Struggling to pick between Modula vs FooGallery as the best WordPress gallery plugin for your website?
If you search for gallery plugins at WordPress.org, these are two of the most popular options. Both also offer premium versions that add even more functionality to the free plugin.
So – how can you pick the right gallery plugin for your situation? That’s what this comparison is about.
Rather than just trying to name a single winner, we’re going to aim to highlight the meaningful differences between the two so that you can pick the right one for your website.
To accomplish that, we’ll compare them in four different areas:
- General approach and features
- Interface
- Gallery layouts
- Pricing
Let’s dig in…
Modula vs FooGallery: General Approach and Features
To kick off our Modula vs FooGallery comparison, let’s discuss the general approach of each plugin, along with some of the key features.
This is not a full feature list – I just want to highlight the differences in approach. If you do want to see every single feature, you can find those lists on both plugins’ WordPress.org listings:
Modula Approach
Modula focuses on making it easy to create stylish, quick-loading galleries.
You can create image galleries with the free version and then the Pro version adds support for video galleries.
It doesn’t offer other gallery sources beyond that, but it does offer some of the best-looking out-of-the-box galleries that you’ll find.
By default, Modula creates responsive grid galleries that will automatically adjust to each visitor’s resolution to create a unique layout like this:
It also includes a unique option that lets you create your own custom grid using drag-and-drop. Or, you can always use more “traditional” layouts like a masonry grid or slider.
The Pro version also adds special features to speed up your galleries, such as on-the-fly image optimization, including a content delivery network.
Basically, if you just want the easiest way to create stylish, quick-loading galleries from images or videos, that’s where Modula really shines.
For this reason, Modula is generally one of the best options for casual users, though advanced users can certainly get value from it as well.
FooGallery Approach
Whereas Modula is focused on making it easy to create stylish galleries, FooGallery is more focused on advanced gallery applications and dynamic gallery content sources.
That’s not to say the FooGallery layouts look bad; it’s just a different focus.
For example, in addition to letting you create galleries of images or videos like Modula, FooGallery also lets you create galleries from your WordPress content:
For example, you could create a gallery on your eCommerce store’s homepage that automatically includes your most recently added products. Or, you could do the same thing for your recently published blog posts.
You can also create image galleries that dynamically sync with an external source. For example, you can sync with a folder on your server or an Adobe Lightroom collection.
You also get some heavy-duty features to go along with this. For example, while both Modula and FooGallery let you add real-time Ajax filters to filter gallery items, FooGallery lets you add multiple filter levels, while Modula only lets you use a single level.
For these reasons, FooGallery can be a better option for more advanced users who want these added features. It’s not complex – it’s just that most of the unique features are things that advanced users will get more value from.
Interface and Ease of Use
Both Modula and FooGallery have well-designed interfaces that make it easy to create and customize your gallery.
In fact, they use pretty much the exact same approach, so you really won’t notice much difference either way in terms of the interface or ease of use.
Let’s take a look at what it’s like to create a gallery in each…
Modula
When you create a gallery in Modula, you can either upload new images or select existing images in your Media Library. The same holds true for videos, if creating video galleries.
Then, you can use the settings area below to configure everything about your gallery, including its layout (more on that next) and tons of other settings.
To embed your gallery, you can use the provided shortcode or Modula also gives you two dedicated editor blocks. One embeds the gallery and the other embed a button that people can click to open the gallery.
FooGallery
Creating a gallery in FooGallery works pretty much exactly the same.
To start, you’ll select your gallery items in the box at the top. As with Modula, you can upload/choose images from your Media Library.
However, as I mentioned above, FooGallery also supports other gallery sources, such as syncing with a folder on your server or pulling in other content like blog posts or WooCommerce products.
Then, you can use the Gallery Settings box to choose your layout and configure the settings, which are divided into different tabs.
When you’re finished, you can publish your gallery. You can embed it anywhere on your site using the FooGallery block or the provided shortcode.
Gallery Layouts
In terms of gallery layouts, FooGallery gives you more overall options. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean FooGallery wins, because I think most casual users might actually prefer the layouts in Modula.
