Web design and CSS galleries are a great source of inspiration for designers, and they are also an outstanding resource for designers to get exposure for their work. Getting a site featured in some of the most popular galleries can bring thousands of visitors and some valuable inbound links.
There are so many different galleries that it’s hard to know which ones are worth the time it takes to submit your site for inclusion. If you’re going to take the time to submit one of your designs to some galleries you might as well submit to those that will give you the best results.
What factors should be considered when choosing which galleries you would like to feature your work? Of course, galleries with more traffic will give your submission more exposure. Additionally, most galleries have RSS feeds and subscribers. So obviously the more subscribers a gallery has, the more exposure you will get. However, some galleries do not include screen shots in their feed. In these cases the subscriber will have to click-through to the site to view it, which will normally mean a little bit less exposure for your work. Also, with so many galleries out there, some are very active and some rarely add anything new. If you are submitting your site to a gallery that has added 75 new designs in the past month, you’ll have a better chance of being included than if you submit to a gallery that has only added 1 design in the last month. On the other hand, the more designs that are featured in a gallery, the less attention each one will get individually.
Because I think all of these factors should be considered by designers that are targeting CSS galleries, I thought it would be helpfulful to create a table that showed this data for a number of galleries. Using this information you can quickly identify which ones are the best choices to submit your work. The galleries are listed in order of Alexa rank, but you should also pay attention to the other factors as well.
| CSS Gallery | Alexa | Subscribers | Added in March | Pics in Feed? |
| CSS Mania | 13,570 | 12,635 | 311 | yes |
| CSS Drive | 23,116 | n/a | 29 | yes |
| CSS Beauty | 25,112 | n/a | 5 | yes |
| Web Creme | 25,559 | n/a | 58 | no |
| Favorite Website Awards | 27,391 | no feed | 31 | no feed |
| Best Web Gallery | 28,102 | n/a | 87 | yes |
| CSS Remix | 29,858 | 16,693 | no dates | no |
| Stylegala | 38,743 | n/a | 0 | yes |
| Cool Homepages | 38,783 | no feed | 3 | no feed |
| CSS Elite | 42,846 | 2,737 | 74 | no |
| CSS Vault | 48,978 | n/a | 31 | yes |
| FaveUp | 54,894 | n/a | 11 (CSS) | yes |
| CSS Creme | 57,050 | 289 | 179 | yes |
| Design Shack | 62,139 | n/a | 100+ | yes |
| The Best Designs | 65,228 | no feed | 59 | no feed |
| W3C Sites | 65,953 | n/a | no dates | no |
| Unmatched Style | 77,871 | 3,545 | 32 | yes |
| CSS Based | 82,349 | n/a | no dates | yes |
| Screenfluent | 90,287 | n/a | no dates | yes |
| Screenalicious | 93,621 | n/a | no dates | no |
| CSS Heaven | 96,061 | n/a | 4 | yes |
| CSS Import | 117,396 | 8,667 | 70 | yes |
| CSS Clip | 118,313 | 653 | 230 | yes |
| Styleboost | 118,431 | n/a | 6 | yes |
| Web Digity | 125,485 | n/a | no dates | no |
| CSS Gallery 2.0 | 137,614 | no feed | no dates | no feed |
| Boxed CSS | 142,164 | n/a | 29 | yes |
| CSS Website | 142,373 | 763 | 2 | yes |
| Design Snack | 144,613 | n/a | no dates | no |
| CSS Artillery | 158,827 | n/a | 50 | yes |
| CSS Glance | 167,939 | n/a | 100+ | no |
| The Daily Slurp | 182,358 | n/a | 100+ | yes |
| CSS Website Gallery | 196,126 | 46 | 5 | yes |
| CSS Collection | 199,695 | n/a | 45 | yes |
| CSS Reboot | 202,730 | n/a | 0 | no |
