ARI Fancy Lightbox – Popup for WordPress vs Photonic Gallery & Lightbox for Flickr, SmugMug & Others

Need a lightbox plugin to show various content on any device (from mobile to desktop)? ARI Fancy Lightbox is the right choice. It uses Fancybox popup to bring lightbox effect to WordPress sites. Use it to show images from native WordPress, NextGEN, FooGallery, Justified Image Grid and Jetpack galleries, photos, videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Vine, Metacafe services, PDF documents, Google Maps links, inline content, external pages into the lightbox. It works with WordPress native and Jetpack (tiled, circle) galleries out of the box. Just install and activate the plugin and images from galleries will be opened into fancybox popup. Easy to use, no need any additional modification of HTML code. Just select media items which want to display into the lightbox (for example YouTube or Vimeo videos) and the plugin attaches lightbox automatically to all appropriate links on your site. Want demo? Try the lightbox in action on demo site “ARI Fancy Lightbox” supports the following features: Features Mobile friendly. Works well on any device. Supports gestures (tap, zoom, pan and pinch), swipe navigation, inline zoom. Show videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Dailymotion, Metacafe services into the popup. Integration with NextGEN galleries. Can load get titles from EXIF data or use file names as titles for images. One click integration with WooCommerce. Show WooCommerce product images in fancy lightbox. Automatic integration with WordPress and Jetpack galleries. Photos from galleries will be opened into the lightbox. FooGallery support. Can disable right click for images to avoid copying URLs. Show local PDF files in cross-browser PDFJS viewer. Supports slideshow mode and loop navigation. Can show all external links into the lightbox. Provides UI interface to change lightbox styles. Open content in fullscreen mode. Show thumbnails toolbar for fast navigation between lightbox items. Display inline content and web pages. Supports custom actions and filters. Extend functionality easily. Highly customizable. Uses Fancybox3 Need more features? Get PRO version. Premium Features Supports deeplinking. Generates an unique link for each lightbox item and open the lightbox automatically when the link is opened into a browser. Integration with Facebook comment plugin. Share lightbox content via social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, VK. Send by e-mail. Extended parameters for YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion video players (auto-play, related video, fullscreen button and others). Possible to disable the lightbox on small screens. Create splash window via shortcode. The lightbox with the defined content will be opened on page load. Possible to show it only once. Can show external/internal links with target=”_blank” attribute into the popup. Supports integration with Justified Image Grid. More information can be found in user’s guide. Featured In The Media We’ve been featured in 10 Best WordPress Lightbox Plugins for 2017 and Best WordPress Lightbox Plugins. Have any idea how to improve the plugin? Don’t hesitate to share it here and we will try to implement it in future versions of the plugin. Do you like the plugin and want to say about it? Write a review and rate it here. Are interested in other our WordPress plugins? Check ARI Stream Quiz – WordPress Viral Quiz plugin, Contact Form 7 Connector integrates CF7 with MailChimp and MailerLite, ARI Adminer – WordPress database management plugin.