Modula focuses on offering a few layouts that look great. More specifically, it focuses on creating grid galleries like this (though you do get some other options):
FooGallery has a broader focus, including some unique options such as polaroid galleries or image viewers.
In general, there’s not a clear winner – it really depends on what type of galleries you want to create and which aesthetic you prefer.
Modula
Modula lets you choose from four different gallery layouts:
- Creative gallery
- Custom grid
- Columns
- Slider
While the top-line number is lower than what you get with FooGallery, Modula has two things going in its favor:
- Its default Creative Gallery layout looks great. For most people, this is probably all you need.
- The Custom Grid layout lets you design your own grid using drag-and-drop, which is a really neat feature that FooGallery doesn’t offer.
You also get a ton of options for customizing a gallery’s details, such as layout, hover effects, loading effects, and more.
Here’s an example of the default Creative Gallery layout:
For pinpoint control over your gallery’s layout, you can use the custom grid builder. You can use drag and drop to change the size and arrange of images and Modula will automatically adjust the gallery grid based on your input:
FooGallery
FooGallery offers seven free gallery layouts and three premium layouts for a grand total of ten options:
- Responsive gallery (simple multi-column design)
- Image viewer
- Masonry
- Simple portfolio
- Justified
- Single thumbnail
- Carousel
- Polaroid (pro)
- Grid gallery (pro)
- Slider (pro)
As you can see, FooGallery does have some unique options such as image viewer, single thumbnail, and polaroid. If you want those layouts, that might be a point in FooGallery’s favor.
Like Modula, FooGallery also gives you a ton of customization options for each layout.
Here’s an example of the default Responsive Image Gallery layout:
And here’s the Image Viewer layout, one of the unique options in FooGallery:
Pricing
Both Modula and FooGallery have free gallery plugins at WordPress.org as well as premium versions that add more functionality.
In terms of the premium plans, Modula is generally a bit more affordable than FooGallery, especially if you need to use it on multiple sites.
Here’s Modula’s yearly pricing – note that the number of sites you can use the plugin on increases as you upgrade tiers:
? Click here for a detailed comparison of the features available on the different Modula plans.
Here’s FooGallery’s yearly pricing – note that all tiers only support a single site for the prices below:
? Click here for a detailed comparison of the features available on different FooGallery plans.
You can use the toggle to increase the number of sites that you can use FooGallery on, but it gets more expensive than Modula then. For example, here are the yearly prices for five sites:
Both plugins also offer lifetime license options.
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
To finish out our Modula vs FooGallery comparison, let’s talk about who should use each plugin.
In general, Modula is the best option for people who want the easiest way to create stylish galleries with images or videos.
The right out-of-the-box designs look great with the default grid layout and you also get tons of options for customizing details such as hover effects. If that’s not enough, you also get the custom grid builder, which is a feature that FooGallery doesn’t offer (nor do most other gallery plugins).
Other pros of Modula include:
- Lightweight with a focus on performance, including special performance features with the Pro version.
- The premium version is a bit more affordable than FooGallery, especially if you want to use it on multiple sites.
To learn more, check out our full Modula review.
On the other hand, FooGallery has some unique features that might make it the better option for more advanced use cases. Here are some examples:
- Post content in galleries – you can use post queries to dynamically fill a gallery with your latest blog posts, pages, or custom post types.
- WooCommerce galleries – you can do the same for WooCommerce products, which can be helpful for both traditional eCommerce stores or selling prints of your gallery images.
- Dynamic gallery sources – you can dynamically create galleries from a folder on your server, media categories/tags, Adobe Lightroom collections, and so on.
While those are more niche use cases, Modula doesn’t offer those types of galleries.
Basically:
- If you want the easy stylish images or video galleries, Modula is probably your best option.
- If you want more advanced features such as dynamic galleries or WooCommerce support, FooGallery might be a better choice.
Do you still have any questions about Modula vs FooGallery? Let us know in the comments!
Keep reading the article at WP Mayor. The article was originally written by Colin Newcomer on 2022-06-08 07:00:00.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.