Images are important to improve the user experience on a website. Also, attractive and well-designed pictures not only elevate a brand but also provide an additional asset for promotions. However, unnecessarily large images can slow down a site, which can have a negative impact on visitors and SEO. Having said that, we can also not ignore the fact that images are essential for several reasons. Therefore, to get the best of both worlds, websites use WordPress image optimization plugins to compress images. As images comprise around 50% of the file size of a web page, shrinking their size using an effective tool can make a great impact on users and improve page load time. Image slider plugins for WordPress are also popular for placing images in attractive manner on site.
The right image compression and optimization plugin can mitigate your issues as they automatically compress images when you upload them. You get to use images for your website to engage users without affecting the page loading speed. To help you find the best plugin for Image Optimization in WordPress, we have listed 6 of them in this post, giving you an overview of their features, pros, and cons.
EWWW Image Optimizer
EWWW Image Optimizer is a unique and powerful WordPress image compression plugin to optimize your website images. As you upload images on the site, it automatically optimizes them and you can also compress previously uploaded JPG images either in bulk or individually. Along with resizing images, you can also remove metadata from media files to save space. Unlike most solutions that connect to external servers through an API and optimize images on those servers, EWWW uses your server to perform this task. Hence, making it free for unlimited usage but this also means that you will have to use your own server resources. It also comes with lazy-loading functionality and you can convert image files to WebP format to increase the compression ratio.
There are other perks of EWWW Image Optimizer that make it stand out from others. As it allows unlimited file sizes, you don’t have to worry about large or uncompressed images. The premium version uses cloud service for a higher compression ratio. Also, it can handle GIF, PNG, and WebP files, which is a great option for websites with all these file types.
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Key Features
- Optimize existing files
- Four different compression levels
- Convert images to WebP
- Supports JPG, PNG, and PDF files
- Add missing dimensions
- Dynamically serves images via a CDN and adjusts them according to a user’s device
Price: The core plugin is available for free for unlimited usage but for advanced functionality and more optimization options, go for premium packages that start at $7 per month.
Smush
Smush is another popular plugin for Image Optimization in WordPress with a beautiful interface and proactive elements to ask if you want to optimize both old and new images. Similar to EWWW, Smush also enables you to automatically optimize new images as you upload them to the website and includes a bulk optimization option for exiting images. It applies lossless compression, which implies that the quality is not removed from the image file while reducing image size by up to 5 MB, be it in bulk or individually. The solution also takes appropriate measures to enhance page performance, including auto-resizing and lazy loading. Another main advantage of Smush is the extensive information it provides about images and the amount of space it saves. Smush is a simple plugin option for beginners. Once you install it on your website, you simply have to activate it or turn it on, go to settings, and then it will take care of optimizing your existing and new images.
Apart from its lazy-loading and resizing functionality, you can also configure the Smush image optimizer plugin to strip image metadata after you upload new image files. As its free version allows up to 50 old images at a time for optimization, you might have to click the button multiple times for a lot of images. Also, if you want to go over 5 MB, you will have to use a premium version, which also lets you integrate CDN for faster loading time.
Key Features
- Automatically optimize images with lossless compression
- Optimize images in external directories
- Compress existing images in the media library
- Strip EXIF metadata
- Serve images from a CDN
- Back up the original image
Price: For lossless compression, the free version is the best value but for added features, paid plans start at $5 per month.
Imagify
Imagify is an advanced tool to optimize images directly in a WordPress dashboard with over 500,000 installations. Like other options, this plugin also compresses newly uploaded images along with the existing ones on your media library. Everything is done automatically so you can save a significant amount of time and improve workflow. This image compression plugin has the best-looking Settings module, which is broken down into Optimization, General Settings, and Display Options with just one page to manage settings. Its three optimization levels are lossless compression, lossy compression, and strong lossy compression for the smallest images and the lowest image quality. Hence, giving you more control over the level of file size and quality.
Imagify is compatible with NextGen Gallery, WooCommerce, and several other plugins, making it a perfect choice for websites with a lot of images to be compressed. Its backup option lets you restore the original version anytime and begin again. Its well-designed and user-friendly interface enables Imagify to optimize media storage as the plugin compresses newly uploaded images and previously added ones. To connect to the Imagify server, start by generating an API key that will unlock the full interface.
