A comparison of 5 top premium WordPress Image Compression Optimization Plugins that are on the internet these days: EWWW, Kraken, and the Smush Pro Plugin. Prices & features.
If you've done a good job of walking your prospect through the very first 2 stages, now is your opportunity to provide some content that will certainly assist in the decision-making process. After my initial benchmarking, I examined Smush Pro very first as well as was placed off by just how very easy as well as fast it was to utilize, which is ridiculous. Smush Pro is larger as well as better and also is worthy of review
Simply trigger the plugin as well as go to the plugin's setups page. When I inspected the outcomes I was pleasantly surprised to discover I had conserved 40 % on the very first whole lots of images and 16 % on the larger Unsplash images.
It has actually been a popular free option for several years, Smush Pro is a loved one beginner to the costs WordPress Image compression plugins in the market. It could also optimize existing images as well as transform images automatically to the report style that will create the smallest image size (though this last feature includes a huge “warning” stamp). In this instance, the General Setups (which include your slider's material, such as the title, text, as well as images) are not made global. For diehard fans of Kraken and EWWW,
Smush Pro still has a bunch of cons EWWW convincing to do, though I hope the outcomes of this image comparison testing will certainly prove it's a major contender backed by a superb group of developers that are frequently working to improve it. In regards to saving server resources, this makes outright no sense..The just downside to lossless compression is the lowered potential to lower overall data size.
1. Smush

Smush Pro lets you add and optimize every image that you add to your site with a single click. With Smush Pro, you can fix your Google Page Speed with the image optimizer.
Smush Pro scales and resizes your images automatically with a blazing fast 45 point image CDN. Also, you can optimize all the images irrespective of their sizes and backup all your original images. Above all, there is no limit to the number of images that you can optimize with a single click.
There are two options in Smush Pro optimization. It uses a membership subscription model. One of the models offers full membership of WPMU DEV’s program. It provides full access to the themes and plugins.
If you do not want all of these plugins and want to avoid all the associated expenses then you can subscribe to the single plugin of Smush Pro which costs you only $19/month. It lets you install an unlimited site and provides you with a maximum number of processed images without data caps.
Exclusive features include:
- Price: $19/month
- Up to 32 MB per image
- Auto smush on upload
- Easy to install
- High compression – up to 40%
2. Kraken.io

Kraken provides you to resize and optimize the existing and new WordPress images. It supports both intelligent lossy and lossless optimization modes. It supports GIF, PNG and JPEG file types.
It supports a file size maximum of 32 MB. It ensures high-quality results even in the lossy optimization model. All you need to do is installing the plugin and stop worrying.
The package provides you with 100MB of free quota for testing. Also, you get access to dozens of ready to use modules and libraries through API access. The Web Interface PRO provides Sync-to-Dropbox and image resizing options as well. You can simply use Kraken API secret and key on multiple blogs and sites because they do not charge per site license.
All the uploaded images are fully optimized along with all the generated thumbnails. There is also an option to resize the main image. It also helps to prevent uploads of unnecessarily large images. Above all, it helps in specifying the height and width of images.
Exclusive features include:
- $9-$79/month up to 4GB-60GB per month
- Images up to 16GB
- Easy installation, but not very good API, settings and billing manage
- High compression – up to 40%
3. EWWW

EWWW is the best image optimizer of WordPress. If you are irritated by your slow loading website and the oversized images that reduce the loading time of your page then you need an EWWW.
EWWW image optimizer lets you make improve the bounce rate, site speed and boost SEO. Above all, your visitors leave happily so they always tend to come back. EWWW optimizes all the existing images and takes care of the new uploads and automatically uploaded images as well.
EWWW lets you upload a file of unlimited size and does not limit the speed of your website. It allows smooth handling using progressive rendering and leading tools. There is an option of adaptive steering option to help you find the right image type for your business such as WebP, GIF, PNG, or JPG.
With EWWW you can optimize every single thing on your website including WordPress Media Library. So no image is left behind without optimization. It is perhaps the only plugin that allows you image optimization with the help of tools present on your server. If you want to increase the speed you will have to offload the intensive processes from your CPU and get more compression.
Exclusive features include:
- 10,000 images $20 total price
- Compress images up to 16MB
- Uses lossless optimization techniques, so your image quality will be exactly the same before and after optimization.
- But you can't save so much in size, up to 5%
4. Optimus

Optimus automatically reduces the file size of the media files being uploaded. The size reduction is over 70% and it also depends on the format and the type of image. Thus, you can save several kilobytes out of every image. This space helps positively to improve the overall performance of your website.
The compression technology that Optimus uses retains the quality of images intact. When the images are being uploaded to the media library, they are meanwhile sent to the server in Optimus. Here, they process the incoming images and send them back in an optimized format.
Later, the plugin saves the reduced version of the image in your media library. This process of optimization takes place outside of the user interface. The Media library can show the gains from image compression in percentage value. Also, the superfluous information as a result of image processing which is unnecessary for image display is extracted out. In such a way, the graphic quality also remains the same during the size reduction.
You can get three versions of Optimus; Free, HQ Premium and HQ PRO Premium. The free version is a base version that provides 100kb space only and comes with several other limitations as well. Optimus HQ plan is well suited for personal projects and a bit expanded functionality. Optimus HQ PRO is a professional solution for websites that customers use.
Exclusive features include:
- Advantageous PageSpeed that influences Ranking Factor
- No adjustments to code required
- Progressive IPEGs
- Supports WooCommerce
- Faster loading
- Free version including
- Paid plans start from $29 per year and no hidden charges
5. ShortPixel

ShortPixel image optimizer is a frequent update, stable, comprehensive, and easy-to-use and freemium plugin. It is specifically created to increase the ranking of your website in SEO and ultimately your sales. It optimized any PDF or image on your website. It works on its own, so you just need to install and run it for once and forget about it.
ShortPixel is a lightweight plugin that compresses all the pdf documents and past images with a single click. When you upload a new image, it automatically rescales or resizes it in the background. It is highly compatible with eCommerce, slider and gallery plugins as well.
It works with any dedicates, VPS and cloud web hosting while using minimal resources. It optimizes any type of image that you upload on your website even if it is not listed on the Media Library. Such as the ones added through FTP, Modula or NextGEN.
Furthermore, it also works with the lossless and lossy image compression modules for the common image types such as AVIF, WebP, GIF, PNG and JPG as well as ODF documents. They also provide glossy JPEG compression which holds a high-quality algorithm for optimization.
The cheapest plan starts from $3 per month that allows you to optimize 7000 images per month with 3500 images as a bonus per month. A free plan is also available that lets you optimize 100 images per month and 50 images as a bonus per month.
The exclusive features include:
- Automatic backup
- Cloudflare integration
- Compatible with WPML, Nextgen and WooCommerce plugins
- Automatically scale down large images
- 100MB limit of filesize
Serve AVIF and WEBP
So, if you need a tool to compress photos not so much but you need to maintain it in high quality, choose EWWW. The best one is Smush Pro which offers a great tool in features and compression techniques at a lower price.
3 Comments
May I suggest you adding to this list ShortPixel Image Optimizer too?
Hello, In future we will make an update on this post by adding new Image Optimizer plugins and tools and sure, we will look at ShortPixel too.
Thank You for suggesting us 🙂
Would also be nice to see Optimus Image Optimizer added to this list. You can compress unlimited images for $19 / year and convert to WebP 🙂
Disclaimer: I work for KeyCDN.