FotoGrids vs LayerSlider

FotoGrids has a slider in the free plugin, and grid, masonry and justified layouts around it. LayerSlider is a layer-animation canvas with no free or trial version by its own admission, no grid layout anywhere in its documentation, and a lightbox guide that starts by telling you to install a different plugin.

Free or trial versions of LayerSlider, by their own FAQ

Mentions of grid, masonry or justified across their documentation

Extra plugin their lightbox guide tells you to install first

Site a licence covers — subdomains count as separate sites

12 features LayerSlider doesn’t document at any tier are free in FotoGrids.

Why FotoGrids

Four reasons to pick FotoGrids over LayerSlider

FotoGrids

LayerSlider

Trying it first

FotoGrids

Free is a full plugin, on unlimited sites

LayerSlider

No free or trial version, by their own FAQ

Choosing a layout

FotoGrids

Slider, grid, masonry and justified, all in Free

LayerSlider

No grid, masonry or justified in their documentation

Opening an image full-screen

FotoGrids

Advanced lightbox in the free plugin

LayerSlider

Their guide says to install a third-party FancyBox

Letting visitors filter

FotoGrids

Filtering, sorting and pagination in Free

LayerSlider

Filters are author-side; nothing for the visitor

Getting started

No free version, and no trial

You can’t install LayerSlider and see whether it suits you. The vendor is straightforward about that.

LayerSlider — “we don’t offer a free or trial version”

Their FAQ: “At the moment we don’t offer a free or trial version, but we have plans to introduce one in the near future.” There is a 14-day refund window, which their policy calls the opportunity to evaluate — a refund is not a trial.

FotoGrids — Free is the whole plugin

Install it, build galleries, publish them, on as many sites as you like, with no key to register and nothing that expires. Pro adds to Free rather than unlocking it.

Building a gallery

A layer canvas, not a gallery grid

LayerSlider is built for scenes with layers in them. Grids of photographs are a different problem.

LayerSlider — Eight layout modes, none of them a grid

Their own list: fixed size, responsive, full-width, full-size, hero scene, fit to parent, OS-native fullscreen and popup. We found no mention of a grid, masonry or justified layout anywhere across their documentation and their full release log.

FotoGrids — Eight layouts in Free

Grid, masonry, justified, slider, image viewer and single item, all selectable in Free, with 30+ templates to start from and albums and tags to organise them.

Clicking an image

The lightbox is another plugin’s job

Enlarging a photograph is the most ordinary thing a visitor does with a gallery.

LayerSlider — “install a FancyBox WordPress plugin”

Their documentation files this under third-party integration guides: “First, you need to install a FancyBox WordPress plugin. In our guide we used Easy FancyBox.” Then you wire it up by typing a class name into the custom attributes field on each item.

FotoGrids — In the free plugin

The lightbox is part of the free plugin and part of the gallery you are editing — no second plugin, no class names to type, and the same on every layout.

In fairness

A remarkable animation tool, and honest about it

LayerSlider is not pretending to be a gallery plugin, and the comparison should say what it is instead.

LayerSlider — Deep where it chooses to be deep

A full design canvas with scroll and WebGL effects, an image editor, formula-driven bulk editing, visual revision diffing and a very large asset library. Their theme-bundled copy is a real product too — though it gets no premium templates, add-ons or updates.

FotoGrids — A slider too, and the rest of it

We ship a slider in Free — swipe, autoplay, transitions — and then the gallery around it: grid and masonry layouts, templates, albums, tags, filtering, lightbox, watermarking and passwords. Motion design is where they stay ahead.

Feature by feature

What LayerSlider doesn’t document

LayerSlider has no free build to read, so every row here comes from their own documentation. Anything they don’t document is recorded as not documented, never as missing.

Feature

FotoGrids

LayerSlider

Flexible Gallery Layouts

Free

8 modes, none of them a grid

Grid Layout

Free