LayerSlider to SmartSlider; why I switched and never looked back

LayerSlider vs. SmartSliver - Big Max's Studio

by: Patricia

Apr 13

LayerSlider, by Kreature Media, was my go-to plugin for years. One the costs was, $26.00 for a lifetime license per website, and for me, it was very intuitive. Over the last couple of years, any website I designed that had a slider, which was almost all of them, LayerSlider was used. That was until recently.

While doing a regular maintenance check on the client, Chef Steven Petusevsky’s website, much to my shock and horror when I arrived on his homepage, all that came up was his logo and navigation bar with the rest of the screen white. Yes, horror, as most people know by now, this usually means the website has been hacked with malware. A few years ago, his website had been hacked with one of the worst infections I have ever had to deal with. By now, I’m spitting nails, over the fact I would now be spending hours cleaning everything up again. Ugh!

Once I logged into the Dashboard, I did a quick review of the security software, and happily, I didn’t find any malware. Continuing on with my investigation like any good Sherlock Homes, I disabled all plugins and reloaded the homepage. Yes, everything that didn’t require one of the plugins that had just been disabled, was back. Time to do my happy dance, no malware and it was a plugin causing the problem.

Next was to take the painstaking time to turn one plugin back on at a time checking the homepage each time. Finally, I discovered the culprit, LayerSlider.

Upon opening the LayerSlider plugin, I had a message saying that my original license had been canceled and I needed to buy a new license. Really?! Who canceled it? Oh, they did. Further, they took the step in their software not only to cancel the license but when they did, disabled the homepage. In a panic, I bought a new license, and immediately the homepage was restored. Interestingly, Chef Steve’s website has a slide on each page, but only the homepage was effected. Sorry, LayerSlider, I don’t play these kinds of games.

By the time this happened, I’d already started using and Nextend’s SmartSlider on all new website builds. While LayerSlider was intuitive, SmartSlider had them beat. But as a developer, they had them beat on a couple of other issues. One, their pricing and two their support.

Their developer’s license is a flat fee of $120.00. Yes, a true lifetime, onetime fee license. With this license, it can be used on as many websites as you wish. And, a bonus, no hidden surprises down the road.

LayerSlider uses a forum for their support, sometimes things are answered and sometimes not. SmartSlider uses a support ticket system, but more importantly, on their website, they tell you when in your time zone, someone will be answering your question(s). Yea, no more wondering if and when my questions might be answered. Further, Rachel whoever she might be is wonderful to work with.

In closing, I’m done with LayerSlider. I don’t like being nickeled and dimed, nor do I need a company adding to the problems of keeping clients websites up and running. By the way, this was not an isolated incident, I had the problem on several of my clients’ websites.

Enough is enough, all clients’ websites where I had used LayerSlider have been switched to SmartSlider. Again, happy dance time.

5 Comments

  1. Kitty

    I am VERY pleased with their support! Invaluable.

    Reply
  2. Jogn Mitchell

    Hey Patricia….have another look at your Bio.

    Reply
  3. Kadir

    Thanks for good review. Now after your post, I also planing to move but lifetime license costs $200 not $120. How did you get that price?

    Reply
    • Patricia

      Hi Kadir,

      Thank you. The only thing I can think of it might have been a special? They are super nice and I would suggest that you contact them to see if they are going to be running any specials.

      Reply

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