I remember there was a time when compressing images on this blog was free.
Thanks to the developers of the Smush.it plugin, we’ve become quite pampered and accustomed to free image compression .
Over the past few months, our perception of free image compression has changed.
Most WordPress plugins available online today offer a small amount of free compression, but you’ll have to pay if you use more.
So, in this post, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at all the existing WordPress image compression tools (both free and paid).
Users with small or medium-sized WordPress blogs can use several WordPress plugins to optimize all their existing/future uploads for free .
It can be time consuming, but I know that when you’re first starting out, money is more important than time .
If you have a medium or large blog, you might want to consider a paid option. This will help you load your blog faster and keep your readers happy .
The formula is as follows:
- Happy readers = good blog = better rankings = more money
That’s a nice formula, but let’s get down to business . Here are some of the best WordPress image compression plugins.
(As always, I’ll try to list as many important points about these plugins as possible to help you make an informed decision. Cool, huh?)
Best Image Compression WordPress Plugins: Make Your Website Faster
- ShortPixel
- Imagify Image Optimizer
- ImageKit
- Optimus
- TinyPNG: Compress JPEG and PNG images
- ImageRecycle
- Kraken
here we go…
1. ShortPixel
ShortPixel was developed specifically for WordPress. They offer both free and paid accounts (like all their other services). There is one really cool part about this service, though, which I’ll tell you about in a moment.
feature:
- Supports lossy and lossless optimization.
- Supports JPG, PNG, GIF and PDF.
- Restore the original image at any time.
- Compress all your old uploads with just one click.
- Automatically process new images as they are uploaded.
- No file size limit.
- Your free quota and paid quota are treated separately .
- This way you always have 100 free image compression.
- Save and back up the original images in a separate folder.
- Choose to optimize all images (thumbnails) or original images only.
- Choose to keep or remove EXIF tags from your images. < Read about EXIF tags here >
Free Account:
- 100 free image compressions per month.
- Refer a Friend Program: For every user you refer, you 'll get an additional 100 images per month.
Paid Account (10,000 Images):
- 10K images cost $9.98.
- Purchased quota never expires.
- Monthly subscriptions available.
- The supported payment method is PayPal.
Easy to use:
It’s easy to set up and the interface is very nice. When you start using this plugin for batch image compression, you’ll know what I mean.
After creating a free account, log in to the admin area and get your API key. Install and activate the ShortPixel WordPress plugin .
Add your API key from Settings > ShortPixel.
Go to Media > Library > Bulk ShortPixel to optimize your old images.
A cool feature of this plugin is that you can deselect thumbnails for compression.
This ensures that your free quota is used only for larger sized images, which in most cases are the culprit for slow page loading.
The plugin is updated regularly and currently has **20K+ **active installations with a 4.7 star rating .
ShortPixel is the ideal solution for image and PDF compression in WordPress.
2. Imagify Image Optimizer
This plugin **comes from the developers of the WP-Rocket plugin ** .
It has all the basic features like batch compression and image resizing .
It offers 3 different compression levels, and depending on your blog type, you should choose 1 of the 3 levels :
- Normal , lossless compression algorithm. Image quality will not change.
- Aggressive is a lossy compression algorithm. The compression ratio is higher, but the quality loss is so small that it is not noticeable in most cases.
- Ultra , the strongest compression method using a lossy algorithm .
- The backup option lets you change your mind at any time and restore the image to its original version or optimize it at another compression level.
In the coming days, they also plan to add the ability to convert images to WebP format .
The plugin is also compatible with WooCommerce and NextGen Gallery.
feature:
- Supports JPG, PNG and GIF.
- Resize images on the fly.
- Resize by percentage.
- Support for PrestaShop, Magento, Shopify and Joomla will be coming soon.
- Only paid accounts will compress images over 5Mb .
Free Account:
- 25 MB per month for free.
- Sign up and get a 25MB bonus.
Paid Account (10,000 Images):
- 1GB of data costs $4.99 per month.
Easy to use:
Onboarding is pretty simple, and like other plugins, you need to create a free account and get your API key.
The plugin is easy to use, and once you configure the settings, you can start using it right away.
You can enable or disable the option to compress thumbnails**.**
Aside from the compression, my favorite thing about this plugin is its interface .
It's very stylish and makes you feel like you're in the game.
Overall, this is a great plugin, and since it’s made by the same people as the WP-Rocket plugin, I believe it’s a good choice for anyone looking for reliability.
The only thing you need to consider before choosing this product is probably the price.
Download plugin || Create account
3. ImageKit
ImageKit is a new entrant, but it offers features worth mentioning. Note that it is different from all the other image compression plugins listed here because the images will be loaded from the imagekit server. This is perfect for anyone who wants to offload image loading from a web server.
The most attractive aspect of Imagekit is the ability to control how and where images are displayed. Especially for photographers who want to specify the maximum size of their images, they can take advantage of the ability to limit the size of images based on the capabilities of the user's device.
In my opinion, ImageKit is not only an image compression plugin, but also an image CDN. It is perfect for any type of website, but for travel bloggers, photographers, or any WordPress website that needs to use a lot of images, this service is useful.
The dashboard is intuitive and easy to use, and setup is simple and easy. You can also view statistics, and if you make major changes, you can clear the cache with a single click.
