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Photonic Gallery & Lightbox for Flickr, SmugMug & Others
Galleries on steroids! A stylish lightbox & gallery plugin for WP, Flickr, SmugMug and Zenfolio photos and videos.
The facts
- Rating
- 4.8★ from 193
- Active installs
- 10k+
- Price
- Free
- Last updated
- 20 Aug 2026
- Added
- Sep 2011
- Requires WP
- 6.2
- Tested up to
- WP 7.1
- Requires PHP
- 7.4
- Downloads
- 854,780
Our analysis
AI-assistedPhotonic Gallery & Lightbox is a WordPress plugin designed to enhance the gallery functionality of your site. It supports various photo sources including Flickr, SmugMug, and Zenfolio, allowing you to display photos, albums, and collections with added features. The plugin works with both the classic editor and Gutenberg, providing flexibility in how galleries are integrated into your posts.
The plugin also includes support for a wide range of lightbox scripts, enabling different display options for your images. Users can set up authentication for viewing private photos, making it suitable for those who need to manage access to their content. This plugin is aimed at users who want to create visually appealing galleries with diverse source options.
Best for: This plugin suits photographers, artists, and anyone looking to showcase images from various online platforms.
What it does well
- ✓Supports multiple photo sources like Flickr and SmugMug
- ✓Works with both classic and Gutenberg editors
- ✓Includes a variety of lightbox scripts
- ✓Allows authentication for private photos
- ✓Free to use from the WordPress.org directory
Where it falls short
- •Requires manual installation for non-GPL lightbox scripts
- •Deactivating the plugin requires removing custom shortcodes
Verdict
Photonic Gallery & Lightbox offers a robust solution for enhancing WordPress galleries, especially for users with diverse image sources. It is a versatile choice for those wanting to improve their site's visual presentation.
From the developer
Sayontan Sinha's own description of Photonic Gallery & Lightbox for Flickr, SmugMug & Others, lightly tidied.
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:
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