8 Best Image Optimization Plugin for Your Website.

Not just that, some image optimization plugins optimize the images when you upload images to the website.

What do WordPress Image Optimization plugins Do?

• Reduce image resolution by reducing the width and height of an image
• Remove metadata by removing the creation date, shutter speed, copyright information, geolocation, etc.
• Image Compression by reducing the quality of an image
• Change image format by converting an image to a more efficient image format

Why You Should Optimize Images for WordPress?

• Your web pages will load more quickly.
• Content will be more attractive with high-quality and high-resolution image.
• The decline in bounce rates.
• Search engines will crawl and boost your page in search rank.
• Backing up the site won’t take long .
• Save money if you are paying for extra bandwidth and storage.

Key Considerations for Optimizing Images Without Quality Loss.

• Dimensions of the image to present on a website.
• Byte (file size) of data the file consumes in its native state.
• The number of pixels that exist within an image or take care of the resolution of the image.
• The file must be in PNG or JPG or SVG or GIF format.

It is hard to take care of each and every factor manually so it is best not to do it manually. So why not try something that helps take care of all these factors and save time? Yes, you heard it correctly. We can take care of all these major factors by saving time. How? By simply installing the Image Optimization Plugin into your WordPress website.

You will find many options in the market, so it is hard to decide which to choose. So we have mentioned some of the best image optimization plugins both free and paid versions.

Best Free and Premium Image Optimization Plugins.

We have listed some of the best image optimization plugins for WordPress websites with their features. This will help you to choose the best image optimizer for your website. Below listed image optimization plugins are tested and compared in different WordPress and PHP Versions so choose the best one according to your WordPress and PHP versions.

1. EWWW Image Optimizer.

EWWW Image Optimizer is the only plugin that lets you optimize images using tools on your server (jpegtran, optipng, pngout, pngquant, gifsicle, cwebp). It helps you achieve success in making your website as fast as possible. Whether your website is just a job, a hobby, or your passion. If you need more speed, get more compression and offload the CPU-intensive optimization process to our specialized servers.

Premium Cost: Standard Yearly with unlimited images for a site $70/yr, Growth Yearly for 10 sites $150/yr, and Infinite Yearly for unlimited sites $250/yr.

Required WordPress Version is 5.7 or higher and tested up to 6.0. Also required PHP Version is 7.2 or higher

Features of EWWW Image Optimizer:

• No Speed Limits and unlimited file size.
• Smooth Handling with pixel-perfect optimization using industry-leading tools and progressive rendering.
• High Torque as we bring you the best compression/quality ratio available with our Premium compression for JPG, PNG, and PDF files.
• Adaptive Steering with intelligent conversion options to get the right image format for the job (JPG, PNG, GIF, or WebP).
• Free Parking The core plugin is free and always will be. However, our paid services offer up to 80% compression and a host of other features!
• Comprehensive Coverage: no image gets left behind, optimize everything on your site, not just the WordPress Media Library.
• Safety First: all communications are secured with top SSL encryption.
• Roadside Assistance: top-notch support is in our DNA. While API customers get top priority, we carefully answer every support question.
• Pack a Spare: free image backups store your original images for 30 days.

2. ShortPixel Image Optimizer.

ShortPixel is an easy-to-use, lightweight, install-and-forget-about-it image optimization plugin that can compress all your past images and PDF documents with a single click. New images are automatically resized/rescaled and optimized on the fly in the background. It’s also compatible with any gallery, slider or e-commerce plugin.

Short Pixel uses minimal resources and works well with shared, cloud, VPS or dedicated web hosting. It can optimize any image you have on your website, even those that aren’t listed in Media Library like those in galleries like NextGEN or Modula, or added directly via FTP!

Premium cost: 7,000 images/month $3.99/mo, 16,000 images/month $8.33/mo, 55,000 images/month $24.99/mo, 100,000 images/month $41.66/mo, 220,000 images/month $83.33/mo, 2 million+ 4 cores dedicated server $350/mo, 4 million+ 8 cores dedicated server $500/mo, and 16 million+ 32 cores dedicated server $1,000/mo.

