Featherlight.js is an open-source project by Noevu founder Noël Bossart. MIT-licensed, free for private and commercial use. Contributions welcome.
The Lightbox Plugin developers have been waiting for
Featherlight is incredibly lightweight — 400 lines of JavaScript, 100 lines of CSS, less than 6 kB combined. Smart, responsive, and easy to extend.
Smart & Responsive Images, Ajax and Iframes
Featherlight supports images, Ajax requests, and iframes — out of the box. Smart, responsive, and running on hundreds of thousands of websites.
6 kB · 400 lines of JS Low-specificity CSS
400 lines of JavaScript, 100 lines of CSS — less than 6 kB combined. The low-specificity selectors make Featherlight easy to customise and easy to understand.
data-featherlight One attribute, done
Add a selector, image, or Ajax URL as data-featherlight attribute — Featherlight handles the rest. Also supports gallery navigation with data-featherlight-gallery.
New Homepage Projects & Resources
Successful website projects from practice.
ArticleAI and automation12 minWhen ChatGPT maintains your website itself – how it works and where the limits areIn many Swiss SMEs, AI already writes, checks spreadsheets and translates – yet someone still maintains the website by hand. If you want to maintain your website with AI, you should know how it wor…
ArticleSearch engine optimization8 minStructured Data: Plain Facts About Your Business for Google and AIYour website has two kinds of readers: people who skim text and machines that classify facts. Machines read your text too, but they have to interpret it. Structured data does that work for them and…
ArticleWeb design9 minOnline appointments on your website: booking without the email ping-pongA request comes in through the contact form in the evening, and the next morning three appointment proposals go back. By the time the reply arrives, one of them is taken, and every round of email l…
ArticleConsulting & conception8 minShopify Cookie Banner: the compliance guide for Swiss shopsA Shopify store collects data the moment someone opens the page — through Google Analytics, the Meta pixel or marketing tags. Whether that calls for a Shopify cookie banner is not decided in Switze…
ArticleWeb design7 minWebsite Conception: The Blueprint for a Successful RelaunchWebsite conception decides, before any design is created, whether a website relaunch has a clear goal — or just a new look. Skipping the conception phase risks a visually strong website that solves…
ArticleUX & Content Strategy8 minUX vs. UI Design: What's the Difference?A website can look outstanding and still fail. Website UX and UI sound similar but mean fundamentally different things — and the difference determines whether your website generates enquiries or lo…
Discover all posts Frequently asked Featherlight.js questions
What is Featherlight.js?
Featherlight.js is a minimalist jQuery lightbox plugin. With just 400 lines of JavaScript, 100 lines of CSS, and a total size of less than 6 kB, it is one of the slimmest lightboxes available. It supports images, Ajax, and iframes out of the box.
What licence is Featherlight under?
Featherlight is released under the MIT licence. That means: free for private and commercial use, modifiable, and without obligations. Source code on GitHub.
Does Featherlight work without jQuery?
No. Featherlight is designed as a jQuery plugin and requires jQuery 1.7+ as a dependency. For projects without jQuery, we recommend modern alternatives or a custom modal approach using vanilla JavaScript.
How do I include Featherlight?
Load featherlight.css and featherlight.js after jQuery on your page. Then a single data-featherlight attribute on a link with an image or Ajax target is enough — Featherlight handles the rest. Full documentation on GitHub.
Can I use Featherlight for image galleries?
Yes. Featherlight supports gallery navigation via the data-featherlight-gallery attribute. Group multiple images with the same attribute value — Featherlight handles navigation automatically. See the GitHub documentation for details.
Who is behind Featherlight?
Featherlight is an open-source project by Noël Bossart, founder of the Swiss web agency Noevu. In production on hundreds of thousands of websites worldwide since 2013.