| Professional on the Web | 211,584 | n/a | no dates | yes |
| CSS Star | 220,491 | 76 | 173 | yes |
| CSS Tux | 235,692 | no feed | 14 | no feed |
| CSS Bloom | 237,028 | 1,527 | 0 | yes |
| CSSHive | 238,990 | 73 | 73 | yes |
| DesignFlavr | 242,301 | 1,282 | 84 | yes |
| Design by Grid | 257,249 | n/a | 6 | yes |
| CSS Daddy | 268,324 | 8 | 64 | yes |
| No Resolution | 272,482 | 5,954 | 2 | yes |
| CSS Impress | 290,353 | n/a | 32 | yes |
| CSS Princess | 314,182 | 20 | 9 | no |
| CSS Leak | 319,340 | n/a | 65 | yes |
| Web Design Gallery | 337,963 | 244 | 14 | yes |
| My3W | 385,465 | n/a | 78 | yes |
| Inspiration King | 391,490 | 5,700 | 0 | no |
| Pro Web Art | 396,603 | 324 | 65 | yes |
| CSS Flavor | 397,298 | n/a | 1 | yes |
| CSS Container | 417,117 | no feed | 100+ | no feed |
| The Horizontal Way | 417,158 | n/a | 0 | yes |
| CSS Burst | 439,050 | no feed | 0 | no feed |
| Hotwebber | 442,827 | 83 | 38 | yes |
| CSS Zone | 456,876 | n/a | 59 | no |
| CSS Hazard | 475,108 | n/a | 0 | yes |
| CSS Gallery | 502,992 | 4 | 83 | yes |
| design|snips | 522,013 | n/a | no dates | yes |
| Designer Source | 553,625 | 80 | 34 | yes |
| CSS Love | 573,271 | n/a | no dates | yes |
| Design Grabs | 585,085 | n/a | 100+ | no |
| Design Creme | 615,345 | 112 | no dates | no |
| CSSEM | 615,507 | n/a | no dates | yes |
| The Designed Tree | 625,271 | 256 | 5 | yes |
| Lookum | 635,229 | n/a | 5 | yes |
| CSS Moon | 731,776 | n/a | 69 | yes |
| Designs Creme | 767,905 | n/a | 0 | yes |
| NiceStylesheet | 780,609 | 73 | 50 | yes |
| CSS Snap | 797,809 | n/a | 0 | yes |
| Carted Up | 831,381 | n/a | no dates | yes |
| Genuine Style | 838,273 | n/a | 0 | yes |
| CSS Smooth Operator | 871,589 | n/a | 4 | yes |
| One Star Gallery | 890,050 | n/a | 10 | yes |
| Plastic Pilots | 894,329 | n/a | no dates | yes |
| CSS Band | 1,151,978 | n/a | no dates | yes |
| CSS Warfare | 1,166,983 | n/a | 100+ | no |
| CSS Fuel | 1,298,931 | n/a | 19 | no |
| Refresh | 1,490,008 | n/a | 0 | no |
Some other collections of CSS galleries worth seeing:
- The Great Web Design Gallery Roundup - CSS Tricks.
- Inspiration Overload: 100 CSS Galleries You Need to Check Out - Virtual Hosting.
- 101 CSS Galleries for Backlinks and Traffic - Caroline Middlebrook
66 comments from readers
1 Deron Sizemore Apr 6, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Great list. Thanks for listing NiceStylesheet here!
2 Jacob Gube Apr 6, 2008 at 11:50 pm
What an awesome resource! Thanks for taking the time to research and post this.
3 Erika Apr 7, 2008 at 12:22 am
Unbelievable! Thanks for the compilation!
4 Dr Richard Apr 7, 2008 at 1:05 am
It’s great to see so much activity around CSS out there. Not only does it create great design inspiration but all web designers should be using it to make their sites easier to maintain and upgrade. Has anyone ever considered classifying a CSS gallery according to different applications - e-commerce, blogs, search sites, chat sites, etc?
5 al Apr 7, 2008 at 4:13 am
Would be really cool to add a column for number of times the sites have been bookmarked on http://del.icio.us
6 nerdd.net | news and opinion Apr 7, 2008 at 4:23 am
Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries | nerdd.net…
\r\nThere are so many different galleries that its hard to know which ones are worth the time it tak…
7 En İyi 80 CSS Galerisi | Cnkt Apr 7, 2008 at 5:15 am
[…] olarak 6 Nisan 2008 tarihinde Vandelay Website Design & Blog Customization sitesinde http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/css/ adresinde […]
8 NJ WebGuy Apr 7, 2008 at 10:08 am
Thanks for putting all this information together in one place. Very useful.
