Looking to boost your online marketing with video content? Video is one of the more effective strategies you can use to market your products, brand, or website. But it can be difficult to know where to start. 

In this article, we’ll help point you in the right direction. Here you’ll find a list of the top 6 WordPress video plugins in 2024, plus we’ll explain how to choose the best WordPress video plugin, taking factors like ease-of-use, compatibility and performance into account.  

This comprehensive guide will help you identify the best plugin for your needs and allow you to get started with integrating video content into your site.

Understanding the Role of Video Plugins in WordPress 

In WordPress, a video plugin can be used to insert videos into your pages or posts, transforming your website into a more dynamic and interactive platform. 

Video plugins assist in integrating videos into a WordPress site in an aesthetic, organized and appealing way. They can determine how your video is displayed and how it behaves – for example, whether it auto plays when the page is opened or if it opens in a lightbox. 

play video in lightbox

There are different variations of video plugins that you can use, depending on your needs. Remember, these plugins are tools not only for playing videos, but also for editing and customizing video content and for determining how videos are displayed. As can be expected, different plugins will have different features.For example, FooGallery makes it easy for you to set up a video gallery which can be used to display multiple videos neatly, or display videos alongside images. 

Considering the number of WordPress video players available, it’s important to choose the right one. After all, any plugin can impact the overall performance and load time on a WordPress site. Because of this, choosing the best plugin for your site means not only finding the features you need, but also finding a plugin that delivers on performance. 

How Videos Heighten your Marketing Strategy

There are a number of advantages to using video as a marketing tool: it leads to increased engagement, improves conversion rates, and helps with overall SEO performance. According to the Wyzowl state of video marketing report, 81% of marketers report that video content has directly increased their sales. 

The effectiveness of videos in a marketing strategy is in how they capture attention faster and hold attention longer than text. In addition to this, they appeal to both the visual and auditory senses, increasing the likelihood of engagement. They allow for shareability across platforms, helping you reach a wider audience, which means that video content has a far greater potential reach. So, with the rise of social media and overall increase in internet usage, videos have become a preferred format of content consumption.

But while this sounds like the ideal solution for improving your marketing efforts, integrating video content is not always easy. However, with the right tools and strategies, it is possible for anyone, beginners included, to harness the potential of video marketing. So let’s take a look at how to choose the tools and plugins to support integrating video content into your marketing strategy. 

Choosing the Right Video Plugin for your WordPress Site 

There are several factors to consider when choosing a video plugin. 

The core factor is the actual features of the plugin, and how they assist or streamline the process of video integration, as well as the  organization, display and customization of video content. Think about how these features will lead to the benefits and/or outcomes you are interested in, such as SEO-optimization if you want to increase traffic to your site. 

The amount and types of video content users intend to host would influence plugin choice as well. For example, if your aim is specifically to create video galleries, then certain plugins will be better for this aim.

Video gallery using FooGallery PRO Expert
Example of a video gallery with FooGallery PRO Expert

Another consideration is plugin cost. In WordPress, you will find free and premium plugins, so you need to decide which is most suitable for you based on your individual needs. While free plugins often cover the basics, your more advanced features (along with plugin support) are generally only available with premium plugins. Take a look at the plugin pricing to get an idea of which features are included in the different tiers. 

Plugin compatibility with various WordPress themes and other plugins can be an important factor if your site uses other plugins (which it invariably will). Look for plugins that have been tested with the latest version of WordPress, and keep an eye out for integrations, such as with SEO plugins. 

Plugin updates and other details on WordPress

Finally, it is well worth considering the impact of plugins on website speed and user experience due to high video traffic. Things like a slow page load time, or a buffering video, are sure to turn visitors away, and can be detrimental to both your customer experience and your SEO. 

Top 6 Video WordPress Plugins: an In-Depth Review 

Below, we take a look at 6 of the best video plugins currently available. 

FooGallery PRO

foogallery wordpress gallery plugin

FooGallery PRO is our top pick for the best solution for video integration support. This gallery plugin supports video integration, starting with the FooGallery PRO Expert plan (though the FooGallery PRO Commerce is preferred for ecommerce stores that want to set up product galleries on their website and that combine product images with videos).

I love the additional choices and it was so easy to incorporate the video links into our web pages.

