Top 7 WordPress Plugin for Image Optimization

Andrew E. Cook
11 min readNov 28, 2022

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Do your site’s images need to be optimized for better performance?

If you have a WordPress site, you must want to make it faster and more efficient to get more engaging customers. To do so you must optimize your website.

As your website is a great way to make business as a brand, you need to improve your suite for all purposes. To make sure about your site’s performance your foremost task is to optimize the images of your WordPress site.

Image optimization plugin

Optimizing images is an important factor to increase the traffic and conversion rate of your WordPress site. Now you may think about the way of optimizing the images of your site.

In the above situation, as a user, I can assure you that using a WordPress plugin for optimizing images is the most effective way.

Let’s talk about image optimization and the best 7 image optimization plugins in a brief.

What Do Plugins for WordPress Image Optimizer Do?

Image optimization is the process of changing an image’s size to make it load more quickly and take up less disk space. It involves a two-pronged approach: You want your photographs to load as rapidly as possible and you want to ensure that they look their best.

The usage of an image optimization plugin is the most obvious option to accomplish both of these objectives at once. Plugins for image optimization do much more than merely improve the graphics on your website:

  • It employs lossless compression to reduce the size of your photographs, individually or collectively (no quality is lost in the image file).
  • lazy loading to improve the speed of the page
  • Auto-resizing
  • They can make the image files smaller.
  • Delete any extraneous metadata
  • Remove any Exif information that could be there.

Why Is WordPress Image Optimization Vital?

It’s very important to optimize the photos on your WordPress website. Here are four explanations:

  • Boost the speed of web pages. Unoptimized photos bloat and slow down the loading of your website pages. WordPress may be made faster by optimizing your huge photos without compromising on quality.
  • Improve user experience. Visitors to websites find it annoying to have to wait longer than usual for a page to load. For websites that take longer than three seconds to load, the bounce rate — the percentage of visitors who arrive on a page and leave without exploring the rest of the site — is very high.
  • An improved search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines like Google reward websites that load quickly and punish those that load slowly. You have a better chance of ranking well on search engine results pages if your website is quick and your photos are optimized (SERPs).
  • Conserving disk space You may use your hosting resources more effectively by optimizing your WordPress images. You will have more room to add more sorts of content and features to your website if your image files take up less space.

How to Select the Most Appropriate Image Optimization Plugin

WordPress image optimization will shorten load times and enhance user experience.

But what exactly do you do after image optimization? Delivering high-quality photos in the proper format, dimension, and resolution while keeping the size as little as feasible is known as web image optimization.

There are several methods for optimizing photos, including scaling, compression, and lazy loading caching.

There are several plugins available that can perform this task automatically for you. However, not every plugin is made equally. We’ll go over some of the most important characteristics to consider when picking an image optimization plugin in this section.

  • The practice of automatically encoding or transforming an image file so that it uses less space than the original file is known as a compressing function.
  • Verify that the plugin supports the desired file types, including JPEG, PNG, PDF, GIF, and WebP.
  • Images automatically converted to WebP format: A cutting-edge image format called WebP offers greater lossless and lossy compression for pictures on the internet. The plugin you select should support and convert this highly efficient web standard.
  • The lazy load option uses less bandwidth by only displaying images when visitors request them.
  • Select whether you want your image to be compressed using a lossless or lossy approach for optimization. Then, confirm that the plugin offers both options in accordance with your requirements. a choice that enables you to optimize the pictures that are currently on your website.
  • Both options — bulk optimization vs. individual optimization — are quite helpful because you might wish to bulk-improve your current media collection or manually choose whatever image to optimize.
  • If you need to return to the original photos, you have a backup option.

Best WordPress Plugins for Your Website.

For your convenience, now we are introducing the top 7 plugins which will be able to provide you 100% support to fulfill all of your requirements regarding optimizing images to make your website load faster.

1. Next3 Offload

As a website user or a business owner, Next3 offload will be a great solution for you. To speed up your website, the offload WordPress plugin Next3 Offload works on offloading your media to Amazon S3, DigitalOcean Spaces, or Google Cloud Storage. Offload your existing Media files to the Cloud by adding Next3 Offload in your admin dashboard. It will transfer all media files to Cloud automatically and optimize images.

Next3 offload can upload files, create buckets, and directories, and upload different image sizes to Cloud. It provides a significant effect on your page speed score, which implies that you’ll rank higher in search engines like Google.

Let’s see the features of Next3 Offload.

