by Eversince, Lokesh Dhakar created the first lightbox application, photo galleries and popup windows advanced to new era. And there was a time that lightboxes become a default component for every web sites. Aside from their libraries and codebase, all of them has similar properties like ability to show single image or group of images with next and previous buttons for navigation, captions and different transition effects mostly depending on mighty jQuery easing plugin.
Opens on the very top of the page texts with a transparent overlay background. In addition to images, also they can display inline elements, iframes, use ajax for its contents, flash or other video types. Many of them have slick css implementation for their user interfaces. So this helps to change their interfaces according to your website easily. In this post I want to propose to you a roundup with 15 of the best and most popular jQuery Lightbox Scripts.
CeeBox
CeeBox is a very customizable and extensive lightbox clone. In addition to images, it can display iframes, inline element, ajax, flash and videos. Note that, it need swfobject plugin to display flash.
ColorBox
ColorBox is very customizable like CeeBox and have a set of transition effects. It can display most of the content types. It also has different built-in themes both for overlay background and lightbox interface.
Faceboox
Facebox is facebook’s lightbox clone. It only display single images without captions, ajax and inline content.
FancyZoom
Fancy Zoom for jQuery: original Cabel Sasser’s FancyZoom replica for jQuery. It can display single image, flash and inline content.
FancyBox
FancyBox is a simple gallery plugin for jQuery. It display most content types but lacks flash and video support. It also has different transition effects.
Greybox Redux
Greybox Redux is simplified version of original Greybox. It can only display iframe content.
ImageBox
Imagebox specialized for image displaying. It only supports single and group of images.
jQuery Lightbox
Like to Imagebox, jQuery Lightbox is also only-show-image type lightbox clone. Its user interface and usage is very similar to Lokesh Dhakar’s Lightbox2.
nyroModal
nyroModal is one of the most extend-able lightbox clone. It display of the content types and also it allows form submits via its modal without extra plugins.
piroBox
piroBox is differs from the other lightboxes with ability to add link to current image file for. Also it has an auto slideshow option. It only supports single and group of images with 3 different built-in themes. Lacks closing the lightbox when clicking on the background overlay.
prettyPhoto
prettyPhoto can display all content I mentioned at the intro paragraph. It has 5 different built-in themes but these themes slightly changes the lightbox interface.
Sexy Lightbox2
Sexy Lightbox2 has both jQuery and MooTools based versions. It has 2 different built-in themes as black and white. And opens lightbox with a slide down effect with easing.
Slightly ThickerBox
Slightly ThickerBox is a modification of Cody Lindley’s Thickbox script. It can display images and ajax content.
Thickbox
Thickbox is one of the oldest jQuery based lightbox. Its development team discontinued the plugin’s maintenance.
TopUp
Depended on both jQuery and jQuery UI. TopUp has different built-in themes. In addition to most content types, it can also display flv videos.
Bilal Çınarlı is a freelance web developer specialized in custom web applications and front-end development. He also works as head developer in a 
December 30, 2009 at 8:30 am
Great list :)
HUGE fan of Colorbox. Been using it for a while
December 30, 2009 at 9:17 am
I like everyone, buy my favorites are the fancybox.
December 30, 2009 at 10:27 am
I’ve been using nyroModal for a while now and love it. You can make it do anything you want with ease. Ajax form posts, auto-open via script, auto-close, etc… The default display isn’t pretty but a few css tweaks and you’re in business.
December 30, 2009 at 1:11 pm
What about Shadowbox? http://www.shadowbox-js.com Supports not only jQuery but also MooTools, Ext, Prototype, etc
December 30, 2009 at 1:12 pm
O man…You missed my favorite by far…highslide!
http://highslide.com/
December 30, 2009 at 2:32 pm
I’m a big fan of highslide but will investigate some of these as well!
December 30, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Roundup and feature comparisons: http://planetozh.com/projects/lightbox-clones/
December 30, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Sorry for the shadowbox, actually our junior f-end developer used it one of our projects. And also highslide is good but its one of the framework independent lightbox so I did not mention in this article.
Thanks for the link @Ozh. I chose these lightboxes based on this lightbox-clones projects. There are about 115 lightbox listed in the project and also more that are not listed. We thought to prepare a series of articles for lightbox showcases.
December 31, 2009 at 3:34 am
Nice post, I especially love ColorBox!
January 3, 2010 at 3:59 pm
This is a useful round-up, but your brief descriptions do not mention whether any of these lightboxes are fully responsive to keyboard input. This would be worth mentioning, where possible, because it is so important to accessibility.
I know that Leandro Vieira’s lightbox fits this criterion (and I use it for that reason) but prior to finding it, I had encountered quite a lot of lightboxes that ignored keyboard-only users. Many of those scripts even left users completely stuck (after tabbing to an image link and hitting Enter) with no way to clear the lightbox or navigate through it other than to go back a page in their browser.
January 5, 2010 at 8:17 am
Good collection! Thanks
January 7, 2010 at 3:27 am
Thanks for this, but where is Shadowbox? One of the places Thickbox support page sends you …
January 7, 2010 at 12:31 pm
@Clare, I missed the shadowbox.js, I’ve mention it in the comment section
@Marc, I focused on which lightbox could handle which file types, so since keyboard navigation works usually in gallery mode, and most of them support changing image with arrows during this mode, I did not mention it.
January 9, 2010 at 1:56 pm
great list. thanks for finding them!
January 31, 2010 at 3:27 pm
Great collection!
February 9, 2010 at 11:57 pm
Good collection thank you for sharing
February 10, 2010 at 11:14 pm
Another one to add. A friend of mine developed a modal lightbox clone called Boxen:
Check it out here:
http://morecowbell.net.au/2009/04/boxen-a-jquery-iframe-plugin/
February 10, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Clearbox3 is one of my favorite (http://www.clearbox.hu/index_en.html)
February 10, 2010 at 11:47 pm
Missing Lightview – a really good lightbox.
February 11, 2010 at 12:01 am
Nice list. I’ve been using the fancybox on some of my projects and I am pretty happy with it.
February 11, 2010 at 12:12 am
What? No shadowbox.js? Its far better than any of these.
Multi-library (or no library), multi-format, multi-theme, multi-everything.
http://www.shadowbox-js.com/
February 11, 2010 at 12:27 am
Fancybox just pushed out their 1.3.0 update, now it’s fantastic. Easier to use and manage.
February 11, 2010 at 1:17 am
We use TopUp because it supports iframes and is configurable.
February 11, 2010 at 4:12 am
Great post, good to see a round up of these scripts. I’ve used several of them and I have to say that colorbox is my favourite, it’s certainly the mist customisable one I’ve used.
February 11, 2010 at 5:32 am
Good collection! I use nyroModal, really easy to use and easily customisable!
February 11, 2010 at 7:42 am
I’ve found Slimbox 2 to be one of the best jquery ports of Lightbox – http://www.digitalia.be/software/slimbox2
February 11, 2010 at 10:06 am
In the process of designing an e-com site and these lighbox examples are exactly what I’ve been looking for to highlight products. Best one is jQuery Lightbox.
February 17, 2010 at 11:22 pm
it’s obvious that a lightbox is way better than a pop-up but honestly its about 9 months away from being another outdated web design method, people dont want windows blacking out the site they’re looking at or resizing with an animation and a loading graphic, use collapsing divs or dynamically load the content with ajax in an area of the site that doesn’t interfere with the rest of the content…