Required WordPress Version is 4.2.0 or higher and tested up to 6.0. Also required PHP Version is 5.6 or higher

Features of ShortPixel Image Optimizer:

• Compress JPG (and its variations JPEG, JPEG 2000, JPEG XR), PNG, GIF images and also PDF documents.
• Option to convert any JPEG, PNG or GIF to WebP and AVIF for more Google love.
• Automatically convert PNG to JPG if that will result in smaller images. Ideal for large images in PNG format.
• Include the next-generation images (WebP and AVIF) into the front-end pages by using the <picture> tag instead of <img>, independent from generating them through the plugin.
• Compatible with WP Retina 2x – all retina images are automatically compressed.
• Optimize thumbnails as well as featured images. You can also select individual thumbnails to exclude from the optimization.
• Optimize any image on your site including images in NextGEN Gallery and any other image galleries or sliders.
• Scale images down, with two different options, which is very useful to resize large images automatically. This applies to the featured images, and there is no need for additional plugins like Imsanity.
• Works well with both HTTPS and HTTP websites.
• Works great for eCommerce websites using WooCommerce or other plugins, also great with NextGEN gallery, Foo Gallery and any other galleries and sliders.

3. Smush – Lazy load images, Optimize, and Compress Images.

Smush has been benchmarked and tested number one for speed and quality. It is also the award-winning, back-to-back proven crowd-favorite image optimization & image compression plugin for WordPress.

Some image compression tools destroy images with as much as a 30% loss in quality. But Smush servers hide bulky information from your images and reduce file size without affecting the appearance. Smush meticulously scans every image you upload or have already added to your site, cuts all the unnecessary data, and scales it for you before adding it to your media library. And it can serve images in the WebP format.

Premium cost: US$7.5/month and is free for 7 days as a trial period.

Required WordPress Version is 5.3 or higher and tested up to 6.0. Also required PHP Version is 5.6 or higher

Features of Smush:

• Super Smush – Optimize images up to 2x more than regular with our multi-pass lossy compression.
• Lossless Compression – Strip unused data and compress images without affecting image quality.
• Lazy Load – Defer offscreen images with the flip of a switch.
• Bulk Smush – Optimize & compress up to 50 images with one click.
• Image Resizing – Set a max width and height; large images will scale down as they are compressed.
• Incorrect Size Image Detection – Quickly locate images slowing down your site.
• Directory Smush – Optimize images even if not in the media library.
• Automated Optimization – Asynchronously auto-smush your attachments for super fast compression on upload.
• Without Monthly Limits – Optimize your images up to 5MB in size, free forever (no daily, monthly, or annual caps).
• Gutenberg Block Integration – View all Smush stats directly in image blocks.
• Multisite Compatible – Offers both global and individual Multisite settings.
• Process All Your Files – Smush will process PNG, JPEG, and GIF files for optimum results.
• Super Servers – Smush images with no slowdown using WPMU DEV’s fast, reliable Smush API.
• Convert to WebP (Pro Only) – Upgrade and automatically serve images in Next-Gen WebP format.

4. Compress JPEG and PNG Images by TinyPNG.

TinyPNG improves the speed of your website by optimizing JPEG, PNG, and WebP pictures. By integrating with the popular image compression services TinyJPG and TinyPNG, this plugin optimizes all of your photos automatically. Additionally, it optimizes new photographs immediately upon upload, optimizes the background to speed up production, optimizes individual images currently in the media library, and much more.

Required WordPress Version is 3.4 or higher and tested up to 5.9.3.

Features of TinyPNG:

• Automatically optimize new images on upload.
• Advanced background optimization to speed up your workflow.
• Optimize individual images already in your media library.
• Easy bulk optimization of your existing media library.
• Automatically resize huge image uploads by setting a maximum width and/or height for a more reasonable browser display.
• Display JPEG images more quickly with progressive JPEG encoding.
• Chose to preserve copyright metadata, creation date and GPS location in your original images.
• Supports compression of animated PNG.
• Select which thumbnail sizes of an image may be optimized.
• Multisite support with a single API key.
• WPML compatible.
• WooCommerce compatible (see below).
• WP Retina 2x compatible.
• See your usage on the settings page and during bulk optimization.
• Colour profiles are automatically translated to standard RGB colour.
• Convert CMYK to RGB to save more space and add compatibility.
• Dashboard widget with your total savings.
• Optimize and resize uploads with the WordPress mobile app.