9 sammy dolan Apr 7, 2008 at 10:13 am
Great post! I’m going to add my site to a few!
Sam xx
10 Web Design » Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries | Vandelay Website Design Apr 7, 2008 at 11:12 am
[…] SMLXL wrote an interesting post today on Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries | Vandelay Website DesignHere’s a quick excerptWeb design and CSS galleries are a great source of inspiration for designers, and they are also an outstanding resource for designers to get exposure… […]
11 Web 2.0 Announcer Apr 7, 2008 at 11:24 am
Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries | Vandelay Website Design…
[…][…]…
12 Sarah Apr 7, 2008 at 11:58 am
Wow…Great collection of css galleries list.
13 roScripts - Webmaster resources and websites Apr 7, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries…
Web design and CSS galleries are a great source of inspiration for designers and they are also an outstanding resource for designers to get exposure for their work Getting a site featured in some of the most popular galleries can bring thousands of v…
14 aliotsy Apr 7, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I love the FWA, but they aren’t really a CSS gallery at all — most of the sites listed are Flash-based, and many still use tables for layout.
15 Biodun Apr 7, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Great Post! Thanks for the compilation, will be going through them one after the other.
16 Greg William Apr 7, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Don’t forget http://submitcss.com
17 Web 2.0 Announcer Apr 7, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries…
[…]Ce site permet de faire un comparatif d'audience entre les différents sites proposant les derniers designs
Saved By: rouffj | View Details | Give Thanks[…]…
18 Ranking de Galerías CSS Apr 7, 2008 at 3:29 pm
[…] necesitamos un poco de inspiración y tomar ideas sobre las tendencias del diseño web, por eso en Vandelay han publicado un ranking de 80 sitios de Galerías CSS, ordenadas según el puesto en Alexa, suscriptores al feed y el número de sitios incluidos en […]
19 IDX Apr 7, 2008 at 3:30 pm
It’s nice to see the breakdown. Nice work!
20 imsraaia Apr 7, 2008 at 3:49 pm
gr8 effort….
21 Tony Chester Apr 7, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Nice centralized list of sites here. As our site has been lucky enough to grace a few of these galleries, I can attest to the traffic they send us. I just checked our stats from Dec 1, 2007 through today; BestWebGallery.com is by far the biggest referrer of all the galleries we’re on. 16,688 to be exact. The next gallery is TheBestDesigns.com with 7,314.
This post I read last month has some similar info to supplement your article here - http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/css-galleries-backlinks-traffic/
Tony
22 Vandelay Design Apr 7, 2008 at 7:41 pm
aliotsv,
You’re right. And there are some others like that on the list. Would have been more accurate to title it web design galleries instead of css galleries.
Thanks everyone for your comments. I’m glad the post has been useful.
23 Andrew Flusche Apr 7, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Awesome post! This is a terrific resource for any designer. And it will even be useful for design-hacks like myself.
24 John Apr 8, 2008 at 12:26 am
You should add http://www.bigowners.com
25 links for 2008-04-08 « Mandarine Apr 8, 2008 at 12:35 am
[…] Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries (tags: webdesign css gallery inspiration list) […]
26 RickScheibner.net | links for 2008-04-08 Apr 8, 2008 at 2:37 am
[…] Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries | Vandelay Website Design Web design and CSS galleries are a great source of inspiration for designers, and they are also an outstanding resource for designers to get exposure for their work. Getting a site featured in some of the most popular galleries can bring thousands of visi (tags: css design web) […]
27 80 splendide gallerie CSS - Geekissimo Apr 8, 2008 at 4:01 am
[…] Via | Vandelay Design […]
28 JamieO Apr 8, 2008 at 9:08 am
Having a column for which ones are search-able would be nice.
It’s surprising to me that with all the trouble most of them go through for tagging, ranking, categories, etc that enabling search within that data is not a standard gallery functionality.
