Estevao Acioli

Aha Hero Slider is a 100% free hero carousel for WordPress: one shortcode, a dedicated slide library, and a front end that is tuned for real visitors — not only for wide desktop screens.
<a href="https://demos.ahaplugins.com/hero-slider/" rel="nofollow ugc">Demo</a> | <a href="https://ahaplugins.com/product/aha-hero-slider-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">Product page</a> | <a href="https://ahaplugins.com/documentation" rel="nofollow ugc">Documentation</a> | <a href="https://ahaplugins.com/support" rel="nofollow ugc">Support</a>
<h4>Why this plugin is different</h4>
Hero sections often look great on desktop and fall apart on mobile — cramped text, awkward crops, buttons that are hard to tap. Aha Hero Slider is built so your Default slides adapt the layout: on phones and small tablets, each slide becomes a clean card — image on top, then headline, copy, and CTAs on a dedicated content area — so your offer stays readable, on-brand, and conversion-friendly on the device people actually use to browse.
We’re <a href="https://ahaplugins.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Aha Plugins</a>: we ship professional WordPress tools and use generous free plugins so you can see our quality firsthand. When you need more for your business, <a href="https://ahaplugins.com/plugins" rel="nofollow ugc">browse our plugins</a> — we’ll be glad to earn your trust.
<h4>What you get under the hood (technical overview)</h4>
<ul>
<li>Dedicated Hero Slides CPT with fields for desktop image, mobile image, badge, headline, subtitle, and one or two action buttons</li>
<li>Two slide templates: Default (text + buttons, with the mobile card behaviour above) and Image Only (full-area image with optional link)</li>
<li>Shortcode <code>[aha_hero_slider]</code> with optional <code>group</code> to show different sliders on different pages</li>
<li>Hierarchical Slide groups taxonomy for organizing slides</li>
<li>Per-slide style options: text colors, font sizes, button colors, border radius</li>
<li>Global Design settings: default arrow, bullet, text, and button colors; optional overlay mask; autoplay progress colors — from Settings → Design</li>
<li>Optional autoplay progress indicator (<code>progress="bar"</code> or <code>progress="circle"</code> via shortcode); autoplay pauses on hover on pointer devices</li>
<li>Arrows use a subtle hover reveal; pagination uses accessible controls</li>
<li>Front-end carousel in vanilla JavaScript (no jQuery carousel dependency)</li>
<li>Works with any theme or page builder (Elementor, Bricks, Oxygen, Divi, etc.) via shortcode</li>
<li>Uninstall tab: optional removal of plugin data when the plugin is deleted from Plugins → Installed Plugins (not on deactivate alone)</li>
</ul>
<h4>Translations</h4>
The official language of the plugin is English. The following translations are included out of the box:
<ul>
<li>Português do Brasil (pt_BR) — Brazilian Portuguese, complete translation included.</li>
<li>Español (es_ES) — Spanish, complete translation included.</li>
</ul>
Want to translate the plugin into your language? You can contribute translations on <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/aha-hero-slider/" rel="nofollow ugc">translate.wordpress.org</a>.
<h4>Global Design & Color Palette</h4>
Go to Aha Hero Slider → Settings → Design to configure a neutral color palette for the slider. Set defaults for arrow colors, bullet colors, text colors, button colors, and an optional overlay mask for better text contrast. Individual slides can override these defaults with their own per-slide styles.
<h4>Multiple Sliders on the Same Site</h4>
Create Slide groups (taxonomy) and assign each slide to a group. Use the shortcode with a group slug: <code>[aha_hero_slider group="homepage"]</code>. Multiple groups: <code>[aha_hero_slider group="home,sale"]</code>.
More from the same team: <a href="https://ahaplugins.com/plugins" rel="nofollow ugc">Aha Plugins — WordPress plugins for serious sites</a>
<h3>Third-party libraries</h3>
The front-end carousel uses plain JavaScript (no jQuery). No carousel library is bundled and no data is sent to external servers for slideshow behaviour.

Aha Hero Slider – Responsive Carousel & Mobile-Friendly Banner Slider

Free responsive hero slider and mobile-friendly carousel banner for WordPress. Features a dedicated slide post type and shortcode setup.

