Are you a designer or a photographer, start-up or a small business, looking for the easiest way to build a portfolio website in WordPress? A good quality portfolio page is definitely important for any creative person to get more business. Presenting your work on a portfolio page can be more effective than any other marketing strategy because your work will speak for you.

But which website builder to choose? WordPress is an extremely popular tool for creating websites. To prove it with numbers – 28% of all websites online globally are powered by WordPress. As the portfolio website is very important for your image, it should be stylish and fully-functional.

So what are the concepts that you need to know when building an online portfolio? Themes in WordPress are supposed to handle the visual appearance of your website only. This includes colors, styles, layouts, and presentation of your content. Plugins, in their turn, are the proper way to add functionalities such as sliders, contact forms, etc., to your site. While everything is clear with themes (just pick the one you like), it is way more difficult with plugins.

The good news? We did the hard work for you. Below are five of the best WordPress portfolio plugins of this year. These can help you organize the portfolio in the easiest and most efficient way, not to mention, save you lots of time when it comes to putting together the site that showcases your skills.

1. NextGEN Gallery
2. Envira Gallery
3. WordPress Portfolio Plugin
4. Nimble Portfolio
5. Projects by WooTheme

1. NextGEN Gallery

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NextGEN Gallery is a free portfolio plugin for WordPress that has more than one million active installations. It’s easy to use for simple photo galleries, but powerful enough for the most demanding photographers and visual artists.

There are two versions of NextGEN, one’s free and the other is the paid Pro version. This plugin receives 1.5 million new downloads every year.

2. Envira Gallery

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Featuring a top rating, Envira Gallery earned five stars as one of the best WordPress portfolio plugins due to its drag-and-drop capabilities. Envira Gallery is the best responsive WordPress gallery plugin. It allows you to create stunning photo galleries to showcase your portfolio or images on your website.

This plugin has very useful features such as an easy share on social media. Also, Envira Gallery plays nicely with other plugins and helps you upgrading your portfolio quickly and with little effort.

3. WordPress Portfolio Plugin (WP Portfolio)

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While it isn’t fancy, WP Portfolio gets the job done. It is a popular free WordPress portfolio plugin. WP Portfolio comes with different viewing and display options. It allows you to sort portfolio items into categories.You can also add multiple images/videos per project.

Features include automatically generated website thumbnails, unlimited listings, assigning those listings to multiple groups, and a fully customizable layout.

4. Nimble Portfolio

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While the Nimble Portfolio plugin is free, there are additional upgrades you can buy. With Nimble Portfolio, you can easily add a pretty portfolio to your site. Simply create a new portfolio entry, and then upload images and other digital files. It is easy to install, configure and it is very user-friendly.

5. Projects by WooThemes

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Standing among the best WordPress portfolio plugins for free, Projects by WooThemes lets you create a basic portfolio on your website. Each of your portfolio entries will have its own dedicated URL with all the relevant details you would like to include — and you can categorize and sort them as you see wish. Also, this plugin works well with WooCommerce, allowing your clients to add products to the cart for purchase.

Conclusion

When it comes to evaluating the best WordPress portfolio plugins the possibilities are vast. Whether it be it highlighting the latest code developments or showcasing your stellar design work, you should take a look at each one in detail and find the best match for you!