29 PJ Apr 8, 2008 at 4:04 pm
If you’re using a Premium WordPress Theme as a starting point for site designs, you can also submit them to http://wp-premiums.com
30 rascunho » Blog Archive » links for 2008-04-08 Apr 8, 2008 at 4:33 pm
[…] Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries | Vandelay Website Design Web design and CSS galleries are a great source of inspiration for designers, and they are also an outstanding resource for designers to get exposure for their work. Getting a site featured in some of the most popular galleries can bring thousands of visi (tags: vandelaydesign.com 2008 mes3 dia8 at_tecp CSS gallery HTML top10) […]
31 links for 2008-04-08 « toonz Apr 8, 2008 at 7:35 pm
[…] Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries | Vandelay Website Design (tags: css gallery inspiration) […]
32 Andrei Apr 8, 2008 at 8:36 pm
With all due respect to everyone, just because a certain CSS gallery is ranked near or at the top doesn’t mean that their gallery displays excellent websites. I visit a lot of these often, and I am constantly disappointed with the preference for a web 2.0 template look, and regardless of all the “CSS” in their titles, most have very very poor coding.
33 Vandelay Design Apr 8, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Andrei,
I don’t disagree with you. My point of gathering this list is not to say that certain galleries display better work than others. I just wanted to help designers see how much exposure they could expect to get if they were included in these galleries.
34 Tony Chester Apr 9, 2008 at 11:48 am
Hmm. I responded on this post the other day but my comments are no longer here. Did I offend in some way?
35 links for 2008-04-09 | blog de felipe tofani // blog.ftofani.com Apr 9, 2008 at 4:33 pm
[…] Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries | Vandelay Website Design (tags: css webdesign gallery design Inspiration list resource reference showcase) […]
36 Vandelay Design Apr 9, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Tony,
I don’t remember your comment. It probably got caught by Akismet for some reason. Sorry. The only comments I’ve ever deleted were for inappropriate language.
37 Tony Chester Apr 9, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Well I did have a slew of bad words about this lousy post but…I’m just kidding.
I actually was just saying how our site was lucky enough to land on a hand full of gallery sites. BestWebGallery.com has been our biggest referral with over 16,000 inbound visits; next up was TheBestDesigns.com with over 7,000. That is between December and April of this year.
38 Vandelay Design Apr 9, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Tony,
I found your original comment in the spam bin, My apologies, it’s posted now too. The article that you mentioned from Caroline is actually linked too at the end of this post. I liked hers and wanted to take the idea a step further.
39 Tony Chester Apr 9, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Ha, thanks. Now I’m spamming your blog with comments! I did see that you and Caroline were tracking back to each other today. Didn’t catch that last time.
40 Redesign veines-noires.org, v-n.org vers Apr 11, 2008 at 12:14 am
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41 News Dal Web! » Blog Archive » » 80 splendide gallerie CSS Apr 11, 2008 at 5:11 pm
[…] Via | Vandelay Design Segnala […]
42 25 Incredibly Artistic Websites | Vandelay Website Design Apr 14, 2008 at 8:06 pm
[…] you spend much time browsing through web design galleries you’ll notice certain trends in design that vary from time-to-time. Right now, there are a […]
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[…] http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/css/ […]
44 Alex Apr 24, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I have some data about web design galleries here. I personally am not a fan of Alexa, but I’m a fan of Google Analytics. I use some of its data in my list: http://logistetica.com/list-of-web-design-galleries
45 8 » Blog Archive » Submit to CSS Galleries Apr 25, 2008 at 7:34 am
[…] http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/galleries/css/ i will give you $5 […]
46 Top 80 de galerías CSS | Sicrono Apr 27, 2008 at 7:30 pm
[…] Listado de las 80 galerías CSS ordenadas de acuerdo al puesto en el ranking de Alexa, suscripciones y sitios adheridos. | Vía Esta entrada fue publicada el 27 de Abril de 2008, fue archivada en Minipost y ha recibido 0 comentario(s). […]
47 Top Best Graphic Design Articles of April 2008 Apr 29, 2008 at 11:07 pm
[…] Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries - from Vandelay Design You know how there are so many galleries out there, this shows you the best ones. […]
48 Don’t Be Fooled By April’s Links - This Month In SEO 4/08 | TheVanBlog | Van SEO Design Apr 30, 2008 at 7:57 pm
[…] Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries […]
49 Two Mad Geeks » 80 Of The Top CSS Galleries May 3, 2008 at 5:21 am
[…] Link: Vandelay Website Design […]
50 99 Flickr Groups for Design Inspiration | Vandelay Website Design May 5, 2008 at 8:43 pm
[…] designers are always looking for new sources of design inspiration. Of course, many of us turn to CSS galleries, and there are even more sources of offline inspiration. Personally, I find the work in many Flickr […]
51 99 Flickr Groups for Design Inspiration « Beach,office & cookies May 6, 2008 at 12:08 pm
[…] designers are always looking for new sources of design inspiration. Of course, many of us turn to CSS galleries, and there are even more sources of offline inspiration. Personally, I find the work in many Flickr […]
52 99 Flickr Groups for Design Inspiration | Proyecto Aurora [US] May 6, 2008 at 11:20 pm
[…] designers are always looking for new sources of design inspiration. Of course, many of us turn to CSS galleries, and there are even more sources of offline inspiration. Personally, I find the work in many Flickr […]
53 edwin May 8, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Excellent list, i recently posted a huge css gallery list on my blog with more than 100 galleries, including pagerank and submission features..i found some more in your list, thanks..