Key Features

  • Offload wp-media files to the cloud.
  • Monitor your offload process from the settings page
  • Automatically rewrites URLs.
  • Cloud Providers: Amazon AWS, Google CLoud (Upcoming), DigitalOcean Spaces (Upcoming), Wasabi Cloud (Upcoming).
  • Control pause and resume process.
  • Display percentage(%) of Cloud Storage & Local Storage.
  • You can select many files at once and select whether to copy them to cloud storage.
  • Delete them from cloud storage, or copy them back from cloud storage to the server.
  • Toggle options for move or copy files from the Media Library to the cloud.
  • Multiple sizes (Depend on WordPress Media sizes) copy & move local between cloud storage.
  • Removes all offloaded media files from the server in the background to clear up storage space.
  • Monitor your removing process from the settings page.
  • Control pause and resume process.
  • Display percentage(%) of Offload files & Local files.
  • “A single click” offloaded files load into WP Media Library.
  • Display into WP Media & Select file for use anywhere into WordPress (Posts, Pages).
  • Easily get your offloaded media from Cloud.
  • There is no need for scripts or the command line.
  • Next3 Offload Media allows you to simply copy media from one bucket to another within the same cloud storage provider. Files are quietly copied in the background.
  • Transfer files to a new storage location.
  • Add media items that already exist in the cloud.
  • Increase the speed with which CSS, JS, Fonts, and other assets are delivered.
  • Optimize site speed. So your server is no longer required to serve files like images, zips, PDFs, videos, CSS, and JS.
  • When you use WP media to upload files, they are automatically stored in the Cloud and can also be used in any post.
  • Users can use the drag and drop system to upload their most essential files.
  • The user can upload files via the AWS file management to any directory in WordPress.

Price: $79/Lifetime for one site license.

2. Imagify

Imagify compresses your recently uploaded photographs in addition to the images already in your WordPress media folder, just like a few of the choices mentioned before. Everything is handled automatically, which improves your workflow and saves you time.

Imagify has three optimization levels, which you may switch between in the plugin options. For the smallest image files with the worst image quality, the three possibilities are lossless compression, lossy compression, and strong lossy compression. You have more control over the level of quality and file size thanks to this.

Because it works with WooCommerce, NextGen Gallery, and other well-liked plugins, Imagify is the best option for websites that need to compress a lot of photos.

Key features

  • PNG, JPG, GIF, PDF, and WebP are all supported.
  • Possibility to use the picture> tag or the .htaccess file to convert photos to WebP format and display them in WebP format on your WordPress site.
  • Resizing and optimization can be carried out automatically when an image is uploaded or when an existing image is optimized.
  • There are three distinct compression levels: Aggressive (lossy compression), Ultra, and Normal (lossless compression) (even more aggressive lossy compression for maximum file savings)
  • Automatically adjust the dimensions of photos.
  • The original image as a backup.
  • To optimize, make fresh folders outside your Media Library.
  • The option to select the size, type, and type of image you want to optimize from thumbnails, medium, and big.
  • Resize photos automatically to a predetermined maximum scale.
  • Imagify optimizes your photos on its own servers (which allows you to consume less bandwidth and preserve the loading time of your pages).
  • Backup original photographs (to restore images after compression).

Price: Depends on the number of images you want to optimize. $4.99 per month for 500 GB (around 5000 images) or $9.99 per month for unlimited usage.

3. Ewww Image Optimizer

Similar to our first two suggestions, the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin automatically optimizes images as you upload them to your website and also gives you the option to individually or in bulk optimize previously uploaded JPG images. Lossless compression is used by EWWW.

There is no need to be concerned about using large, uncompressed photos because the plugin supports infinite file sizes. Additionally, PNG, GIF, and WebP files may be handled by the premium API version, which is fantastic for websites that use all three of these file types. Last but not least, EWWW Image Optimizer includes a support staff that responds to all queries, even those from free users.

Key features

  • For JPG, PNG, and PDF files, compression is available.
  • Automatic image compression, scaling to fit the page, slow loading, and conversion to the newest WebP format are all applied.
  • Resize already-existing pictures
  • In order to improve user experience and avoid layout shifts, add any missing dimensions (width/height attributes).
  • Ensure that your entire website is optimized, not simply the WordPress Media Library.
  • enabling you to utilize technologies on your own server to optimize photos
  • You don’t have to worry about large, uncompressed photographs because there are no file size limitations.
  • Optimize all of your photos from a single page using the bulk option.
  • PNG to JPG conversion and vice versa.
  • Make WebP images and serve them.
  • Use a CDN to dynamically provide images, resizing them to fit the user’s device. This service is for a fee.

Price: Free to use. To optimize more sites, get the premium plan with extra features.

4. Optimus

If bandwidth is a problem, Optimus increases the size of submitted WordPress images by 70%. The plugin accomplishes this by sending your site’s image files to the Optimus server and gets new, smaller ones in return. The quality of the images won’t be impacted because it is lossless. It also eliminates the requirement for you to physically compress the images on your own server.