Christina

FooGallery PRO comes with a host of features that make it stand out as a plugin: 

  • It comes with multiple gallery layouts, lending itself to customizable video galleries for various use cases. For example, the Slider PRO layout is a great option for a series of how-to videos for a product, while the Grid PRO layout lends itself to a dedicated gallery for a collection of videos. 
  • You can import videos from Youtube, DailyMotion, Vimeo and various other platforms. The video settings give you control over whether the video autoplays, the size of the video lightbox, and the video icon used. 
  • Mixed media galleries give you the opportunity to best market your product through both image and video content. FooGallery PRO allows you to include both video and images in your gallery, encouraging audience engagement and retention. 
demo of an image and video gallery using FooGallery
  • The frontend filtering, available in both PRO Expert and PRO Commerce, allows you to organize your galleries and help users find videos. This can be crucial for large galleries, and can go a long way to improving user experience.
  • Custom captioning allows for better user understanding, and can improve SEO. You can also add captions to both the thumbnails and the lightbox. 
  • The built-in Lightbox makes videos even more engaging by displaying them in an overlay above your page. Users can watch videos in the pop-up lightbox, making for cleaner displays and better mobile device performance.
  • The WooCommerce integration, available with FooGallery PRO Commerce, is ideal for ecommerce websites who want to sell items from their gallery. 
  • And on top of all of this, FooGallery is responsive and lightweight, enhancing site speed. The high-speed performance and mobile-friendly integration, along with several other features, all help to improve SEO performance.

As you can see, while FooGallery is ideal for responsive video integration, it has functionality extending beyond this, making it one of the best plugins for media integration across the board. Plus, FooGallery PRO is user-friendly – it’s simple to install, set up and configure, whether you’re a web developer or a less tech-savvy user. Here’s a demo video gallery:

For photographers or online retailers, finding an appropriate video plugin that satisfies your unique needs might be proving difficult. You might be struggling with customization of your video display. Maybe you’re experiencing compatibility issues with various video formats and hosting platforms. Or perhaps you’re concerned about website speed and poor user experience due to high video traffic. FooGallery’s PRO version is an excellent solution for all of these concerns, given its inclusive feature-set, outstanding support, and excellent user reviews. See for yourself with the FooGallery PRO plan comparison.

The Best WordPress Gallery Plugin

FooGallery is an easy-to-use WordPress gallery plugin, with stunning gallery layouts and a focus on speed and SEO.

Envira Gallery

Envira gallery

As a WordPress gallery plugin, Envira offers a range of features for creating media galleries. It is also easy-to-use, responsive, mobile-friendly and optimized for performance. Depending on the plan you select, you get access to a range of gallery addons, each allowing for increased versatility and functionality.

One of these is the video addon, included in the Pro plan, which allows you to create video galleries from platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion, VideoPress and self-hosted videos. You can add any number of videos to your gallery, just using the URL to add them in. Envira then conveniently pulls in video thumbnails to help streamline the process for you. The video lightbox, in which the videos are played, is customizable, allowing you to autoplay, show volume control, show play/pause control, enable fullscreen and so on. 

Envira comes with a number of good reviews, and is a highly rated gallery plugin, although there are some mentions of slow support with the free version. You can take a look at their video gallery demo here, however, not all of the videos were working at the time of writing.

All-in-One Video Gallery

All in one video gallery

This WordPress plugin lets you build video galleries with videos of various formats, including MP4, WebM, OGV, HLS, MPEG-DASH. You can also embed videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Facebook and several other platforms. 

The plugin comes with several different templates (Grid and List in the free version, and several more in premium), so you can structure your video galleries to suit your needs. You also have the ability to customize the controls and playback options, and group videos by categories and tags. A handy feature is the subtitles and captions that can be included with the videos. 

The premium version of All-in-One Video Gallery optimizes videos for search engines by adding relevant metadata, and making videos crawlable and indexable. You can also generate thumbnails automatically and add custom logos and branding. 

If you’re looking for a straightforward video gallery, then this is a decent option, with a number of good reviews and some attractive demos. However, if you want videos to play in a lightbox, then you will need the premium version. Another point to consider is that this is a dedicated video plugin – it doesn’t allow for image or photo galleries, or even a combined photo and video gallery. 

Presto Player

Presto Player

Built for the Gutenberg Block Editor in WordPress, Presto Player is a simple-to-use popular video gallery plugin. It comes with a range of useful features, like allowing for chapter markings, saved position, or making your video ‘sticky on scroll’. These are great for online course-creators setting up tutorials, or bloggers. But marketers will also appreciate features like muted autoplay previews and Google analytics integration. 

