If you want to grab a visitor’s attention by displaying a set of images, sliders are a great way to get that done. The best sliders are attention-getting, with attractive animations that match the tone and purpose of your site. We’ve collected a list of some of our favorite sliders and galleries below.
Fair warning: like many animated web plugins, most of these sliders are based on jQuery, the hat that JavaScript wears when it wants to seem cool. If you’re not already familiar with it, it’s fairly easy to learn, but it is distinct from JS in its own special ways. jQuery sliders also might not be ideal for every application. They often require large scripts that need to be downloaded and executed on the client computer, making them clumsy for mobile applications where data use is a concern. And some developers just plain don’t like jQuery, feeling like it’s the child’s version of JavaScript. If you’re not into it, Sequence.js and WOW Slider are CSS-only options.
Amazing Slider
Based on jQuery, Amazing Slider offers numerous skins to users. You can choose from a gallery of options including custom backgrounds, banner buttons, thumbnail icons, vertical sliders and a lot more. It can be so flexible because it’s not just free code. Non-watermarked versions of the slider start at $69 and go up from there.
Huge IT Slider
The Huge IT Slider is a plugin for WordPress that supports video and photo content along with captions and variety of interaction styles. It’s one of the best sliders for websites built on WordPress, and one of the more flexible.
Unslider
Unslider is a minimal jQuery slider for a more modern aesthetic. Promoting itself as “ultra simple,” the code is as basic as an unordered list with some animation elements applied. It’s simplicity means it can support a huge range of options, if you know what you’re doing, from full-page sliders to text-only options.
Avia Slider
Avia Slider is a jQuery slider that builds itself on unique transitions. The diagonal block build is particular impressive, and each feature of the slider is thoroughly documented by the developer
Jssor
Jssor is a flexible jQuery slider built with a deep level of customization available. It includes complex features like z-axis animation and layers effects alongside common options like thumbnail views and video panes. Users can download a variety of pre-built version, or apply pre-developed skins to their own slider. In the tradition of open-source projects, power users have almost unlimited flexibility in how they use the project, and it’s free to download. Jssor is also one of the few sliders on this list that comes in a non-jQuery version as well, and one of the best sliders available for free.
Camera Slideshow
Camera Slideshow is a responsive and adaptive slider built with jQuery. It’s basic but free, and includes a number of skins that ship with the code for limited customization. Mostly, though, it looks nice out of the box, and its plain enough to drop into most projects without clashing with your aesthetic.
Sequence.js
Sequence.js is goes beyond the best sliders and offers a “responsive CSS animation framework,” allowing developers to create a whole host of effects by applying CSS3 animations to their projects. CSS animations are astounding simple to implement, support by a wide variety of browsers, lightweight and modern. This also makes Sequence one of the most complex sliders on this list. However, that also makes it the most customizable by far. Sequence.js is supported by every browser since Explorer 10, with graceful degradations in place for Explorer 8 and 9.
jQuery Banner Rotator
jQuery Banner Rotator is a simple but useful jQuery-based slider. It offers solid animation options, a variety of transitions and easy super-imposed text options. You also get configurable tool tips for each thumbnail, flexible text descriptions and resizable UI elements.
Sideways
Sideways is one of the more unique best sliders on our list. It’s forte is full-page sliders with complex, side-mounted gallery tabs. An excellent choice for building out a photographer’s portfolio, though not as applicable for headers on corporate sites. Users also get custom toolbars and mouse wheel-based navigation.
Bootstrap Carousel
Bootstrap Carousel is made for non-coders, offering robust WYSIWYG tools and with a complete set of point-and-click options. The slider is built is custom software and then exported to your site. Users can even build full sites using the drag-and-drop website builder for quicker development timelines.
Master Slider
Like Bootstrap Carousel, Master Slider also offers a visual builder for creating WYSIWYG sliders without coding. It’s based on jQuery, with support for animated layers and touch navigation as well as more than 25 pre-built templates that users can implement immediately.
WOW Slider
The last slider for folks who would prefer not to code, WOW Slider is designed to be easy to use. It’s also built entirely off CSS, letting you ditch the heavy scripts required for many jQuery plugins. Users get a surprisingly wide array of options, include Joomla and WordPress support, complex transitions, intelligent image caching, and support for every browser since Internet Explorer 6.
Accordion Slider
Accordion Slider uses a somewhat-unique user interface metaphor, displaying an “accordion” of images for users to choose from in the carousel. It’s not the first or last slider to do this, but it’s the most popular and flexible to offer this option. It’s touch enabled and SEO friendly, with animated layers and smooth animations.
Rhinoslider
Rhinoslider bills itself as “the most flexible jQuery slideshow there is.” All its flexibility is wrapped inside of a generator that allows those with limited JavaScript and jQuery experience to swiftly implement the slider’s features on their website.
CSSSlider
Lastly, there’s CSSSlider, an aggressively non-jQuery slider. It’s not as functional as some of its jQuery counterparts, with fewer animations available, but its responsive and massively cross-browser.
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