Fast Gallery for WPBakery WordPress Plugin Add-ons is a CodeCanyon extension that adds two gallery elements to the WPBakery Page Builder interface: Fast Gallery and Fast Gallery Mosaic. Both let a site owner assemble image grids, slideshows and popup lightboxes from inside the page builder rather than through a separate gallery screen. It suits WordPress sites already committed to WPBakery that need flexible, styled image presentation without buying a standalone gallery plugin. The item costs $19, has sold just under 2,000 copies and holds a 4.73 rating across 63 reviews, and it is developed by ad-theme.
What the two gallery addons actually let a site owner do
The package is really two tools sharing one settings philosophy. Understanding the split matters more than reading a feature list, because the two elements solve different layout problems.
Fast Gallery handles conventional grids and slideshows. Images can be arranged in anything from one to nine columns, laid out as a straight grid or as a masonry wall where items of differing heights pack together without gaps. A single thumbnail option exists for galleries that should present as one preview image leading into the full set. Each gallery carries its own colour controls, with a main colour that supports opacity plus a secondary colour, so a grid can be tinted to match a brand without touching theme CSS.
Fast Gallery Mosaic is the tighter, more editorial layout. It produces a mosaic arrangement with a fixed image height that the site owner sets manually, which keeps rows visually even. It offers ten style presets against the main addon’s twelve, and four lightbox types instead of seven. If a project needs a magazine-style wall of images, the mosaic element is the one to reach for; for a product grid or a simple portfolio, the standard element is more adaptable.
Lightbox and popup choices
Seven viewing modes are available across the main addon: Prettyphoto, Magnific Popup, Fotorama slideshow, Light Gallery, Photoswipe, a custom URL target, and a plain image with no lightbox at all. That last option is more useful than it sounds — it lets a grid link out to portfolio pages or product pages instead of opening an overlay. The custom URL mode does the same job with a destination defined per image. Photoswipe is the mobile-oriented choice, with gesture support on touch devices.
Performance and presentation controls
Lazy loading defers off-screen images until they are needed, which matters on image-heavy pages where a full grid would otherwise delay the first paint. Pagination splits large collections across pages rather than loading everything at once. Animations draw on a library of more than 200 effects, applied as images enter the viewport. Spacing between images is a custom value rather than a fixed preset, and responsive behaviour can follow the standard breakpoints, use fluid sizing, or be defined manually per gallery.
The plugin is translation-ready and ships with .po and .mo files, so labels and interface strings can be localised. High-resolution images are supported. Source files for JavaScript, CSS and PHP are included, which gives a developer room to extend or restyle the output. A video tutorial is provided by the vendor, and a live demo is available for testing the layouts before purchase.
Where this fits, and where it does not
The clearest fit is an existing WordPress site already running WPBakery. Because the galleries appear as builder elements, they inherit the page’s layout context and can be dropped into rows and columns alongside other content. A photographer adding a portfolio section, an agency building a client site on a WPBakery theme, or a business assembling a team or venue gallery all fall inside the intended use.
It also suits projects that need several visually distinct galleries on one site. Because colour, spacing, column count and lightbox type are set per gallery, a homepage mosaic and an inner-page grid can look unrelated without any custom code. Freelancers delivering a fixed-scope build will find the twelve presets a reasonable starting point that reduces design decisions.
The wrong choice is any site not using WPBakery. The plugin is an addon, not a standalone gallery, and it will do nothing on a site built with the block editor, Elementor, Beaver Builder or a classic theme without the page builder installed. The vendor states that standalone versions of both galleries exist separately, and that is the correct purchase in that case. Sites standardised on the WordPress block editor should also look elsewhere — the listing explicitly does not claim Gutenberg optimisation.
A second caution applies to anyone who needs active development. The item was last updated in February 2022. It lists compatibility through WordPress 6.8.x, but a buyer should confirm current behaviour on their own install rather than assume ongoing maintenance.
Strengths and limitations in plain terms
Strengths
- Two genuinely different layout engines — a flexible grid and a fixed-height mosaic — rather than one layout with cosmetic variants.
- Seven lightbox modes including a no-lightbox and custom-URL option, which covers both overlay browsing and click-through navigation.