With Presto Player you can embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo, and it allows for self-hosted videos. You can also use it to create a playlist of videos or audio. There are various integrations with page builders like Elementor, and SEO platforms, assisting with its compatibility and performance. The plugin also includes presets and custom colors, giving you some options for customization. 

For a fairly new plugin (launched in 2021) it has a number of good reviews. However, it seems a bit limited in terms of how much the display and controls can be customized. It doesn’t include a lightbox feature, and you aren’t able to create video galleries, as with some of the other plugins. But, for featuring standalone videos on your WordPress website, it is a good option. 

Easy Video Player

Easy video player

This is a straightforward video player plugin that allows you to embed self-hosted videos or videos from external hosts, using direct links. You can embed MP4 videos and HTML5 videos. If the browser and device support it, you can also set up autoplay. 

Some of the other useful features include setting up a video with loop, or enabling mute on a video. There are also several video addons, such as the MediaElement Skin 1 or Disable Right Click. The Video Schema addon is particularly useful, as it adds schema or metadata to your videos to help get them indexed by search engines. 

While Easy Video Player is somewhat customizable, it relies on shortcode to do this. If you’re comfortable with basic shortcodes, then this lightweight video plugin could work for you (the developer does outline a range of possible shortcodes that you can use). However, this does make it more complicated, and less versatile, than some of the other plugins on this list.

Feeds for YouTube

Feeds for YouTube

As the name suggests, this plugin allows you to display YouTube videos on your WordPress site. This customizable video player lets you automatically feed YouTube channel content to your website. 

Some of the key features include:

  • A responsive, mobile-optimized video display.
  • Several layouts, including a list, grid or gallery layout. 
  • A Load More button.
  • Multiple feeds from different channels. 

The plugin is also lightweight and promises a fast-loading time, which is beneficial for SEO. The premium version offers even more features, such as integration with a YouTube API for live streaming, video filtering, and customizable actions when the video finishes playing. 

This is a popular plugin with great reviews and good support. It also allows you to create video galleries for those that want to present a collection of videos. However, you are limited to using YouTube as your hosting platform for all of your videos, so it doesn’t allow for self-hosted videos or those from other popular platforms, which may be somewhat restrictive.

Considerations for Video Hosting and Customization 

There are different video hosting options, such as self-hosting and third-party hosting, and there are pros and cons of each.

For self-hosting:

  • You own the video data.
  • You can get more direct traffic to your site.
  • You have control over how the video is displayed. 
  • And you have control over ads shown with your video.

For third-party hosting:

  • Site bandwidth isn’t used by videos being played.
  • Because of this file sizes are smaller.
  • Device and format optimization is taken care of.
  • It’s easy to use – third-party hosting services facilitate the process, while self-hosting may require some coding knowledge.  

One of the main benefits in using platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, or even storage like Amazon S3, is the saving on storage space and improving video playback. Self-hosted video files can use up server space that you may not have, or may lead to poor video quality. Using a third-party platform can eliminate these issues.

Using a video embed plugin gives you the ability to display videos from popular platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, which can have a positive impact on user engagement and SEO. There is less likelihood of lagging videos or poor quality, which also means improved visitor-retention and better page speed.

When looking for a video plugin, take into account the customization available for the video player in terms of appearance, controls, and autoplay features to match your site’s user experience and aesthetic. FooGallery, for example, offers extensive customization options. You can select the play icon and set this to sticky. You can also set the size of the video in the lightbox. 

FooGallery video settings

If you are unsure of what kind of video content you want to integrate into your site, take a look at this guide on the best practices for video integration using a plugin. Choosing the right plugin is the most important step in achieving the benefits of video integration. 

FooGallery Pro: your Next Steps Towards Advanced Video Integration 

As we’ve discovered, video content can have a great many benefits for your WordPress site, from improving customer retention to increasing engagement and conversions. A video plugin is an essential component of this video integration. It makes the process simpler, while improving the user experience.

However, there are a number of important factors to consider when choosing the right WordPress video player plugin for your needs. As we’ve discussed in this comprehensive guide, it’s not only important to find a video player that delivers on aesthetics, but one that also ensures optimum performance.

With its diverse, easy-to-use and comprehensive features, FooGallery PRO stands out as our recommended solution for video integration. If you want to begin effectively integrating video content into your online marketing strategy, try FooGallery PRO Expert today.