5. Imagify – Optimize Images and Convert WebP.

Imagify is the most advanced image optimization plugin to help you resize and compress images. You can use its power directly in WordPress to optimize images and reduce the weight of the photos you want to add to your site – all in just one click and without sacrificing their quality.

Imagify lets you optimize images in one go with its bulk optimization option. You can resize your images on the fly and, with 3 compression levels to choose from, your images are automatically optimized in the selected compression level. If needed, you can always restore your images to their original versions.

Premium cost: Starter 200 images 20 MB per month is free of cost and Infinite unlimited per month is $99.9/year.

Required WordPress Version is 5.3 or higher and tested up to 5.9.3. Also required PHP Version is 7.0 or higher

Features:

• Resize and compress images without losing quality.
• Convert images to the WEBP format.
• Optimize images to make your website faster and improve core web vitals.
• Save time.
• Restore media in their original version when needed.

6. Imsanity.

Automatically resize huge image uploads with Imsanity. Choose whatever size and quality you like, and let Imsanity do the rest. When a contributor uploads an image that is larger than the configured size, Imsanity will automatically scale it down to the configured size and replace the original image.

Imsanity also provides a bulk-resize feature to resize previously uploaded images and free up disk space. You may resize individual images from the Media Library’s ListView.

This plugin is ideal for blogs that do not require hi-resolution original images to be stored and/or the contributors don’t want (or understand how) to scale images before uploading.

Required WordPress Version is 5.5 or higher and tested up to 6.0. Also required PHP Version is 7.2 or higher

Features of Imsanity:

• Automatically scales large image uploads to a more “sane” size.
• Bulk resize feature to resize existing images.
• Selectively resize images directly in the Media Library (List View).
• Allows configuration of max width/height and JPG quality.
• Optionally converts BMP and PNG files to JPG for more savings.
• Once enabled, Imsanity requires no actions on the part of the user.
• Uses WordPress built-in image scaling functions.

7. Optimole – Image optimization and Lazy Load.

Optimole is the all-in-one solution to all of your image optimization needs. With full automation and a range of evolutionary features, Optimole makes it easy to clean up your heavy images and bloaty pages.

Optimole optimizes your images in real-time with a cloud-based system to speed up your website and deliver high-quality images perfectly sized for every device. With a one-click setup and minimal footprint, you can start improving your site in minutes.

You’ll be free to concentrate on other aspects of your site with Optimole’s set and forget image optimization.

So, if you have been looking for one plugin that provides lazy loading with a CDN and perfectly sized images, then Optimole is perfect for you.

Premium Cost: Starter plan cost $19.08/month and Business plan cost $39.08/month

Required WordPress Version is 4.7 or higher and tested up to 6.0. Also required PHP Version is 5.4 or higher.

Features of Optimole:

• All devices covered.
• Fast processing.
• All screen sizes supported.
• Compatible with page builders.
• Image CDN.
• Lossless and lossy optimization.
• Works with a weak connection.
• Add watermarks to your images.
• Easy tracking and monitoring.
• Retina and WebP supported.
• Custom WordPress plugin.
• Lazy loading.

8. Optimus – WordPress Image Optimization plugin.

Optimus reduces the file size of uploaded media files automatically. Depending on the image and format, reductions in the size of up to 70% are possible. Several kilobytes can be saved per image—these savings contribute positively to the performance of the blog website. What’s most impressive about the compression technology: the quality of the images is maintained.

Premium Cost: Transparent plan cost $149/year one-time charge and Optimus HQ cost $29/year one-time charge

Required WordPress Version is 4.6 or higher and tested up to 6.0. Also required PHP Version is 5.6 or higher.

Features of Optimus:

• Progressive JPEGs.
• Reduction of file size during the upload.
• Optimization of all preview images of a photo.
• No adjustments to code are necessary.
• No removal of EXIF and IPTC metadata.
• HTTPS connection for the image transfer (Optimus HQ).
• Conversion to the WebP image format (Optimus HQ).
• Faster load times for blog pages.
• Support for WooCommerce.
• WordPress multisite-support.
• Bulk optimization (optimize existing images).

What Next ?

Well done. You have done your research on image optimizers then what are you waiting for install the plugin into your WordPress website. Apart from this plugin, you will also need a WordPress Backup Plugin, WordPress Migration Plugin, SEO Plugin, and many more.

Install the necessary plugin into your WordPress website and improve your website performance.