There are two big issues why you need a plugin like image optimizer. First, it keep your hosting storage spacious by reducing the file size of the images you upload. Second, it speed up your site to get a better result in search engine.

Now after knowing the reasons behind it, you need to pick the best plugin that really work as you expect. As usual, there are multiple options in the WordPress plugin directory that you can choose. This article is going to help you save your time by narrowing the options of image optimizer plugin for WordPress.

By the way, have you read an old article in Better Tech Tips discussing about 11 essentials things to do after installing WordPress? Installing image optimizer plugin should be the twelfth thing you have to do immediately once done installing WordPress as it’s important enough too.

Let’s go to the list.

1. EWWW Image Optimizer

Reducing the file size of images help your site loads faster. That’s something that EWWW Image Optimizer going to do to help you speed up your site. Don’t too worry about image quality. This plugin promises to not sacrificing the image quality. EWWW Image Optimizer uses lossless optimization techniques, so your image quality will be exactly the same before and after the optimization. There have been over 400,000 sites that use this plugin.

2. WP Smush

Here it is. WP Smush is one the most well-known image optimizer plugins. If you visit the plugin page at WordPress plugin directory, you will see that this plugin has reached the number of 700,000+ activation. WP Smush is the plugin you need if you want to reduce the whole images at your WordPress site. The plugin helps you optimizing the images you have uploaded before. However, you need to subscribe to the premium version for unlimited reduction of image file sizes.

3. Kraken.io Image Optimizer

Kraken.io is a paid option but it’s a great option if you want a maximum result. Same as the two mentioned above, this plugin also compressing the file size of each image to make them load faster. The plugin gives you two basic options to compress images on your site. You can choose whether want to compress the images individually or collectively using a handy feature called Krak ’em all. This plugin supports both lossless and lossy optimisations for all the common image formats including JPEG, PNG and GIF.

4. Compress JPEG & PNG Images

This plugin is developed by the folks at TinyPNG. It works by using external service from TinyPNG so you need to register to the service to get an API key. The plugin also helps you compressing multiple images at once, whether they are already uploaded or the newly uploaded ones. Compress JPEG & PNG Images is another freemium plugin. Free account is limited to 100 images each month.

5. Imagify

Imagify also uses an external service in optimizing images on your WordPress site. It’s also released as a freemium app. This plugin limits you based on the total image size, not the number of file. Free account is limited to 25MB each month while premium version reaching the number of 1GB each month. Imagify also comes with two different methods of compression, lossless and lossy. You can pick the one that suit your need.

6. Imsanity

Imsanity is created by the same community behind EWWW Image Optimizer. The main purpose of this plugin is not different: to help every WordPress user optimizing the images they use. This plugin is great if you run a community-based site that regularly receiving article submission complete with supporting photos. Since not all contributors know how to scale the image, Imsanity help you fixing the problem. This plugin allows you to set a maximum width, height and quality of each image.