54 CSS Loaf | Daily Slice of Design Jun 10, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I would love to have CSS Loaf added to the list. CSSloaf brings together designs from 35 other showcases so that you don’t have to go all over the place to see the latest designs. We feature large screenshots so that each design is visible; no need to strain your eyes on tiny thumbnails.
55 Top 80 galerías CSS | Diseño web en Perú XHTML CSS y Estándares Web | WEBINPERU Jun 27, 2008 at 5:28 pm
[…] Y dicho esto ae muy bien que en vandelaydesign se hallan tomado el trabajo de hacer un ranking de las 80 galerías top de css. […]
56 Dr John Jun 28, 2008 at 10:34 am
You have an impressive list here! Ithought I had done well to find about 10 such sites, but your list provides lots of places to look for inspiration when designing a new site.
Well Done!
57 DON’T MISS: The Best Graphic Design Articles from April 2008 | Dalton Trent's Blog Jul 1, 2008 at 11:06 am
[…] Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries - from Vandelay Design You know how there are so many galleries out there, this shows you the best ones. […]
58 Learning from Other Designers | Vandelay Website Design Jul 10, 2008 at 7:00 am
[…] of us who read design-focused blogs and/or visit design galleries constantly come across designs and examples of work form other designers that can inspire us in our […]
59 CSS Gallery List Jul 14, 2008 at 3:12 pm
topcss.stumbleupon.com provides the most complete list of all CSS Galleries. There are 441 CSS Galleries listed.
Enjoy!!
Best Regards
TruSighT
60 DON’T MEASURE: The Best Graphic Design Articles from April 2008 | Dalton Trent's Blog Jul 14, 2008 at 8:12 pm
[…] Ranking 80 of the Top CSS Galleries - from Vandelay Design You know how there are so many galleries out there, this shows you the best ones. […]
61 12 Best Looking Design Galleries | Most Inspired Blog Jul 15, 2008 at 11:02 am
[…] Designs recently posted a ranking of the top 80 CSS galleries which I used as my source […]
62 John Faulds Jul 16, 2008 at 6:46 am
If anyone’s interested, I created a similar list but with more galleries listed (and some pretty graphs thrown in).
63 Bob Jul 16, 2008 at 11:07 am
You should also checkout, Cart Craze, a free eCommerce CSS Design Gallery. http://cartcraze.com
64 Vandelay Design Jul 16, 2008 at 5:42 pm
John,
Thanks for the link. That’s quite a collection. I bookmarked it.
65 勇者无敌 » 12 Best Looking Design Galleries Jul 18, 2008 at 12:04 am
[…] Designs recently posted a ranking of the top 80 CSS galleries which I used as my source […]
66 12 Best Looking Design Galleries | WatchCSS Jul 22, 2008 at 10:04 pm
[…] enough features to make them useful, but they sure do look good. Vandelay Designs recently posted a ranking of the top 80 CSS galleries which I used as my source list. Without further ado here is my list of the 12 best looking design […]