Are you looking for the best image optimization plugin for your WordPress site?
Images play an important role on your website. They increase the aesthetic appeal of your website and effectively convey your message.
When it comes to web page size, images often account for the majority of the overall size.
Thus, optimizing these images is crucial for providing a better user experience, and improving your website's load speed, ultimately leading to higher conversion rates.
Thus, optimizing these images is crucial for improving your website's load speed. This helps you provide a better user experience and ultimately leads to higher conversion rates.
In this article, we’ll explore some of the best image optimization plugins available to help you boost your website speed.
Let's get started.
Why Optimize Images on Your Website?
Optimizing images on your website not only enhances load speed but also provides several additional benefits.
One key advantage is that Google considers page load speed as one of its ranking factors. Having optimized images can significantly improve your SEO rankings, leading to greater visibility in search results.
Optimized images also load more quickly, which contributes to a better user experience and can result in higher conversion rates. They also consume less bandwidth, which can help you reduce hosting costs and improve performance for users with slower internet connections
Now that you understand why it is important, let’s look at the difference between an image optimization plugin and an image compressor plugin.
Difference between an Image Optimizer and an Image Compressor Plugin
While both image optimization and image compression plugins work to improve website performance, they do so with different focuses.
Image optimization plugins typically offer a broader range of features that not only reduce file size but also convert them to more efficient formats like WebP and AVIF, create different sizes, add lazy loading, and much more. These plugins automate all of these processes and also offer bulk optimization options.
On the other hand, image compressor plugins primarily focus on reducing the image size without necessarily changing their format or enhancing their loading strategy.
While compression is an important part of optimization, standalone compressor plugins may lack additional features that improve overall website performance. Therefore, opting for an image optimization plugin rather than one that only offers compression features will offer better website load times.
Best Image Optimization Plugin for WordPress
Image optimization plugins help you compress and reduce the size of images on your website without compromising the quality.
Let’s look at these image optimization plugins, starting with the best in the business.
1. Image Optimization by Optimole
Optimole is a powerful cloud-based image optimization plugin, meaning that the optimization process occurs on external servers. This minimizes the load on your own server which not only speeds up image processing but also enhances overall website performance.
The plugin features a clean and user-friendly interface and allows you to connect to the Optimole dashboard with an API key. It allows you to bulk-optimize images as well as when they're uploaded. You get the flexibility to store images in both your media library and the Optimole cloud or keep them solely in the Optimole cloud while saving space on your server.
Optimole is packed with revolutionary features, including machine learning-powered automatic compression, dynamic image resizing based on the visitor's device, and smart cropping, among others. You can also use the plugin as a Digital Asset Management tool, allowing you to directly add images from your Optimole account into WordPress. It supports all popular image formats and offers both lossless and lossy optimization options.
If you want to see the difference the plugin can make to your website page, you can test it without installing the plugin. Simply enter the URL of the page here and see the difference yourself.
Key Features
- Supports JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, SVG, and GIF formats, as well as video and document formats.
- Fully compatible with page builders and the WordPress block editor.
- Offload all images and serve them through the Optimole cloud library.
- Lossy and lossless algorithms are available.
- Global CDN support with 450 server locations for fast image delivery.
- Smart lazy loading and watermark options.
Pricing
Free plan available for up to 5,000 monthly visits. Premium plans start at $24/month for unlimited images and 40,000 monthly visits.
2. EWWW Optimizer
EWWW Image Optimizer is another popular image optimization plugin that focuses on automatically optimizing images as they are uploaded to your WordPress site.
The plugin supports all image formats and optimizes them in the cloud in real-time. However, when it comes to the free version, only the JPG format is supported with cloud optimization while all other formats are done in local compression mode.
It provides both lossless and lossy compression options and doesn’t limit you on image sizes. The plugin is compatible with all popular themes and gallery plugins.
It compresses and scales images automatically based on screen size and lazy load and converts them to next-gen WebP format for faster loading.
Additionally, EWWW also includes page caching features such as CSS/JS optimization, critical CSS generation, and Google Fonts optimization.
