engine. It is also the most upfront plugin in this category about where free ends: the free build ships fifteen upgrade cards inside the gallery editor itself, plus three settings tabs and an admin screen that contain nothing else.
FotoGrids
15
“Premium Only” cards inside Visual Portfolio’s free gallery editor
30+ vs 0
Ready-made templates in FotoGrids Free vs Visual Portfolio, free or Pro
3
Settings tabs in Visual Portfolio’s free plugin that hold only an upgrade button
$39
Where albums, watermarks and typography begin in Visual Portfolio
14
14

14 features Visual Portfolio sells as Pro — or doesn’t offer at all — are free in FotoGrids.

Why FotoGrids

Four reasons to pick FotoGrids over Visual Portfolio

FotoGrids
Visual Portfolio
Starting a new gallery
FotoGrids
30+ ready templates in Free
Visual Portfolio
No template library — the vendor lists one as planned
Styling what you built
FotoGrids
Image filters, custom fonts and 12 hover effects in Free
Visual Portfolio
Filters and typography are upgrade cards, not controls
Grouping a series or a client
FotoGrids
Albums and collections in Free
Visual Portfolio
Albums begin at Pro, from $39 a year
Opening a gallery full-screen
FotoGrids
Advanced lightbox experience in the free plugin
Visual Portfolio
Deep linking and Quick View are Pro, from $39 a year
Building a gallery

You meet the paywall while building, not after

The moment a gallery stops being a grid and starts being yours is the moment most plugins start charging.

Visual Portfolio — 15 “Premium Only” cards in the free build

Fifteen controls in the free build declare their type as pro_note — an upgrade card where a setting should be. Three whole categories in the gallery sidebar (Protection, Taxonomies, Social Feeds) hold exactly one control each, and that control is the card.

FotoGrids — In the free plugin

Every control in the free gallery editor is a control. Templates, albums, image filters, custom fonts, hover effects, watermarking and password protection are live in Free, on unlimited sites.

Templates & starting points

A blank grid is the only starting point

A template is a set of decisions someone already made for you — spacing, captions, hover, the lot.

Visual Portfolio — Not offered in free or in Pro

There are no starter templates, block patterns or presets in the free plugin. Their own Pro page settles the Pro question: “Predefined Templates” appears in the list of features that are “not yet available”.

FotoGrids — 30+ templates in Free

Pick a look, drop your images in, change what you want to change. Free ships 30+ templates and eight layouts; Pro Starter takes that to 70+ templates and eleven layouts.

Styling & design

The look is the part they charge for

Filters, fonts and hover behaviour are most of what separates a gallery from a folder of images.

Visual Portfolio — Pro, from $39 a year

The image-filter panel is an upgrade card reading “Apply Instagram-like filters, change image transform”, and the free skin options comment their own flags as Pro. Typography is a second card: “Manage fonts, sizing, and appearance of distinct text components”.

FotoGrids — In the free plugin

Image filters, custom fonts, colour controls, borders and twelve hover effects, all in Free. Pro Plus adds the global typography system and global custom CSS.

In fairness

Straight pricing, and a good free layout engine

Visual Portfolio is one of the more honest products in this category, and the comparison is better for saying so.

Visual Portfolio — $39, $139, $239, and no games

One Pro product, three site counts, identical features in all three, and no first-year discount that doubles at renewal. The free layout engine is strong too — AJAX filtering and sorting, two lightbox engines, and one or two things ours doesn’t have yet.

FotoGrids — The same on price, more in the box

Our $39, $79 and $129 are renewal prices as well as joining prices. The difference is what Free contains: templates, albums, filters, fonts, watermarking, passwords and an analytics dashboard, on unlimited sites.

Feature by feature

What Visual Portfolio keeps for Pro

Visual Portfolio’s Pro is a single product at $39 a year, with no tier games. This table is about which side of that line each feature sits on, not about the price.
Feature
FotoGrids
Visual Portfolio
Templates Library
Free
Not offered at any tier
Albums & Collections
Free
Pro — from $39/yr
Hover Effects
Free
Pro — from $39/yr
Image Filters
Free
Pro — from $39/yr
Custom Fonts
Free
Pro — from $39/yr
Loading Effects
Free
Not offered at any tier
Advanced Lightbox Experience
Free
Pro for deep linking and Quick View
Enhanced Caching
Free
Pro — from $39/yr
EXIF Data
Free
Not offered at any tier
Analytics Dashboard
Free
Not documented at any tier
Watermarking
Free
Pro — from $39/yr
Password Protect Gallery
Free
Pro — from $39/yr
Migration

Move from Visual Portfolio in an afternoon

Step 1
Bring the galleries across
FotoGrids imports from other gallery plugins, so the galleries you have already built in Visual Portfolio don’t need rebuilding by hand.
Step 2
Keep the URLs
Galleries get their own addresses, and the permalink settings let you keep the URLs your portfolio already ranks for.
Step 3
Try it alongside
Free is a full plugin, not a trial. Build one gallery in FotoGrids next to your Visual Portfolio one and compare them on your own site.
Step 4
Make it yours
Add the templates, filters and typography that used to be upgrade cards, then save them as defaults for every gallery after this one.

Frequently asked questions

Yes. Both build galleries inside the block editor and both ship a capable free version. The difference is where free ends: templates, albums, image filters, custom fonts, watermarking and password protection are in FotoGrids Free, and are Pro or absent in Visual Portfolio.
30+ templates and eight layouts to start from, albums and collections, twelve hover effects, image filters and custom fonts, textual watermarking, password-protected galleries, EXIF viewing and an analytics dashboard — on unlimited sites.
Yes, and responsive behaviour isn’t a paid setting. Free ships lazy loading, enhanced caching, page-speed optimisation and image sizing, and you can build one gallery in each plugin and compare them on your own site before you decide anything.
The same as this year. Pro Starter, Pro Plus and Pro Agency are $39, $79 and $129, and those are renewal prices as well as joining prices. Free stays free, on unlimited sites. The tiers are set out on the pricing page.
We read each plugin’s own source rather than its marketing pages, then run a second pass whose only job is to disprove what the first one found. Anything that doesn’t survive gets dropped before publication. The method is in the methodology section, and every line in the table has a source behind it.
Templates, albums, filters and fonts. Free, on unlimited sites

Install the free plugin, apply a template, and change the parts that are not yours yet. Customize every detail from your very first gallery.

Download Free
Compare Free and Pro