01 Mar Speed Up Your Website with These 11 Image Compressors
The speed of website loading is an important part of a successful web strategy. There are two reasons for that. First, website speed is one of the crucial SEO factors. Second, no online user is ready to wait even extra milliseconds for your website to load. They will quickly go back to the search results page and go to your competitor’s website. In fact, images on your page may hugely decrease the loading speed. That’s why you should consider shrinking them to speed up your website.
Image shrinking can be of two types: lossy and lossless. The first one discards the information from the original file for the sake of size reducing. The second one uses the miracles of modern technologies for preserving the original file quality. This may lead to slightly bigger size than you’ll get through lossy shrinking, but you will have all the original data at packed in the smaller space.
There are plenty of image compressors online, each using their own algorithm and approach to reducing the image size. Today we’ve got a list of 11 image shrinking programs for you, ranging from totally free to paid options, including the online uploaders.
#1 PunyPNG
It is a professional tool for developers and designers. It gives you dramatic results without any change in quality at all. It starts with analyzing the file format and it’s content to figure out which tool to use for producing the best results possible. It supports the majority of the file formats so that you won’t need to switch the programs for different images.
Price: Free trial allowing lossy optimization and higher compression; Basic plan: $3 per month/ $30 per year, Pro plan: $6 per month/ $60 per year; Team plan: $12 per month/ $125 per year.
#2 Image Optimizer
This program is available in two options: as an online service and as a desktop application. It allows you to choose the finished optimization quality, including max height and width. You can also compress a bulk of images at once, observing the optimization progress.
Price: Free, ~$50 (to remove promo text at the bottom)
#3 Blubox
Unlike some other programs, Blubox includes Preview and Slideshow features so that you don’t need to extract your pictures for viewing them. This program allows compressing up to 90% with no loss of the original data. It supports over 60 image formats and is highly convenient because of that.
Price: Ad-supported free version or full license at ~$35
#4 JPEGMini
JPEGMini is a desktop application available for both for Windows and Mac OS. This app allows performing bulk optimization as well, making your images up to five times smaller.
Price: Free limited version or full license at $19.99
#5 Shrink O’Matic
This Adobe AIR app supports JPGs, GIFs, and PNGs, batching and resizing them within a few minutes. Customized settings allow you to choose the output name, location, format, watermark, size, and rotation.
Price: Free
#6 RIOT (Radical Image Optimization Tool)
RIOT allows you to see the result straight away by comparing the original to the optimized file in real time. Supporting a range of file formats, it automatically chooses the best compressing tools for a particular file. Although the program is lightweight, it has some powerful features for more advanced users.
Price: Free
#7 PNG Gauntlet
PNG Gauntlet is another desktop application available for Windows. The program supports BMP, GIF, TIFF and of course JPG, converting them to PNG. The individual progress bar for each file allows you to see which file is processed at the moment. Also, there is a status bar that shows the number of saved bytes.
Price: Free
#8 Trimage
This cross-platform application uses PNGCrush, OptiPNG, AdvPNG, and JPEGOptim technologies, depending on the file format. Available for the three main platforms (Mac OS, Windows, and Linux), Trimage provides you with lossless compression of the best quality.
Price: Free
#9 Smush.it
This one is a free online service that uses a set of tools to cut down the file size without losses. The service allows uploading JPEG, PNG, and GIF files, providing you with a temporary URL for the optimized files. Keep in mind that the URL expires in 30 minutes.
Price: Free
#10 CompressNow
Another online service allows a bulk optimization of up to 10 files at once, not more than 3MB each. The only setting available is the percentage of the file compression. It supports JPG, GIF, and PNG file formats.
Price: Free
#11 Shrink Pictures
Supporting JPG, PNG and GIF formats, this online service has a bit more settings, allowing you to choose the finished file dimension and apply some special effects. The automated script removes any processed images from the server so that privacy will not be a concern for you.
Price: Free
As you may see, you can choose a program that suits your budget and needs the best. Yet, keep in mind that free services, especially the online ones, often have the restriction of the original image size and the level of customization.