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Optimizing images is one way to increase the speed of your WordPress site. It not only makes your site to load faster, but can also help your site rank higher in the search results.

With dozens of image Optimization plugins available for WordPress, it’s no brainer to automatically compress all your images, with no perceptible difference in quality – and in return, better user experience, better PageSpeed Insights results, better Google PageRank (SEO) and more visitors.

Here are the 5 best image Compression plugins from the WordPress Plugin Directory.

1.  EWW Image Optimizer

EWWW Image Optimizer is arguably the best Image optimization plugin for WordPress. By default, this plugin performs lossless compression technique, so your image quality will looks exactly the same before and after the optimization. However, it allows you to choose between lossy and lossless compression methods.

It should also be noted that this is the only plugin that performs optimization directly on your server instead of running it on third party servers. This makes the optimization process faster and you can optimize hundreds of images in just a few minutes. However, there is a cloud solution available too, for those who don’t want to to cause unnecessary load on their hosting server.

Supported formats: JPEG, PNG & GIF

Pros:

• Fast optimization
• Bulk optimize all your existing images with one-click.
• Offers both lossless and lossy image compression in free version.
• WebP conversion

2.  Compress JPEG & PNG images

This plugin uses the popular online image compression services TinyJPG and TinyPNG to automatically compress your images, without resulting in any visible loss in quality.

The free version allows you to compress up to 500 images per month (including the thumbnail, medium, and large variants) which is more than enough for most bloggers. After your 500 free images, it will cost you $0.009 per image. This plugin is really powerful and has shown good results as compared to others. If you upload less than 100 images per month, this plugin works best for you.

This plugin require that you setup an API to send your images to their server and then returns the optimized images back to your WordPress install.

Supported formats: JPEG & PNG

pros:

• No file size limit
• Easy bulk image optimization
• WooCommerce compatibility

cons:

• No backup option.
• Only offers lossy compression method, it doesn’t have option to choose lossless compression.

3.  Imagify

Imagify was created by the developers of WP Rocket, a well-known WordPress caching plugin. This plugin dramatically reduces image size without affecting the original quality.

Imagify allow users to optimize images in three different types of algorithms:

Normal: A lossless compression algorithm. The image quality won’t be altered at all.
Aggressive: A lossy compression algorithm. Stronger compression with a tiny loss of quality most of the time this is not even noticeable at all.
Ultra: The strongest compression method using a lossy algorithm.

The plugin also provides a backup option so you can also restore your images to original if you are unhappy with the quality.

With free version, you are limited to 25 MB of images per month (about 250 images).

Supported formats: JPG, PNG and GIF

Pros:

• Backup option available
• Offers both lossless and lossy image compression in free version.

4.  WP smush

With more than 3 million downloads, wp smush (developed by WPMU DEV) is one of the most popular image optimization plugins in the WordPress repository. The free version allows you compress images up to 1mb in size. If you need to optimize larger files, you’ll have to upgrade to WP Smush Pro.

This plugin uses an external server for image compression. It also means that it doesn’t consume any of the CPU or RAM of your server but it will take some little amount of time to complete the optimization process.

Supported formats: JPEG, PNG & GIF

Pros:

• Easy to use

cons:

• 1mb file size limit for free version.
• The free version can Bulk optimize only 50 images at once.
• Offers only lossless compression for free version. Lossy compression is available only on the pro version.

5.  ShortPixel Image Optimizer

Shortpixel Image optimizer is a simple, light-weight plugin that also offers PDF file optimization in addition to compressing JPG, GIF, and PNG images. Shortpixel uses lossy image compression by default and also has the option of turning on lossless compression if you prefer. The best part is that it has the option to leave the originally uploaded image untouched so you can always revert to original image or try lossless compression if the default lossy compression option doesn’t suit your images.

Just like Compress JPEG and PNG images plugin, you need to get the API Key to get this plugin going. The free version offer 100 image optimization credits each month, and if you want more, you’ll need to buy their premium plan that are ranging from $5 to $30 per month.

If you’re looking for a simple, easy to use and effective plugin, take a close look at ShortPixel.

Supported formats: JPG, PNG, GIF and PDF docs.

pros:

• no filesize limit
• Backup option available.
• Offers both lossless and lossy image compression in free version.

Lazy Load Plugins

After compressing images, it’s a good idea to lazy load all your images by installing a lazy load plugin. The idea of ‘lazy loading’ is that the images are loaded only when the user wants to see them, which is an excellent resource saving technique.

If you have post with a lot of images, lazy loading can help make your webpage load faster, giving the user a better experience when they navigating the page. To accomplish this, here are a couple of plugins that I recommended trying out: a3 Lazy Load and Rocket Lazy Load.

That about rounds out the WordPress image optimization plugin list.

Overview

All of these plugins delivers the good on some level, so it’s hard to pick one image optimisation plugin as the best, as everyone’s requirement is different. Therefore, I recommend testing them to see which plugin work best for your needs.

If you’re are already using an image optimization plugin, be sure to share your favorites in the comments below.

Happy optimizing!

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