Photonic takes the WordPress gallery and super-charges it with a lot of added functionality. It adds support for several new sources and parameters to enhance the content and look-and-feel of your galleries. It supports Flickr photos, Albums (Photosets), Galleries and Collections, along with SmugMug folders, albums and images, and Zenfolio photos, Photosets and Groups. You can also set up authentication so that visitors can see private and protected photos from each provider. When used without the Gutenberg editor Photonic by default overrides the gallery shortcode. In case you happen to be using a theme or plugin that already overrides the gallery shortcode, Photonic provides you with the option to use your own shortcode for Photonic galleries. This lets your plugins coexist. Bear in mind that if you deactivate Photonic you will have to remove all instances of this custom shortcode, something that is not required if you stick to the gallery shortcode. When used with Gutenberg Photonic creates no shortcodes, rather it creates blocks. If some of your posts were written with Gutenberg and some without, Photonic supports both scenarios. Lightboxes Of all plugins free or paid, Photonic has support built in for the highest number of lightbox scripts. This includes scripts that run on pure JavaScript without relying on external libraries, or those that require jQuery. Pure JS Libraries BaguetteBox BigPicture “Gie” Lightbox (GLightbox) LightGallery PhotoSwipe v4 PhotoSwipe v5 Spotlight VenoBox jQuery Based Libraries Colorbox Fancybox2 – not GPL, so the script is not included with the plugin. See the Lightboxes page for details Fancybox3 Featherlight Image Lightbox Lightcase Strip Swipebox Thickbox Obsolete Libraries Fancybox 1 – no update since November 2010 Magnific Popup – no update since February 2016 PrettyPhoto – no update since May 2015 For the non-GPL alternatives like Fancybox2 and the obsolete libraries, Photonic has code to work with them, but you have to install the scripts yourself or rely on them from your theme or another plugin. With the exception of Thickbox the lightboxes have been adapted to become touch and gesture-friendly. See the Lightboxes page for details. Support for Multiple Platforms Flickr The following Flickr concepts are supported in Photonic: Photos PhotoSets (Albums) Galleries Collections Single Photo Authentication For demos of Flickr support visit the Flickr page. Google Photos Google API Change:** With effect from 31st March 2025, Google’s Photos API is discontinued (see here for Google’s official announcement). Consequently, Photonic will stop working for Google Photos**. For more details, see this thread. Note that while Google’s official announcement says otherwise, as of 20th April 2025 the API is still working, so older versions of Photonic will seem to work. However, there is no guarantee about when Google will truly shut it off. SmugMug The following SmugMug concepts are supported in Photonic: User Tree Photos Albums Folders For demos of SmugMug support visit the SmugMug page. Zenfolio The following Zenfolio concepts are supported in Photonic: Photos PhotoSets (Galleries and Collections) Groups Group Hierarchies For demos of Zenfolio support visit the Zenfolio page. Instagram In mid-September 2022 Meta / Facebook / Instagram changed its rules to disallow individual developers (i.e. developers not operating as a business) from meaningfully using its API. As a result, Photonic no longer works for Instagram photos. The code is still in place though, and can be used by someone with a business wishing to adopt it. Native WordPress Galleries Your existing galleries are left intact. However you can add a style parameter to a native gallery to open it up to Photonic. The style parameter can take any of the values documented on the Layouts page. Other Photonic Goodies Gallery Wizard The WordPress Classic editor shows up with a button that says “Add / Edit Photonic Gallery”. Clicking on it launches a wizard that helps you interactively build out a gallery with just a few clicks. Gutenberg Support The Gallery Wizard can be accessed via Gutenberg / the Block Editor as well. While creating a block, just look for Photonic. Please refer to the documentation. Video Support Photonic provides gallery and lightbox support for videos as well. Videos of the following sorts are supported: External videos from YouTube or Vimeo can be opened in any of the lightboxes apart from Image Lightbox, Thickbox or BaguetteBox Self-hosted or external videos in MP4 formats can be opened in any of the lightboxes apart from Image Lightbox, PrettyPhoto, Strip or Thickbox Videos hosted by external service providers (Flickr, SmugMug etc.) can be opened as a part of a gallery in any of the lightboxes apart from Image Lightbox, PrettyPhoto, Strip or Thickbox. Some lightboxes have issues with specific features. Please refer to the Lightboxes documentation for more. Deep-Linking and Social Sharing Photonic provides deep-linking support for non-WP images, and by extension, supports social sharing to Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Beautiful Layouts Photonic displays your galleries in multiple forms: A grid of square thumbnails (the default) A grid of circular thumbnails (like Jetpack) A neat justified grid A masonry layout A “horizontal” masonry layout, for those who prefer having their masonry layouts sorted horizontally A tiled, random mosaic (a much improved variant of the Jetpack Tiled Gallery layout) A slideshow, using the Splide script See the Layouts documentation page for details and examples. Obsessively Comprehensive Documentation (OCD) Photonic’s documentation is comprehensive to the point of obsession. And yet, if you find something missing, please feel free to get in touch via the support forum.