Image Hover Effects Ultimate ( Image Gallery, Effects, Lightbox, Comparison & Magnifier )

80 Quality Score

Active Installs

18/30

With 20,000 active installs, this is a mid-tier plugin that is well known in its niche but far from the most installed gallery or effects plugin on WordPress.org.

Update Freshness

25/25

A perfect maintenance score reflects that the plugin is kept current with PHP 7.4+ and WordPress 6.2+ requirements and was updated in July 2026.

User Rating

14/15

A 94 out of 100 from 248 ratings indicates strongly positive user sentiment and very few complaints relative to the install base.

Support Health

8/15

Only 2 support threads exist, both resolved, so the volume of support data is too low to draw strong conclusions about long-term responsiveness.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Full marks here confirm broad compatibility across the three major page builders plus standard WordPress environments, though the plugin is only officially tested up to WordPress 7.0.

Scores higher than 75% of indexed plugins

About

Add stunning image hover effects to WordPress. 500+ CSS3 animations, 10 effect modules. Native Elementor widget, Gutenberg block & WPBakery widget.

Active Installs 10k+

Rating ★★★★½ 4.7/5

Last Updated 2026-09-03 9:29pm GMT

Requires WordPress 6.2+

Tested Up To 7.1

Requires PHP 7.4+

Security History

9 known vulnerabilities, all patched

1 Critical 1 High 7 Medium

Most recent: November 19, 2025

View details ▸

Multiple Plugins and Themes <= (Various Versions) - Authenticated (Contributor+) DOM-Based Stored Cross-Site Scripting via lightGallery JavaScript Library Medium

November 19, 2025 Patched in [] CVE-2025-5092

Image Hover Effects Ultimate 9.8.1 - 9.8.4 - Authenticated (Admin+) Stored Cross-Site Scripting Medium

December 11, 2022 Patched in ["9.8.5"] CVE-2022-4207

Image Hover Effects Ultimate <= 9.7.1 - Authenticated (Admin+) Arbitrary Options Update High

October 25, 2022 Patched in ["9.7.2"] CVE-2022-42459

Image Hover Effects Ultimate <= 9.7.3 - Authenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Title & Description Medium

August 31, 2022 Patched in ["9.8.0"] CVE-2022-2937

Image Hover Effects Ultimate <= 9.7.3 - Authenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Video Link Medium

August 31, 2022 Patched in ["9.8.0"] CVE-2022-2936

Image Hover Effects Ultimate <= 9.7.3 - Authenticated Stored Cross-Site Scripting via Media URL Medium

August 31, 2022 Patched in ["9.8.0"] CVE-2022-2935

Image Hover Effects Ultimate <= 9.7.1 - Reflected Cross-Site Scripting Medium

May 4, 2022 Patched in ["9.7.2"] CVE-2022-29424

Image Hover Effects Ultimate <= 9.7.0 - Reflected Cross-Site Scripting via effects Medium

December 27, 2021 Patched in ["9.7.1"] CVE-2021-25031

Image Hover Effects Ultimate <= 9.6.1 - Unauthenticated Arbitrary Options Update Critical

December 15, 2021 Patched in ["9.6.2"] CVE-2021-36888

What It Does

Image Hover Effects Ultimate adds animated overlays, captions, lightboxes, image comparison sliders, and magnifiers to WordPress images. It ships 500+ CSS3-driven hover animations organized into 10 effect modules and exposes them through native widgets for Elementor, Gutenberg, and WPBakery, so you can drop effects into pages using the editor you already use. Shortcodes are also available for classic editor users.

Who It's For

This plugin suits small business owners, freelancers, and agencies who want to add visual polish to portfolio pages, product showcases, or team grids without writing custom CSS. It is a good fit if you are already using Elementor, Gutenberg, or WPBakery and want a lightweight, purpose-built tool rather than a full gallery plugin.

Who Should Skip It

If you primarily need a full-featured image gallery with albums, tagging, masonry layouts, and comment/proofing workflows, this plugin is the wrong tool and a dedicated gallery plugin will serve you better. Sites that do not rely on hover interactions, such as content-heavy blogs or accessibility-focused projects, will get little value from it.

The Bottom Line

Image Hover Effects Ultimate earns a solid 80.86/100 overall, backed by excellent maintenance, top-tier user ratings, and broad page-builder compatibility. The main gaps are modest install share and a support footprint too small to fully validate. For anyone specifically focused on hover-driven image presentation, it is a strong, focused choice; for broader gallery needs, look at the alternatives.

Related Plugins

Photo Gallery by FooGallery 89/100

Pick FooGallery if you want a more mature, general-purpose responsive gallery with masonry and carousel support rather than just hover effects.

Robo Gallery 87/100

Robo Gallery is a reasonable alternative if you need grid and slider layouts with similar visual flair but prefer its templating approach.

NextGEN Gallery 86/100

Choose NextGEN Gallery when you need a full gallery ecosystem with albums, proofing, and deep gallery management features beyond hover animation.

Modula Image Gallery 84/100

Modula is the better pick if lightbox-heavy, customizable grid galleries with video support are your priority over hover-style animations.

Envira Gallery Lite 84/100

Envira is worth choosing instead if you want a polished, beginner-friendly gallery builder with strong addon ecosystem and reliable lightbox behavior.