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#8 in Slider Plugins

Serious Slider — WordPress Slider Plugin

by CryoutCreations · WordPress.org page · Website

v1.4.1 Tested up to WP 7.0.4 PHP 7.0+

Serious Slider has 20,000+ active installs on WordPress.org and 555,917 downloads all time. We have tracked it since September 4, 2026; download trends appear after 30 days of data. The last update was on August 10, 2026, tested up to WordPress 7.0.4.

Serious Slider at a glance

Active installs
20,000+
Total downloads
555,917
Downloads, last 30 days
–
available after 30 days of tracking
30-day growth
–
tracking since September 4, 2026

Is Serious Slider well maintained?

Support threads resolved
1 of 2
recent threads on the WordPress.org support forum
WordPress compatibility
Behind
tested up to WordPress 7.0.4, not yet with the current 7.1

Features

The feature list from the plugin's own readme on WordPress.org, trimmed to the essentials.

  • Create unlimited sliders with unlimited slides. The only limit is your imagination on how to use them
  • Add titles, texts, buttons and links to each slide. All slide texts support HTML tags and even other shortcodes
  • Easy to use media button. Effortlessly add slideshows in posts, pages or custom post types via the “Add Slider” media button in the WordPress text editor. Then…
  • Auto-generated Shortcodes and PHP integration. Use the auto generated shortcode to integrate slideshows with themes or other plugins. Copy-paste the auto…
  • Serious Slider Block. Insert slideshows in the content managed with the block editor
  • Serious Slider Widget. Display slideshows in sidebars via the classic Serious Slider widget
  • Use multiple sliders in the same page
  • Use multiple instances of the same slider with distinct visual configurations
  • Familiar admin user interface. Create sliders and slides with the familiarity of managing posts and categories, without having to learn another user interface
  • Lightweight and powerful. Only minimum JavaScript and CSS3 are being loaded on your site
  • Fast slider creation. Create awesome, responsive WordPress slideshows in a matter of seconds
  • Browser compatibility. The image slider looks and behaves great on various devices and browsers

Serious Slider reviews and ratings

8 reviews on WordPress.org, with the most recent ones as their authors posted them.

All reviews
3.4 out of 5

8 reviews

5★
3
4★
1
3★
1
2★
2
1★
1

  • Everything ok!

    Everything ok!

    mayerka

  • Thanks! Great plugin

    It's what I was looking for since cyclone slider. Simple, functional and free.

    Bambero

  • No good with Bootstrap!

    WARNING: If your site or theme depends on the jQuery Bootstrap library, this plugin might not work correctly. There is no workaround. I could only get this plugin to work correctly by disabling Bootstrap's JavaScript file. However, disabling this Bootstrap file breaks my theme. I like this plugin for its ease of use and features but it is literally impossible to get working correctly with my site using the Hestia theme. Response per Serious Slider developer: Our Serious Slider plugin is Bootstrap-based so it includes the needed Bootstrap styling and JavaScript to make it work. We tried to make it self-contained so that it doesn’t expand its styling and code on anything else in the content that may also be using Bootstrap (and its classnames/IDs), however it is not possible to protect for the reverse situation without completely rewriting the Bootstrap identifiers. As such, the slider may be interfered with or malfunction completely if something else on the site use Bootstrap too and applies its styling/code too generally. Since BootStrap is such a widely used component, it would have spared me tons of wasted time if the developer had mentioned the potential for this huge conflict somewhere on their WordPress repository page. As a result of the conflict, I was forced to remove this plugin. I ended up using a plugin called Slide Anything, which seems to work very well without conflicting with Bootstrap or other popular components.

    sparky672

  • Too much work to load with pictures

    Each photo requires a slide. Each slide is more like a full WordPress post. There is no simple way to tag a bunch of photos and have them appear in the slider. Not intuitive or fast. Sorry guys, love your Fluida template but the slider is a fail.

    geldner

  • Nice slider but does not constrain size

    This is a simple to use Slide Maker, you can add HTML Links and buttons - the transitions are quite limited compared to others I have seen. The biggest issue we have is no matter which options we select the images still change sizes even if "constrain" is on - so the height of the slider jumps up and down, moving the text up and down the page, it looks horrible, especially on your homepage; the only way we have found to fix this is to manually crop all images for the slideshow which doubles our workload and image uploads which then makes this inefficient. If the sizes could be fixed it would be worth 5 stars

    Mobile PC Rescue

  • It does not work. Errors with slides

    I added new slide using 'Add New Slider' link under 'All Slides', then configured it. When I click 'All Slides' I see one slide in the list. But! when I click 'Manage Sliders' link there is no added slider! Just empty list in the right side! Then I added another slide in 'Manage Slides'. Ok, I have one slide I just added. But when I go to 'All Slides' page there are two slides! Old one and the new slide! How it could be?! When I try to add widget in my page it shows nothing! Unfortunately I have no time to hussle it and I deleted this plugin. I use Page Builder.

    SoldierOfFortune

Where Serious Slider ranks on WordPress.org

The rankings we track that Serious Slider appears in, and how its position changed over 30 days.

Ranking WordPress.org placement Position 30 days
Best Slider Plugins #17 by tag, #10 in search #8 –

Serious Slider alternatives

Plugins that solve the same problem, ranked by how closely they overlap with Serious Slider.

All Serious Slider alternatives

Compare Serious Slider head to head

Details

Serious Slider is a free highly efficient SEO friendly fully translatable accessibility ready image slider for WordPress. Seriously!

The full description, screenshots and every review live on the WordPress.org page.

Tags

  • image slider
  • responsive slider
  • slider
  • slideshow
  • wordpress slider

More from CryoutCreations

Version
1.4.1
Last updated
Aug 10, 2026
First published
May 11, 2016
Requires WordPress
5.0
Tested up to
7.0.4
Requires PHP
7.0
Pricing
Free on WordPress.org

Serious Slider FAQ

What does Serious Slider do?

According to its WordPress.org readme, Serious Slider offers Create unlimited sliders with unlimited slides. The only limit is your imagination on how to use them, Add titles, texts, buttons and links to each slide. All slide texts support HTML tags and even other shortcodes, Easy to use media button. Effortlessly add slideshows in posts, pages or custom post types via the “Add Slider” media button in the WordPress text editor. Then, Auto-generated Shortcodes and PHP integration. Use the auto generated shortcode to integrate slideshows with themes or other plugins. Copy-paste the auto and Serious Slider Block. Insert slideshows in the content managed with the block editor.

How many active installs does Serious Slider have?

WordPress.org reports 20,000+ active installs for Serious Slider as of September 7, 2026.

Is Serious Slider still maintained?

Yes. The last release was on August 10, 2026 and it is tested up to WordPress 7.0.4.

Does Serious Slider have good support?

On the WordPress.org forum, 1 of 2 recent support threads for Serious Slider are marked resolved. That is the developer's free support; a paid version usually comes with its own channel.

Is Serious Slider free?

Serious Slider is free to install from WordPress.org. Many plugins also sell a paid version or add-ons.

Where does Serious Slider rank among Slider Plugins?

Serious Slider is #8 in the WordPress.org "slider" ranking as of today.