Meow Lightbox

80 Quality Score

Active Installs

18/30

At 10,000 active installs, it sits well below the 100,000 to 400,000 installs of competing lightbox plugins, which drags the popularity score down to 60.

Update Freshness

25/25

Updated on 2026-06-28 with full marks for maintenance, indicating an active developer who keeps the plugin current.

User Rating

15/15

An exceptional 98 out of 100 from 185 reviewers suggests nearly every user is highly satisfied with the experience.

Support Health

8/15

With only 6 support threads total, all resolved, the track record is clean but the small sample size keeps the score at a cautious 50.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Tested with WordPress 7.0 and requiring WordPress 6.0 and PHP 7.4, it earns full marks for compatibility with current standards.

Scores higher than 79% of indexed plugins

About

The elegant lightbox built for photographers. Fast, responsive, and displays your photos beautifully with EXIF data and maps. You'll love it! 💕

Active Installs 10k+

Rating ★★★★½ 4.9/5

Last Updated 2026-09-04 5:35am GMT

Requires WordPress 6.0+

Tested Up To 7.1

Requires PHP 8.1+

✓ No known vulnerabilities

What It Does

Meow Lightbox adds a clean, responsive lightbox overlay to images on your WordPress site, built on PhotoSwipe for smooth touch and keyboard navigation. It also displays EXIF metadata and map locations for each photo, giving visitors context about how a shot was taken and where. It is focused squarely on image presentation rather than full gallery management.

Who It's For

This plugin is a strong fit for photographers and visual creators who want a polished viewing experience with technical details like EXIF and geolocation visible to visitors. It works well for portfolios, wedding galleries, travel blogs, and stock photography sites where image quality and presentation matter more than building complex gallery layouts.

Who Should Skip It

If you need a full gallery plugin with albums, slideshows, video support, or drag-and-drop builders, this is too narrow in scope and you should look at Envira Gallery or Responsive Lightbox instead. Sites that only have a handful of decorative images will not get enough value from the EXIF and map features to justify installing another plugin.

The Bottom Line

Meow Lightbox scores 80.11 out of 100 and delivers exactly what it promises for photographers who care about EXIF and location data, earning near-perfect user ratings. The main trade-off is its smaller install base and narrower scope compared to gallery-first alternatives. If image presentation is your priority and you do not need albums or video, it is a worthwhile choice; otherwise, the alternatives offer more breadth.

Choose this if you want a broad content toolkit beyond just lightboxes, including tabs, buttons, and sliders in one package.

Firelight Lightbox 86/100

Pick this instead if you need a battle-tested, widely deployed lightbox with 200,000 installs and broad third-party integration.

Responsive Lightbox & Gallery 85/100

Go with this if you want a gallery plus lightbox combo with 100,000 installs and more layout flexibility than Meow offers.

Envira Gallery – Image Photo Gallery, Albums, Video Gallery, Slideshows & More 84/100

Choose this when you need full gallery, album, and slideshow features with a drag-and-drop builder rather than a focused lightbox.

Simple Lightbox 83/100

Pick this if you want a lightweight, no-frills lightbox without the photography-specific EXIF and map extras.