By automatically processing the photographs as they are uploaded to your WordPress site, Optimus is a hands-off solution that enhances the page performance of your website. You have the option to stop the automated optimization.

Key features

  • Progressive JPEGs.
  • File size optimization for uploading Optimizing all photo preview photos.
  • No coding modifications are required.
  • Optional: leave IPTC and EXIF metadata intact.
  • HTTPS connection for picture transfer is optional (Optimus HQ).
  • Conversion to the WebP image format is optional (Optimus HQ).
  • faster page loads for blogs.
  • assistance with WooCommerce.
  • WordPress multisite compatibility.
  • Optimization in bulk (optimize existing images).

Price: Optimus offers two paid versions: Optimus HQ ($29 per year) and Optimus HQ Pro ($149 per year).

5. ShortPixel Image Optimizer

Lossless and lossy image compression options are provided by the image optimization plugin ShortPixel. Lossy compression, which results in substantially smaller files but slightly inferior image quality, involves deleting some data from the file. Try ShortPixel if you’re trying to decide between these techniques.

This plugin’s ability to save the original copy of the image and make it simple to restore it if necessary is one of its best features. Other minor advantages include image resizing and conversion from CMK to RGB. Additionally, ShortPixel supports unlimited JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, and PDF file compression.

Key features

  • New photos are automatically scaled, resized, and optimized in the background as they are being loaded.
  • The following format is available for lossy and lossless image compression: AVIF, PDF, JPG, PNG, WebP, and GIF files.
  • Interface with available advanced features.
  • Any gallery, slider, or eCommerce plugin can use it.
  • Automatic reduction of huge photographs.
  • Convert PNG to JPG automatically to produce smaller images.
  • Optimize every image that appears on your website, including ones that aren’t in the Media Library.
  • For picture takers: Exif data can be kept or removed, and glossy JPEG compression can be enabled.
  • Current image bulk optimization compression.
  • Make copies of your photographs.
  • Image files’ metadata should be removed.
  • automatic image resizing.
  • JPEG images from PNG files.

Price: optimize 100 images per month for free. Additional credits can be bought for $4.99 for 7,000 image credits.

6. reSmush.it

reSmush. It is the official WordPress plugin for the reSmush. It is an image compressor, which uses a variety of compression methods to reduce the file size of each image you post. With just two clicks, you can mass-optimize pictures and compress images up to 5 MB for free.

Additionally, reSmush.it ensures that you never lose the original image by making a copy of it and using that copy as the basis for compression. For even greater control over compression level, it also offers a sliding scale for optimization level.

Key features

  • Supported file types include PNG, JPG, GIF, BMP, and TIF images up to 5MB in size.
  • All of your images can be optimized in bulk with just two clicks!
  • WebP is not yet accessible (but they are working on it).
  • Available is the “optimize on upload” feature.
  • Plan out your image optimization.
  • Maintain or remove image metadata.
  • Make copies of the photographs you use.

Price: Free to send images below 5MB.

7. Compress JPEG & PNG Images

By integrating with the image compression services TinyJPG and TinyPNG, Compress JPEG & PNG Images optimizes your JPGs and PNGs. These programs examine the image’s content to choose the best compression method without sacrificing image quality.

Compress JPEG & PNG Photographs will automatically optimize all of your images, including those that are already on your website, while you upload them in the background. Additionally, there are plugin options to maintain specific image metadata, such as copyright and geolocation, as well as a CMYK-to-RGB converter and no file size restrictions. You can only download roughly 100 photos for free each month, though. You will then require a paid account.

Key features

  • All of your existing JPEG and PNG photos can be bulk-optimized.
  • PNG and JPEG are the two formats that are supported.
  • When you upload fresh images, automatically optimize them.
  • Individual photographs that are already in your media library can be optimized.
  • Bulk optimization of the media you already have.
  • Set a limit of width or height to automatically resize large picture submissions.
  • Progressive JPEG encoding: the quicker display of JPEG images.
  • PNG compression for animation.
  • Choose which WordPress thumbnail sizes can be optimized.
  • On the settings page and during bulk optimization, you may view your consumption.
  • To conserve more space, convert CMYK to RGB.

Price: Optimize around 100 images each month for free. For pro you can drag and drop more than 20 images at once, upgrade 5 MB to 75 MB your file size limit.

Conclusion

Before adding a plugin think twice and select the most effective one that is enriched with almost all important features and functions. Learn more about the features and prices and make a perfect choice. Because your site’s enrichment and conversion rate are mostly depends on the speed and smoothness of your website.

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