General Slider — a WordPress slider without jQuery
Summary. General Slider is a free WordPress slider plugin with no jQuery on the front end. It is built on the lightweight Splide engine. It is keyboard and screen-reader accessible out of the box, and its files load only on pages that actually show a slider. No Pro version, no locked features.
Why no jQuery matters
Most slider plugins pull in jQuery whether your theme needs it or not. That is a whole library downloaded, parsed and run on every page — including the ones with no slider on them. On a site that already dropped jQuery, a slider plugin quietly puts it back.
General Slider never asks for it. The front end runs on Splide, a slider engine with no dependencies of its own, so a page without a slider gets nothing at all: no script, no stylesheet. I measured where slider weight actually comes from in why WordPress sliders are slow — the short version is that the images are rarely the problem.
What it does
- Build a slider once, then place it with a block, a shortcode, or an Elementor widget
- Five design presets — hero, split, minimal, testimonial, fullscreen — mixed freely with navigation and frame skins
- Per-slide background video, text entrance animations and an accent colour, all without code
- Dynamic sliders that build themselves from your latest posts, pages or WooCommerce products
- Separate settings for tablet and phone, so a slider that looks right on desktop stays right on a phone
- Images lazy-load and a slider only starts once it is scrolled into view
- One-click demo import — each demo installs as a draft you can publish when it looks right
Sliders that update themselves
If your slider just shows the latest posts, rebuilding it by hand every week gets old fast. Switch the slides source to dynamic and the slider reads your posts, pages or products itself — new content shows up on its own, and nothing is frozen into the slider when the source changes.
Free means free here
There is no Pro version of this plugin and there never will be. Every preset, every skin and the demo library ship in the free download from WordPress.org, and the settings screen contains no upgrade prompt. If you have used a slider where the design you actually want sits behind a paywall, that frustration is exactly what this plugin does not do.
FAQ
- Is there a Pro version?
- No. Everything is in the free plugin, and there is no licence key or upgrade prompt anywhere in it.
- Does it work with block themes?
- Yes. The block works in the editor and in full-site-editing templates, and the shortcode works anywhere else, with any theme.
- Can a slide have a video background?
- Yes. Each slide can carry its own background video, set from the slider settings without code.
- Will it slow down pages that have no slider?
- No. The CSS and JavaScript are only added to pages that actually contain a slider.
- Can I try it before installing?
- Yes. The demo library shows every preset and skin, and each demo imports into your own site in one click.
Download it or read the walkthrough
If you want the full walkthrough — install, first slider, presets, and the three mistakes almost everyone makes — that is the step-by-step guide. If you just want the plugin, it is one search away in your dashboard.
Download on WordPress.org Source on GitHub Browse the demos