They offer a 14-day free trial, after which you can decide whether to upgrade to the paid version. Since billing is based on bandwidth usage rather than the number of images, you can easily estimate your bill during the 14-day trial.
You can download the WordPress plugin to connect to ImageKit from the official repo.
In my opinion, Imagekit is perfect for people who use a lot of images on their WordPress site or have limited bandwidth.
Download plugin | Visit ImageKit
4.Optimus
This is another popular solution that I’m sure many of you will like. Optimus seems to be a great alternative to the Smush.it plugin as it allows you to compress all your images that are less than 100Kb for free.
feature:
- Support JPEG, PNG.
- Batch compression.
Free Account:
- Unlimited compression of images < 100Kb.
- Supports progressive JPEG.
Paid Accounts:
- A one-time fee of $19 allows for unlimited image compression.
- The maximum file size is 5MB.
- Supports WebP conversion.
For the price, the Optimus HQ is a steal.
But I would really like to see some improvement in their batch compression feature. If you stop batch compression in the middle and start the process later, it will start compressing all the images again. It would be even better if it could skip those images that have already been processed.
Download Optimus for Free || Get Optimus Pro
5. TinyPNG: Compress JPEG and PNG images
TinyPNG is a popular online image compression service.
feature:
- Automatically compress new images.
- Only JPEG and PNG files are supported.
- Batch optimization.
- Resize image function.
- Convert CMYK to RGB.
- A single API can be used for multiple sites.
- No file size limit.
Free Account:
- Compress 500 images per month.
Paid Account (10,000 Images):
- The price for 10,000 images is $85.50 (one of the most expensive for heavy users).
Use plugins:
After activating the plugin, go to Settings>Media.
[](https://tinypng.com/)Get your free API key from here , add it and configure any other settings you want.
Go to Media > Compress All Images and start compressing all your old images. You can also go to the Media Uploader and selectively compress individual images (this is a good idea to save quota).
Create an account on TinyPNG || Download plugin
6. ImageRecycle
I discussed this before in an article about online image compression tools .
While researching this article, I learned more about their WordPress plugin and I signed up for a free account.
A cool feature of this plugin is that it lists all the images in your theme folder . You can select individual images or select all the images and compress those images. Pretty cool, right?
feature:
- Supports JPG, PNG, GIF and PDF files.
- All plans support multiple websites.
- Supports subaccounts, for which you can define quotas (for organizations).
- Supports original file (image + PDF) recovery for one month.
- Compress all previous images in WordPress with one click* or compress images selectively.
Free Account:
- 15-day trial.
- 100 MB quota.
Paid Account (10,000 Images):
- $30 for 10K images.
- Validity period: 1 year.
Easy to use:
The plugin is very easy to use, and in most cases it will automatically detect your API if you log in to its online portal from the same browser .
- NOTE: It directly causes the media uploader to compress , which may be bad for the user . The first screen after activating the API should be the plugin settings.
Anyway, you can access it by going to Settings>ImageRecycle.
When I was testing this plugin, I noticed that my blog slowed down a lot. This could have a variety of reasons , so this shouldn't stop you from trying it. But since it happened to me, I thought it would be good to at least let you know.
Once the settings are complete, go to Media > ImageRecycle to start compression.
One thing I really like about this plugin is that you can sort the images based on size, which is useful when you want to process the very large images first.
Overall, their WordPress plugin is very solid and could be your next image optimization WordPress plugin.
Get a 15-day free trial account of ImageRecycle || Download plugin
7. Kraken
This is another very popular paid plugin.
The download volume exceeds 10K, and the overall rating is 4.7/5, so the prospects are promising.
Their web service allows you to download and compress images from a web page by downloading all the images into a compressed folder.
feature:
- Supports JPG, PNG and GIF.
- WP-CLI support .
- Keep a backup of your original images in cloud storage.
- Image resizing.
- Preserve selective image EXIF data.
Free Account:
- 100 MB is for one-time testing only.
- Maximum allowed size – 1MB.
Paid Account (10,000 Images):
- $4.50/month (compared to other services).
Easy to use:
Like all the other image compression plugins on this list, this one is also simple to configure.
The settings page is as follows:
The option to save specific data like copyright is very smart.
It would be nice if other plugins followed this trend.
One big feature missing from this plugin is bulk image optimization . Therefore, it’s not ideal for those looking to optimize existing images. You’ll need to compress them manually.
Here is how to configure this plugin:
https://youtu.be/Wqtl0_cavx0
Download plugin || Create free account
*(Since page speed is one of the factors that *improve user experience and is also a search engine ranking factor , we can expect similar plugins to be launched in the coming days. I will keep adding new WordPress image compression plugins as I discover them.)
in conclusion
I have compiled the services from the list above that offer a free image compression quota each month. If you have a small or startup blog, this should be more than enough to cover your monthly needs.
Services that provide free monthly quota for image compression:
- ShortPixel（100 MB/月）
- TinyPNG (500 compressed images per month)
- Imagify (25MB/month)
Paid services based on features and pricing:
These are the paid services I like based on functionality, user experience, and pricing.
In my opinion, TinyPNG barely deserves to be on this list due to its high price and limited functionality.
Imagify is a paid image compression service that I recommend .
Again, I will continue to add new WordPress image compression plugins in the future.
Which WordPress image compression plugins do you use and why?
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