Key Features
- Supports PNG, JPG, GIF, PDF, and WebP
- Backup of the original image
- Resizing and optimization is automatic
- Choose which thumbnail sizes to optimize
- Three levels of compression: Normal (lossless compression), Aggressive (lossy compression), Ultra (more lossy compression for maximum file savings)
- Add custom folders outside the Media Library to optimize
Price: Free plan compresses and resizes 20MB worth of images per month. Opt for a paid plan that starts at $4.99 per month for 500MB which is around 5000 images or $9.99 per month for unlimited usage.
ShortPixel
ShortPixel is a freemium plugin for Image Optimization in WordPress that automatically compresses images and PDF files while also resizing them. The plugin is active on 200,000+ websites and offers two compression solutions – lossless and lossy. The latter means that a part of the data will be deleted from the file, which will result in much smaller files but with slightly lower image quality. You can also take a backup of original images files once they are optimized. This will help you remove metadata from images and resize them after the upload process is complete. Also, it can convert PNG files into JPEG along with optimizing Retina images and thumbnails.
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ShortPixel comes with several other benefits, such as CMYK to RGB conversion and image rescaling. It allows compression for JPG, GIF, PNG, WebP, AVIF, and PDF files without size limits. The plugin offers two versions – ShortPixel Image Optimizer to resize and compress images automatically and ShortPixel Adaptive Images, which in addition to compressing and resizing also serves images from a CDN and adjusts the size according to a user’s device. So, a Retina screen will have a high-resolution image while a smartphone will get a low-resolution one.
Key Features
- Optimize Retina images and thumbnails
- The interface has more advanced options
- Dynamically resize images
- Remove metadata from image files
- Smart cropping while preserving the important visuals
- Automatically scale down large images
Price: 100 free image credits per month and paid plans start at $4.99 for 7,000 image credits.
reSmush.it
reSmush.it is your best pick if you are looking for a reliable plug-and-play WordPress image compression plugin. This official WordPress plugin for image compressor applies one out of several compression algorithms to every image you upload. You can adjust and compress images up to 5MB for free and bulk optimize images with just two clicks. This solution offers automatic image optimization after you activate it and comes with only a handful of settings. These include options to modify image quality, preserve metadata, enable logs, and save image backups.
reSmush.it lets you schedule image optimization that can run in the background. You can create a copy of the original image files and work off this copy for compression thereby, ensuring that you never lose the original image. It comes with a sliding scale for optimization level so that you have better control over the compression level. Optimize images for free and change the compression level based on the quality required and exclude a few pictures from the optimization process if needed.
Key Features
- Preserve or delete image metadata
- “Optimize on upload” feature
- Supports PNG, JPG, GIF, BMP, and TIF format pictures for free up to 5MB
- Schedule image optimization
Price: Available for free but allows images below 5MB.
Compress JPEG & PNG Images by TinyPNG
Compress JPEG & PNG Images is a straightforward plugin for Image Optimization in WordPress that sticks to the basic and clean Settings page. You just need 20 seconds to understand what’s happening and activate the automated optimization process. As the name suggests, it optimizes JPG and PNG files by seamlessly integrating with the image compression services TinyPNG and TinyJPG. This plugin analyzes the content of images and selects the best compression strategy without making any compromise on image quality. The compression includes eliminating or reducing metadata, removing redundant data, and distracting artifacts.
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By default, TinyPNG compresses images using a lossy approach and allows you to resize them automatically, compressing every size that WordPress generates as you upload files. One downfall is that you need to subscribe to a free plan for an API key and the service is limited to 500 image optimization every month.
Key Features
- Remove EXIF information
- Bulk optimization of the existing media library
- Compression of animated PNG
- Supports only lossy compression
- Convert CMYK to RGB and save more space
- See data usage on the Settings page
- Progressive JPEG encoding
Price: You can opt for a free plan but it offers a restricted number of monthly optimizations. Beyond this level, opt for the paid account.
Conclusion
When it comes to Plugin for Image Optimization in WordPress, you have got a plethora of options. Many tools compress images automatically but there are others with a few caveats. You can pick free solutions but they are restricted in terms of monthly uploads. So, it’s up to you to meticulously analyze every aspect and then choose the best image optimizer that fits all your needs.