Mahabub Alam

BoldSlider is a lightweight, fully-responsive slider builder for WordPress with a real visual editor — drag layers on a canvas, set per-device overrides, and embed via shortcode or Gutenberg block.
<h4>Free version highlights</h4>
<ul>
<li>Visual builder — drag, resize, rotate layers on a real canvas. Eight resize handles. Keyboard nudge + delete.</li>
<li>Per-device responsive — override layer position, size, font size, color, and visibility separately for Desktop / Tablet / Mobile.</li>
<li>Layer types (7 free): Heading, Paragraph, Image, Button, Shape, YouTube embed, Vimeo embed.</li>
<li>Slider effects: Slide, Fade, Cube, Coverflow, Flip, Cards.</li>
<li>Backgrounds: image (with cover/contain/percentage/auto fit, repeat, 9-grid + custom position), color, uploaded MP4 video.</li>
<li>Background animations: Ken Burns, Zoom In, Zoom Out, Pan Left, Pan Right.</li>
<li>Navigation arrows with placement (inside/outside) + position (top/middle/bottom) + size + offset + colors + hover styles.</li>
<li>Pagination (bullets / fraction / progress bar) with placement, position, bullet size/gap, clickable, active + inactive colors.</li>
<li>Thumbnail strip (Swiper Thumbs).</li>
<li>Autoplay with delay + pause-on-hover.</li>
<li>Layer animations — 8 CSS-based entrance presets (fade, fade-up/down/left/right, zoom-in/out).</li>
<li>Button hover styles + 12 built-in arrow icons.</li>
<li>Starter templates: Multiple ready-to-use templates (Hero, Business, Portfolio, Testimonials, Promo / Sale, Product Launch, Team, Event, Startup, Minimal, Restaurant, Charity, Welcome).</li>
<li>Embed via <code>[boldslider id="your-slider-slug"]</code> shortcode or Gutenberg block.</li>
<li>Import / Export sliders as JSON.</li>
<li>Duplicate sliders + slides in one click.</li>
<li>Slider library page with thumbnail previews + search.</li>
<li>Performance: lazy-load images, no jQuery, no external CDN, deferred JS.</li>
<li>SEO friendly: semantic <code><h1></code>–<code><h6></code> headings, <code>alt</code> and <code>title</code> attributes (Media Library or custom).</li>
<li>Accessibility: keyboard navigation, proper ARIA labels.</li>
</ul>
<h4>External services</h4>
BoldSlider does not call out to any external services or CDNs. All assets are bundled locally inside the plugin.
<h3>Development</h3>
<h4>Source code</h4>
The compiled/minified JavaScript and CSS files in <code>assets/dist/</code> are built from the uncompressed source code included in this plugin:
<ul>
<li>Editor UI (React): <code>editor/src/</code> — JSX components, store, hooks, views, and SCSS styles.</li>
<li>Frontend runtime: <code>editor/src/frontend.js</code> — Swiper initialization and layer animations.</li>
<li>Block editor script: <code>editor/src/block.js</code> — Gutenberg block registration.</li>
<li>Stylesheets: <code>editor/src/editor.scss</code> and <code>editor/src/frontend.scss</code>.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Build instructions</h4>
Prerequisites: Node.js 18+ and npm 9+.
<ol>
<li>Navigate to the plugin directory: <code>cd boldslider</code></li>
<li>Install dependencies: <code>npm install</code></li>
<li>Build production assets: <code>npm run build</code></li>
<li>For development with live rebuild: <code>npm run start</code></li>
</ol>
The build pipeline uses <code>@wordpress/scripts</code> (webpack-based).
<h4>Third-party libraries</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://swiperjs.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Swiper</a> v11 — MIT License — touch-enabled slider engine.</li>
</ul>

BoldSlider

A fast, modern WordPress slider plugin with a visual layer editor. Powered by Swiper. No jQuery, no external CDN.

Aha Hero Slider – Responsive Carousel & Mobile-Friendly Banner Slider vs BoldSlider