Key Features
- Supports lazy loading and WebP conversion.
- Unlimited file sizes and bulk optimization options.
- Image resizing and dynamic serving via a CDN in 123 locations.
- Free backups of your original images are stored for 30 days.
- User-friendly interface in basic mode but with a more complex setup and advanced features in ludicrous mode.
Pricing
Free plugin is available to download from WordPress.org. There are premium plans that start at $7/month and include unlimited image optimization via CDN and other premium features.
3. ShortPixel
ShortPixel operates a bit differently than the other two plugins mentioned earlier. While it performs the optimization work on its server, the images are copied back and served from your server.
The plugin offers three different compression algorithms: lossless, lossy, and glossy. It supports various image formats, including JPG, PNG, and GIF, and allows for conversion to next-gen formats such as WebP and AVIF. It also supports Apple format (HEIC) and allows you to automatically convert and optimize it to JPG.
ShortPixel automatically optimizes new images as they are uploaded and also provides bulk optimization for existing images.
Additionally, ShortPixel creates a local backup of all images that can restored with a single click if needed.
Key Features
- Automatic resizing and smart cropping of new images.
- Offers lossless, lossy, and glossy compression options.
- Compatible with various galleries and eCommerce plugins.
- Bulk optimization and backup of original images.
- Exclude images based on filename, path, size, or complex regex patterns.
Pricing
Free plan with 100 credits per month. Premium plans can be purchased for unlimited credits or as one-time, non-expiring credits.
4. Imagify
Imagify is an image optimization plugin developed by the creators of WP Rocket. It integrates seamlessly with the WP Rocket plugin, but can also be used as a standalone plugin.
The plugin features an intuitive interface that makes it easy for users to optimize both new and existing images. It supports the most common image formats, including PDFs, and offers three different compression levels: Normal, Aggressive, and Ultra. In addition to optimizing images in your WordPress media library, it also allows for image optimization within specific folders on your server.
One of Imagify's unique offerings is a visual comparison tool that allows you to see the differences in quality between the original and optimized images.
Key Features
- Supports JPG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, GIF, and PDF formats.
- Three compression levels with options to restore images after compression.
- Smart compression settings and bulk optimization feature.
- User-friendly interface and visual comparison tool.
- Compatible with WooCommerce, NextGen Gallery, and other popular plugins.
Pricing
Free for up to 20 MB of images per month. Paid plans start at $5.99 per month for 500 MB of image compression across unlimited websites.
5. TinyPNG - JPEG, PNG & WebP Image Compression
TinyPNG is a straightforward image compression plugin designed to optimize PNG, JPEG, and WebP images. It integrates with the TinyJPG and TinyPNG compression services to compress images without compromising quality.
With the TinyPNG plugin, you can automatically optimize new uploads in the background and bulk-optimize existing images in your media library. When it comes to JPEG images, the plugin features progressive JPEG encoding to load JPEG images faster.
While TinyPNG may not offer as many advanced optimization features as some other plugins, its ease of use makes it a popular choice for those looking for a free option to improve their website's performance.
Key Features
- Focused on compressing PNG and JPEG images.
- Bulk optimization for existing images.
- Automatically optimizes new uploads in the background.
- Simple interface with limited features.
Pricing
Free plan is available for optimizing up to 500 images per month, while the paid plan starts at $0.009 per image for the next 9,500 images.
Best Image Optimization Plugins for WordPress - Wrap-Up
Images often account for the majority of the size of web pages featuring visual content. Optimizing these images is important to improve load times, which improves user experience and increases the conversion rate.
There are many plugins available to help you automatically optimize existing images in bulk, as well as new images upon upload. One plugin that stands out is Optimole, which is known for its revolutionary features. It performs all optimization in the cloud, delivering tailor-optimized images to your website that load quickly, even on low-quality internet connections.
If you’re looking for a plugin with premium features that are budget-friendly, ShortPixel offers a credit-based pricing model worth considering. For those on a tight budget seeking a free plugin with a simple interface, TinyPNG is an excellent choice.
