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To showcase an avatar on WordPress blogs and websites, users have to use Gravatar by default. It’s a simple technology that allows WordPress users to display a profile picture in all relevant areas such as post pages, comment sections, and so on. To use gravatars, a user has to set up an account at Gravatar.com, upload a display picture, and provide a little bio, and it’s good to go. However even though most people find this method satisfactory, many complain that it is over-complicated and involves too much hassle to set up a simple display picture.
Now WordPress, being the super customizable content management system that it is, provides you access to plenty of other ways to insert an avatar to your blog/website. Most of these have to do with plugins. In fact, there are plenty of amazing WordPress custom Avatar plugins which will help you set up a custom avatar on your WordPress website. All you have to do is install one of this plugins to your WordPress website and set up a custom avatar without having to go through all the annoyance of setting up a Gravatar account.
Best WordPress Custom Avatar Plugins
Now for this read, we will be covering some of the best WordPress custom Avatar plugins in the market. We will include both free and premium WordPress plugins to suit all your needs of affordability as well as the requirement for features. Furthermore, all these plugins are super lightweight so you will not have to worry about compromising your site’s loading time. And so, without further hindrance, here are 8 WordPress Custom Avatar Plugins.
Best Free WordPress Custom Avatar Plugins
#1. WP User Avatar
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WP User Avatar deals away with the complexity of having to synchronize your display picture with Gravatar and allows you the freedom to use any photo uploaded to your Media Library as your Avatar. This means you can upload any image to your WordPress Media Library as you usually do and then set it as your display picture. Furthermore, the plugin also gives other users on your site, namely contributors and subscribers to upload their pictures and use it as their avatars.
Besides this, the plugin also comes with decent customization options as well. For example, you will be able to set certain restrictions based on parameters like image size, width, height and so on.
#2. Avatar Manager
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As the name suggests, Avatar Manager WordPress plugin helps you to manage all the avatars on your WordPress websites – yours as well as your site’s users. The plugins provide the option to use a self-hosted avatar image from their profile screen, along with the default option of using gravatar images as well. You will also get the added functionality of choosing the avatar for your users yourself instead of having them upload it themselves.
This custom avatar plugin also provides some added customization options. For example, the plugin allows you to control the default size of the avatar that will be shown on the website. And then there is also an option to choose an avatar rating which will prohibit it from showing up in front of a particular group of people.
#3. WP First Letter Avatar
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You might have run across some websites where the first letter of the name of a user gets used as their display picture. This plugin helps you do the same for your site. With the plugin installed, all the users coming to your website will get the first alphabet from their name displayed as their avatar. This can have many advantages, especially for reducing page load times as images can have a toll on how fast your site loads.
The custom avatar plugin for WordPress comes with its own set of beautiful and colorful letters in multiple sizes to be used as a display picture. And so, not only will users be able to identify commentators with the help of the plugin quickly, but it will also help incorporate some color into your blog without putting too much load.
#4. WP Custom Avatar
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WP Custom Avatar works when there is a user on your WordPress website without a complimenting gravatar profile. The plugin allows such users to add/change their default avatar on your site by uploading a custom Avatar Image.
One thing to note here is that the new custom Avatar image needs to be uploaded to the WP Custom Avatar section and not into Media Library. Once uploaded, it can then be assigned as the preferred Default Avatar which will show up wherever appropriate.
#5. BP Local Avatars
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For those of you running a community WordPress website with BuddyPress, BP Local Avatars will be very handy. There are always members or users of a WordPress website who will not have a Gravatar profile, and thus no default avatar. With BP Local Avatars you can generate Gravatar Identicon avatars and save them locally, for users without a gravatar account.
There are also plenty of other handy features that come along with the plugin including support for user registration, user login, bulk avatar generation and much more. And of course, in case your users don’t like the generated profile pic, they always have the option to upload an avatar for themselves.
#6. SVG Avatars Generator
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And now starting off our premium list of avatar plugins for WordPress we have SVG Avatars Generator. The plugin is based on Scalable Vector Graphic technology and allows your users to quickly create a custom avatar for their use on your website. Furthermore, since all modern browsers support the technology, users will not face any issues, even with screen resolutions.
This custom avatar plugin for WordPress will allow users on your website to create a custom avatar which then can be downloaded as an SVG or PNG file. The plugin provides over 300 graphics parts to use and create a genuinely original avatar. Users will also have the option to use these avatars along with their gravatar profiles as well. Overall, for $31, the plugin offers a neat way of creating custom avatars all the while helping increase user engagement levels on your website.
#7. User Avatar Plugin for WordPress
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User Avatar Plugin for WordPress is yet another tool to set up a profile image on WordPress websites. The plugin allows users to set up a profile picture by using a webcam, media manager, or file uploader. Once you have your profile pic setup, it will work seamlessly with WooCommerce, BBPress, BuddyPress, and other WordPress websites as well. The plugin also allows users to store the avatar files in Dropbox, Amazon S3, or on a custom folder for safe keeping.
Also, with this plugin installed, you can even ask your users to upload a profile picture at the time of registering to your website. And if no images provided the,n the plugin will automatically use the first letter of their names as the default avatar image.
Besides this, other impressive features you get with the $23 price tag includes dynamic backend settings for full functional controlling along with ready-made skins to accompany each profile picture.
Which Custom Avatar WP Plugin Are You Thinking Of Using?
These were our picks for the best WordPress Custom Avatar Plugins.
In summary, if you can afford it, we would recommend you to go with the SVG Avatars Generator It allows your users to upload their picture or help them generate an avatar.
However, if you don’t want something too flashy and want to keep things simple, then WP First Letter Avatar is an excellent choice under the free categories. It will simple added some colored letters as the profile pictures which can help enhance your site’s aesthetic if used appropriately.
So which plugin do you think you will be using on your website. Do let us know in the comments section below. Again, if we have happened to miss some other cool WordPress custom avatar plugin, then also let us know in the comment section.
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