If you already use Flickr to host all your photos, you are probably interested in plugins that gives you the possibility to insert photos from Flickr into your WordPress blog. But there are so many of them. Which one is right for you? I probably can’t answer that question for you, but what I can do, is give you a quick review of some of them.
These are the plugins that are being reviewed:
- Fidgetr (v1.3.4) by Paul Kehrer
- Flickr+Highslide (v1.2) by Pim Linders
- Flickr Gallery (v1.3.0) by Dan Coulter
- Flickr Manager (v2.3) by Trent Gardner
- Flickr Photo Album (v1.1) by Joe Tan
- Flickrpress (v0.3.1) by Michael Tyson
- flickrRSS (v5.1) by Dave Kellam and Stefano Verna
- Flickr Tag (v2.4.6) by Jeff Maki
- Wordpress Media Flickr (v1.1.0) by yu-ji
- WP Decoratr (v1.4) by iDope
The first thing I did was to check whether the plugins added any overhead to the overall loadtime of the home page after being activated. You’ll be surprised at how many plugins add overhead without being in use at all (other than being activated). The results are shown in the following table:
| Plugin | Requests | Data | Memory |
|---|---|---|---|
| none | 6 | 27kb | 10.7mb |
| Fidgetr | 8 | 86kb | 10.82mb |
| Flickr+Highslide | 19 | 102kb | 10.78mb |
| Flickr Gallery | 6 | 27kb | 10.92mb |
| Flickr Manager | 10 | 104kb | 11.18mb |
| Flickr Photo Album | 6 | 27kb | 11.09mb |
| Flickrpress | 6 | 27kb | 10.77mb |
| flickrRSS | 6 | 27kb | 10.77mb |
| Flickr Tag | 10 | 86kb | 10.93mb |
| Wordpress Media Flickr | 6 | 27kb | 10.77mb |
| WP Decoratr | 7 | 28kb | 10.77mb |
Note also that many of these plugins can optionally be configured to use extra javascript image effects (like lightbox) and that this will add more overhead.
Here is a quick review of the plugins after playing with them for a while:
Fidgetr
Fidgetr is a widget that lets you display a users flickr photostream in the sidebar. There are several themes to choose from, the default one will show only one photo, and display the rest when you hover over it. There are also that crossfades between the photos. A quick and easy way of displaying photos from flickr on your blog. You don’t have to authenticate with any flickr user, and it shows only public photos.
Flickr+Highslide
This plugin lets you insert the x newest public photos from a user using shortcode. This mean that you can insert photos anywhere where you can use WordPress shortcodes. The plugin uses the Highslide javascript image effect for showing the images when you click on them.
Flickr Gallery
This plugin adds a ready-made gallery into your post or page using shortcode. The gallery is complete with tabs that can show you a users photostream, photosets, collections as well as a tab showing interesting photos. The plugin requires a flickr API.
Flickr Manager
This plugin needs to authenticate with a flickr user account, but note that it gives the plugin full access to the account, not only read, but also to delete photos – so BEWARE! On the other hand, because of this the plugin lets you upload, modify and delete photos in flickr right from the WordPress interface! It also lets you insert photos from your photostream, from your sets, from public photos and also to upload images to flickr from the edit post screen. NOTE! I couldn’t get this plugin to work properly for me. It didn’t show any photos in my sets when I tried to insert a set in a post. I also weren’t able to actually insert any pictures into my post at all using this plugin!
Flickr Photo Album
This plugin needs a flickr API and to authenticate to a flickr account to work. It can be used as a widget as well as to insert photos from your photostream, whole albums and photos from other flickr users. There is a search box so you can easily find the images you want. When you insert albums you are given the choice of just showing the album cover or the images in the album (you can configure how many images to show). You can also show all your flickr albums on a separate page in WordPress.
Flickrpress
This plugin is a widget that lets you show photos from flickr in your sidebar.
flickrRSS
This plugin is a widget that lets you show photos from flickr in your sidebar.
Flickr Tag
This plugin needs to authenticate with a flickr account. It then lets you insert photos from your photostream, your favorite photos and whole sets. It is not possible to browse or search for photos though, it just shows the last x photos in your stream.
Wordpress Media Flickr
This plugin needs to authenticate with a flickr account, and lets you add images from flickr into your posts. It is very easy and intuitive to use, but you can’t choose to insert multiple images or a whole set. You have to insert one photo at a time.
WP Decoratr
This plugin is not like the rest. It scans the text of your post and automatically finds public photos in flickr that matches the content of your blogpost. A wonderfull idea, and it seems to work well in the little time I have used it.
Conclusion?
I’ll let you make your own conclusions, but perhaps you have a little clearer picture of which plugins you want to check out? Please, also let me know if there are any other flickr related plugins that I should take a look at.
