Imagify vs Smush vs ShortPixel vs Optimole: Which Is Best for Optimizing WordPress Images? Head-to-Head Comparison

All of these free image optimization tools can get the job done, but each has its own unique set of advantages and features. In this review, I’m going to briefly explain why optimizing your WordPress images is a smart move. Then we’ll compare Imagify vs Smush vs ShortPixel vs Optimole, to help you make the best choice for your site. Let’s jump right in!

Imagify vs Smush vs ShortPixel vs Optimole: In a nutshell

If you’re in a rush, let’s break down the primary details about each tool upfront:

This is just a snapshot, of course. Keep reading for the full story on how Imagify vs Smush vs ShortPixel vs Optimole fare in a direct comparison.

The full comparison

Before we can look at how Imagify, Smush, ShortPixel and Optimole compare to one another, we need to introduce them. Let’s take a quick look at these plugins, one by one.

With those introductions out of the way, let’s get a little more detailed about what these plugins have to offer.

Round 1: Comparing key features and pricing

In a very basic sense, these four WordPress plugins do nearly the same thing. They all compress your images so they’re less of a drain on your site’s performance, while attempting to maintain as high a quality as possible. In addition, these tools will both compress your existing images, and any new ones you upload.

This can make it a little confusing when you try to compare between them and pick a winner. However, each does offer a somewhat different feature set. In addition, while all four plugins are free in their base versions, their premium tiers come in at a variety of price points.

Smush

Key features:

• Set maximum dimensions for your site’s images, and uploads will be automatically scaled down when needed.
• Compress images in any folder or directory on your site, not just your media library (Directory Smush).
• Optimize JPEG, GIF, and PNG images one at a time or in bulk.
• Automatically optimize new uploads and bulk-compress existing files.
• Lazy load images and videos to improve loading times.
• Detect incorrectly sized images that can slow down your pages.
• In the Pro version, you also get stronger compression modes, WebP and AVIF conversion, background optimization, a global image CDN, and more.

Pricing:

Smush has a free version that allows unlimited usage for lossless compression and basic lossy compression.

To access advanced features like full lossy compression, CDN, WebP and AVIF conversion, background optimization, and extra integrations, you need Smush Pro. The plans start at $1.50 per month for the first year on a single site (billed annually). After the first year, the price increases to $15 per month. That plan includes 5 GB of CDN traffic and 5 GB of backup storage.

Imagify

Key features:

• Optimize regular images, thumbnails, and Retina images.
• Compress all your existing image files in bulk using background processing.
• Choose from three compression modes – lossy, lossless, and Smart Compression, which balances quality and performance automatically.
• Resize large images on the fly and set a maximum width.
• Convert images to WebP and AVIF formats and serve the best format supported by the visitor’s browser.
• Store your original full-sized images in a secure backup, so they can be restored at any time.
• Optimize common image formats plus PDFs.

Pricing:

Imagify has a forever-free plan that lets you optimize up to 20 MB of images per month, with a max size of 2 MB for individual images. In practice, this usually covers around 100-200 images per month, depending on their size.

The paid plans use monthly billing and start at $4.99 per month for up to 500 MB of images, or $9.99 per month for unlimited optimization. Both plans let you use Imagify on unlimited websites.

ShortPixel

Key features:

• Bulk compress all your images with a single click.
• Optimize images outside of the media library, such as those added via other plugins.
• Compress JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, AVIF, and PDF files in lossy, glossy, or lossless mode.
• Automatically resize images to set dimensions before they are optimized.
• Convert PNGs to JPEGs when that leads to smaller files.
• Use a built-in global CDN that serves optimized images, CSS, and JS from multiple locations.
• Use smart cropping with AI so the important part of each image stays in view.
• Generate ALT text, captions, and descriptions with AI in many languages.
• Keep backups of your original images and restore them at any time.

Pricing:

The free ShortPixel plugin offers 100 free image credits per month. Each image size that you optimize uses one credit, so a single upload can use multiple credits if you optimize several thumbnail sizes.

To go beyond that, you have two options:

• One-time credit purchases – packages start at $19.99 for 30,000 credits.
• Monthly unlimited plans – unlimited usage from $9.99 per month for a single site.

Optimole

Key features:

• Optimizes your images automatically, in real time.
• Picks the right image size for the visitor’s browser and viewport using adaptive images.
• Serves images from 450+ locations via a fast image CDN powered by Amazon CloudFront.
• Uses jQuery-free lazy loading to display images and improve Core Web Vitals.
• Converts images to WebP and AVIF and serves the best format per browser.
• Can apply smart cropping and automatic watermarking.
• Can offload your media library to the cloud and manage all media in a cloud library (Pro).
• Can also serve CSS and JS through the CDN.
• Handles automatic GIF-to-video conversion.
• Does all of its processing in the cloud, so it doesn’t put extra load on your web server.

Pricing:

The free version of Optimole is all you’ll need most of the time on a new WordPress website or blog. You can process unlimited images monthly, for up to 2,000 monthly visitors (assuming each image is no larger than 5MB). For higher visitor and image size limits (and lots of other features), you’ll need a premium plan.

The pro plans start from $19.08 and let you optimize images for up to 48,000 visits per month, with unlimited images and sites, image offloading, and more. Higher plans expand your visitor bandwidth all the way up to 3.6 million visits per month.

Round 2: Comparing ease of use and performance

Now we’ve seen what each plugin has to offer in theory, let’s take a look at what it’s like to actually use Imagify vs Smush vs ShortPixel vs Optimole. In this section, we’re going to walk through how to optimize an image using the free version of each plugin.

