Starter Templates vs Photonic Gallery & Lightbox for Flickr, SmugMug & Others

Website Templates, Page Templates and Block Patterns for WordPress Starter Templates is a growing library of 300+ ready-to-use website templates for WordPress. Import a complete website design, a single page template, or an individual section, in one click. Every template works with any WordPress theme, and with the page builder you already use: Elementor, Beaver Builder, Spectra, or the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg). Starter Templates demo Highlights 300+ website templates and ready-made site designs Free Elementor templates and Gutenberg templates 200+ page sections, block patterns and layouts Pre-built sections designed for specific use-cases Full site templates, page templates and section templates AI website builder with built-in AI assistant Adaptive design library with royalty-free images Works with any WordPress theme Supported page builders: Elementor, Spectra, Beaver Builder, and WordPress Block Editor One-Click Website Templates and Template Kits Building a website design from a blank page takes weeks. With Starter Templates you pick a template, import it, and edit the content. Every design is a complete template kit, not just a demo page, but the pages, layouts and settings that make a finished website. You can import at three levels: Full website templates: Every page, menu, and setting for a complete site Page templates: A single page design dropped into your existing site Sections and block patterns: Individual layouts added to any page Preview any template as a live demo before you import it, so you always know what you are getting. Realistic Templates for Every Business Starter Templates goes beyond stunning design. It delivers readymade website templates specifically crafted with your business in mind. Launching an eCommerce store? We have a diverse selection of store templates to get you selling in no time. Creating a business website? We have dozens of professional-quality designs ready for you to make your mark. No matter your industry or niche, we have a template that perfectly aligns with your vision. Free Elementor Templates A fan of Elementor? Look no further. Starter Templates offers a vast collection of professionally designed Elementor templates, with more than 300 Elementor templates available. Import entire websites built with Elementor, individual page templates, or specific blocks to enhance your site’s layout and design. Then just drag, drop, customize, and launch your website. WordPress Block Editor (Gutenberg) Templates The WordPress block editor is changing the game for website creation, and building from scratch is still slow. Starter Templates offers a large library of readymade Gutenberg templates, block patterns and page layouts, all editable natively in the block editor. Hundreds of Sections and Block Patterns Every section is built for a specific use-case. A hero to open a landing page, a pricing table for a service business, a testimonial layout for social proof, a team grid for an about page. Drop one into any page and the layout, spacing and styling are already handled. Swap the text and images, and the section is done. Want to customize your website design to make it truly unique? Use sections, block patterns and layouts to add your personal style. Available sections include: Hero, Page Header, About, Services, Features, Contact, Why Choose Us, Call To Action, Portfolio, Gallery, Testimonials, Pricing, FAQ, Team, Statistics. Templates That Install the Plugins They Need Depending on the type of template you import, Starter Templates also installs the plugins that template needs to work. Import a booking template and the plugins that provide booking are set up for you. Import an online store template and the eCommerce plugins come with it. You do not need to go hunting for another plugin after importing a template, because the design arrives ready to run. AI-Integrated Adaptive Design Library Personalize blocks and patterns to match your website style with the power of AI. The design library within the Starter Templates plugin is integrated with AI and royalty-free image repositories. All elements come pre-populated with relevant text and images that you can easily customize to match your brand. Lightning Fast Websites Starter Templates prioritizes speed and efficiency without compromising quality. Pages created with Starter Templates have efficient, clean code and are free from unnecessary elements. This means faster load times and a smoother experience for visitors on any browser or device. AI Website Builder Alongside the template library, Starter Templates includes an AI website builder. Describe your business and the AI selects a design, generates professional copy, and curates visuals to match your brand, producing a complete website in under two minutes, which you then edit like any other template. Follow the steps below: Enter the name of your website and select the type of website you’re creating (portfolio, business site, landing page, or something else). Describe your business. Use AI to refine your description prompt if you need to. Add your contact details and social media handles so people can interact. The AI will suggest images based on your input. Select the images you want to use. Choose the website structure from the options. Select any site features you need. The AI will generate a website in under 2 minutes. Customize your site as you see fit! AI Assistant for WordPress Our AI Assistant works in a similar way to ChatGPT but is specifically tailored for WordPress. With just a click of a button, you can use AI to help write copy for landing pages, proofread blog posts, translate content into different languages, generate custom HTML and CSS codes, and much more. Royalty-Free Images The Starter Templates plugin offers seamless integration with leading royalty-free image repositories such as Pexels and Unsplash. You have access to millions of top-tier images within your WordPress dashboard. Simply search for the image you need and select it. Training Videos We offer a range of comprehensive training videos designed to complement our templates. They provide the knowledge and skills necessary to build, launch, and maintain your website. Types of Websites You Can Create Starter Templates is perfect for building websites for: personal branding, restaurants, service providers, nonprofits and charities, events, startups, local businesses, wellness businesses, landing pages, lead generation websites, eCommerce stores, blogs, manufacturing businesses, and any other type of WordPress website. There’s no limit to what you can create. Please note: To access AI-generated templates and websites, you’ll need a ZipWP account. Signing up is quick, easy, and 100% free. Fun Facts About Starter Templates ✓ Over 5,000 websites are built with Starter Templates every day. ✓ The plugin has been installed on more than 2 million websites. ✓ Starter Templates has more than 4,500 five-star reviews. ✓ Our team of dedicated full-time WordPress experts help and support hundreds of users daily. ✓ A devoted team of full-time designers keeps the design library up to date. ✓ Our plugin offers more than 150 free Elementor templates. ✓ You can import a complete website, individual page, or section of a page in seconds.

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 no longer works 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.