- Per-gallery colour, spacing and column settings mean multiple galleries can coexist on one site without conflict.
- Lazy loading and pagination are both included, which addresses the two most common performance complaints about image grids.
- Source files are shipped, so agencies can modify output instead of working around it.
- Translation files are included, which is unusual at this price point.
- A strong review record: 4.73 from 63 ratings is a meaningful sample for a $19 item.
Limitations
- The last update was February 2022. Compatibility with WordPress 6.8.x is declared by the vendor, but buyers on very recent WordPress releases should test on a staging site first.
- It is locked to WPBakery. There is no shortcode-only or block-editor path, so the gallery cannot be reused if a site later migrates away from the builder.
- Mosaic image height is a fixed custom value rather than something that adapts automatically to content, so mixed portrait and landscape sets need manual tuning.
- The two addons do not share an identical feature set — the mosaic element supports four lightbox types against the main addon’s seven, and ten styles against twelve. Buyers who want the full lightbox range in a mosaic layout will not get it.
- No Gutenberg support is claimed, which limits future-proofing.
- Browser support extends back to Internet Explorer 9, which says something about the age of the underlying codebase.
How it compares with the wider gallery plugin category
Standalone gallery plugins generally compete on breadth: they bundle dozens of layout types, source from external services such as Flickr or Google Photos, and work across any page builder or theme. That breadth comes with a larger footprint, a separate settings area, and often an annual licence. Fast Gallery takes the opposite approach. It is narrow by design — two layouts, one builder — and the trade is a smaller install, settings that live inside the page you are editing, and a one-off $19 cost.
Against dedicated lightbox scripts, the comparison favours this plugin on convenience rather than capability. A developer could wire up Photoswipe or Light Gallery directly with a few lines of JavaScript and get similar overlays for free. What the plugin adds is the interface: column controls, style presets, spacing fields and colour pickers exposed as builder parameters, so a non-developer can produce the same result. For teams with a front-end developer on hand, hand-coding remains viable; for everyone else the plugin removes the step.
Against premium gallery plugins with active release cycles, the maintenance gap is the honest differentiator. A buyer paying annually for a competing product is buying updates and support as much as features. Here the $19 buys a fixed snapshot of a mature, stable codebase. For a site that will not change much, that is a fair exchange. For one that will be rebuilt or migrated within a year, it is a weaker proposition.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Fast Gallery work without WPBakery Page Builder?
No. Both addons require WPBakery Page Builder to be installed and active, because they register as elements inside that builder’s interface. On a site without it, the plugin installs but produces no usable gallery element. The developer publishes separate standalone versions of Fast Gallery and Fast Gallery Mosaic for sites that use a different page builder or the block editor.
Is Fast Gallery compatible with the latest WordPress version?
The vendor lists compatibility up to WordPress 6.8.x, alongside every release back to 4.9.x. The most recent code update was February 2022, so that compatibility claim is declared rather than proven by a recent release. Testing on a staging copy before deploying to a live site is the sensible precaution, particularly on the newest WordPress versions.
Can different galleries on the same site use different colours and layouts?
Yes. Colour, spacing, column count, style preset, lightbox type and responsive behaviour are all configured per gallery instance rather than globally. A site can run a dark mosaic on the homepage and a light nine-column grid on an inner page without either affecting the other. This per-instance control is the plugin’s main practical advantage over simpler gallery shortcodes.
Does Fast Gallery slow down a page with many images?
It includes two features that mitigate this: lazy loading, which postpones off-screen images until they are scrolled into view, and pagination, which splits large collections across multiple pages. Neither eliminates the cost of large image files. Image compression and correct sizing still matter, and the vendor publishes no performance benchmarks, so real-world speed should be measured on the target site.
Verdict
Buy this if the site already runs WPBakery and needs more than one gallery style with per-gallery colour, spacing and lightbox control, and if a one-off $19 outlay with no renewal suits the budget. The two layout engines, seven lightbox modes and lazy loading cover most image presentation needs competently, and the 4.73 rating from 63 buyers suggests the experience holds up in practice. Do not buy it for a site built on the block editor, Elementor or any other builder, and think carefully if the project will be rebuilt or migrated soon, given the 2022 last-update date. It is a stable, well-liked tool for a specific stack rather than a forward-looking one.