The goal here is twofold. First, I’ll provide an overview of the ease of use and customizability on offer when using them. In addition, I’ll take a look at the resulting quality of the compressed images to see how well they hold up after being optimized.

For the latest tests, I:

• Used one large JPG image (1275 KB, landscape photo) and one PNG image (535 KB, website screenshot).
• Installed each plugin and used its default guided setup, picking the option aimed at best savings (recommended lossy or similar).
• Optimized the images with each plugin, then checked the final file sizes.

Here’s how our four plugins did in those tests:

All four are capable of serious savings now, with Optimole and ShortPixel usually taking the top spots and Imagify and Smush not far behind.

Let’s now look at the experience of using each plugin.

Imagify

Installing Imagify isn’t quite enough to get the plugin working – you need to take one additional step. Under Settings → Imagify, you generate and enter a free API key. Simply enter your email to create a free account. You’ll get the key and be able to enter it back in the dashboard.

You’ll then be taken to your Imagify dashboard, where you can customize the plugin’s settings, including the compression mode.

You can begin using the plugin at this stage. For example, one thing you might want to do is enable some of the next-gen formats which Imagify supports:

You can choose to auto-optimize and back up images, set a maximum size for them, and more. If you keep the auto-optimize feature on, you just upload an image to your media library and let the plugin do the work.

You can also compare the optimization results side by side:

In my latest test using the recommended settings:

• The JPG went from 1275 KB to 398 KB, a 68.78% reduction.
• The PNG went from 535 KB to 173 KB, a 67.66% reduction.

The images stayed sharp and usable, with only minor quality loss on close inspection. Overall, Imagify is easy to use and gives you a clear view of what it’s doing.

ShortPixel

Like Imagify, setting up ShortPixel takes a few quick steps. Under the new Settings → ShortPixel tab within WordPress, you can request a free API key. Create an account with ShortPixel, then enter your key back in WordPress. ShortPixel will let you know if everything worked okay.

You can choose a compression type (lossy, glossy, or lossless), turn on backups, set a maximum file size, enable the CDN, and more. Auto-optimize is always on, so you just upload images and ShortPixel processes them in the background.

For my test with the recommended strong compression:

• The JPG went from 1275 KB to 220 KB, an 82.75% reduction.
• The PNG went from 535 KB to 118 KB, a 77.94% reduction.

These are some of the best numbers in the whole test, and the visual quality still looked good. ShortPixel gives you a lot of control and adds nice extras like AI-powered image SEO and smart cropping, though the interface stays fairly simple.

Smush

After activating the Smush plugin, you immediately get a quick setup that lets you choose how image compression should work. Then, you’re taken to the plugin’s main tab.

Here, you can bulk compress your existing images if you like. You can also turn automatic optimization on or off for specific types of images, and decide if they should be resized upon upload.

If you select the automatic compression option, you just upload an image in order to optimize it. Smush shows how much space you’ve saved and can also point out large images that might slow your site down.

Using the recommended compression settings in my latest test:

• The JPG went from 1275 KB to 487 KB, a 61.80% reduction.
• The PNG went from 535 KB to 125 KB, a 76.64% reduction.

That puts Smush close to the other three tools, especially for PNGs. On top of that, Smush adds lazy loading, incorrect size detection, and, in the Pro version, stronger compression and a CDN, which makes it a much more complete optimization solution than it used to be.

Optimole

Installing Optimole is not any more difficult than the other plugins on this list. Just activate the plugin, get the API key and enable it in the Media → Optimole section of your WordPress dashboard.

Then, you can set details about how Optimole should handle your images.

You can decide on the compression level, enable lazy loading, and tweak various custom settings.

On the main page, Optimole shows stats about your images and lists the most recently optimized ones:

For our test, I used the recommended balanced compression aimed at good savings without obvious quality loss. The results:

• The JPG went from 1275 KB to 299 KB, a 76.55% reduction.
• The PNG went from 535 KB to 91 KB, an 82.99% reduction.

Both images still looked clean and crisp, which is impressive given the high savings.

One more thing that sets Optimole apart compared to the other players is that it works in the cloud and doesn’t overwrite any images on your main web server.

Before displaying any images, Optimole looks at the device, screen size, and browser of the visitor and picks the most optimized image for them. On top of that, it also loads the images from an image CDN, which lets you save bandwidth and deliver the page faster overall.

As far as I’ve tested, none of the other three solutions on this list combine adaptive images, a global CDN, and cloud processing in quite the same way.

Why it’s smart to optimize your WordPress site’s images

Images are key to nearly every website. They enhance your site’s appearance, can be used to show off your products or work, and a whole lot more. However, the more images you have on your site, the more work a visitor’s browser has to do in order to load its pages.

This is because image file sizes can be fairly large, and all that data adds up quickly. Consequently, your site can slow down as you add media to it – which is detrimental to attracting and retaining visitors. The solution, as you may have guessed, is image optimization.

When you optimize your site’s images, you’re making their file sizes smaller and less of a burden. At the same time, this can be accomplished without a noticeable reduction in the images’ quality. Fortunately, all you need to accomplish this is the right WordPress plugin … which is why we’re comparing Imagify, Smush, ShortPixel and Optimole in this review.

Conclusion

I went into this review looking at four popular and well-reviewed image optimization plugins. In a comparison between Imagify, Smush, ShortPixel and Optimole, using fresh 2025 tests, all four did a solid job at shrinking both JPG and PNG files.

Imagify and Smush both remain strong options, especially if you like their interfaces or already use other tools from the same developers. Imagify keeps things simple and effective, while Smush has grown into a very capable optimizer with a generous free tier.

Pick the one that fits your workflow and budget, turn it on, and your images will stop holding your WordPress site back!