It makes a lot of sense to leverage your brand’s Instagram presence and cross-promote it via your WordPress website. You can do this easily enough using paid or free Instagram feed WordPress plugins.
[ez-toc]Here’s a detailed comparison of the two top plugins that help you connect your Instagram feed to WordPress.
Let’s start by learning some more about Smash Balloon and Spotlight. Or you can fast forward straight to the Smash Balloon vs Spotlight comparison summarized in a table.
Smash Balloon Social Photo Feed (Instagram Feed)
Based on the freemium model, Smash Balloon’s Instagram feed WordPress plugin is highly customizable with loads of options, but still manages to be easy to use, even for a novice.
Features
Multiple Instagram Feeds : Pull data from multiple Instagram accounts or set up different feeds
Single click shop-ready Feeds : Link Instagram posts to products automatically
Hashtag Feeds : Approved Instagram partner, so it uses Instagram’s API to display top or most recent hashtag posts
Tagged Feeds : Display Instagram posts that have tagged you
Instagram Stories : Can be displayed in a pop-up lightbox
Filter Posts : Include or exclude posts containing specific words or phrases
GDPR Compliance: Display only GDPR-compliant feeds until user consent
Ease of Use
Has a very intuitive wizard to automatically help you set up your feeds easily.
Active Installations
Over 1 million
Pricing
- Free version can be downloaded from WordPress.org
- Premium Version (starts at $98 a year for 1 website – $49 for first year)
Some backround / trivia
Smash Balloon was launched by John Brackett in 2013 to help WordPress users display social media feeds on their websites easily. It was taken over by Awesome Motive in June 2020 and has continued to grow in popularity since then. Besides the popular WordPress blog WPBeginner, Awesome Motive‘s portfolio has some of WordPress’s most widely used plugins like OptinMonster, MonsterInsights, WPForms etc.
Pros
- Feature rich – Lots of features and options to customize every single aspect from content to appearance.
Cons
- Pricing – Expensive at $98 a year. However, a 50% discount is available right now, for the first year.
- Analytics missing – From what I can tell, this Instagram Feed plugin does not provide any Instagram engagement metrics, the way Spotlight does.
Spotlight Social Media Feeds
Spotlight is a freemium Instagram WordPress plugin that has pretty much everything you need to integrate your WordPress website with your Instagram accounts.
Features
Performance Analytics : Displays actionable insights based your Instagram data
Instagram Link in Bio feeds : Design custom pages for your bio link
Multiple Instagram Feeds : Create multiple feeds based on content or connect to multiple Instagram accounts
Shoppable Feeds : Create shop-ready Instagram posts that link to products
Hashtag Feeds : Filter content using one or more hashtags
Tagged Feeds : Display Instagram posts that have tagged you
Filter Posts : Include or exclude posts containing specific words or phrases
Ease of Use
Simple and clear user-interface
Active Installations
40,000
Pricing
- Free version can be downloaded from WordPress.org
- Premium Version (starts at $39 a year for one website with restricted features)
Some backround / trivia
Spotlight was launched fairly recently, in June 2020, by RebelCode. This is the same team that created WP RSS Aggregator and has been curating WordPress tips & news on WPMayor for over a decade.
Pros
- Instagram performance analytics baked right into your WordPress dashboard
Cons
- Pricing Plans are based on features and number of sites as well. So, for example, if you would like to set up Instagram analytics even for one site, it costs $99 a year.
Instagram Feed WordPress Plugins Compared
The table below highlights the differences between Smash Balloon and Spotlight Instagram WordPress feed plugins. It covers the free version and the premium version too, to help you decide what’s best for you.
Smash Balloon Vs Spotlight (Free Vs Premium)
| Feature | SmashFree | SmashPro | SpotFree | SpotPro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| oEmbeds | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Multiple Feeds | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Instagram Slider | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Caching | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| GDPR Compliance | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Custom CSS & JS | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Hashtag Feeds | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Carousel, Masonry, & Highlight layouts | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Posts in a pop-up lightbox | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Shoppable feeds | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Instagram Stories | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Post filtering and moderation | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Likes, captions & comments | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Videos in your feed | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tagged post feeds | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Combined / Multiple feed types | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Highlight specific posts | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Lazy loading | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Link in Bio | No | No | No | Yes |
| Analytics | No | No | No | Yes |
In Conclusion
Both, Spotlight and Smash Balloon are extremely versatile Instagram WordPress plugins, backed by stellar support – so it really comes down to what features you need and how much you are willing to pay for a premium license.
Spotlight does seem to have an edge over Smash Balloon’s Instagram Feed WordPress plugin, because it provides Instagram analytics data that help you come up with important actionable insights.
Photo Credits : Featured Image by Webster2703 from Pixabay