26 May 2023
Imagify Review: The Best Image Optimization Plugin for WordPress
Thinking of using Imagify to optimize your images? In our hands-on Imagify review, we’ll help you decide if it’s a perfect option for you.
In today’s digital world, visuals play a crucial role in capturing and engaging your audience’s attention. However, large image files can significantly impact your website’s performance, leading to sluggish load times and a poor user experience.
That’s where an image optimization plugin like Imagify helps you in this situation.
It’s a powerful tool designed to compress and optimize your images without sacrificing quality. As a result, faster load time and an improved user experience.
Whether you’re a web developer, blogger, or online business owner, this plugin is a game-changer.
In this Imagify review, we will discuss all the things that make it the best image optimization plugin for your WordPress website.
Let’s get started!
Image Optimisation – What is it, And Why is it Important?
Image optimization is a method of reducing the file size of images without losing their quality. It involves various techniques such as compressing images, resizing them, and optimizing their format to ensure they load faster on websites.
Image optimization is important for several reasons:
- Faster Loading Speeds: Large images may dramatically decrease the loading speed of a website, resulting in a bad user experience. Image optimization reduces file sizes, allowing sites to load quickly and smoothly and increasing user engagement and satisfaction.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engines use website performance while calculating search rankings. Image optimization can help in faster loading speed, which can help SEO efforts. As a result, this leads to higher visibility in SERPs and increased organic traffic.
- Bandwidth Efficiency: Optimized images consume less bandwidth, making them ideal for mobile users or individuals with limited internet connectivity.
- Mobile Optimization: With the rise of mobile browsing, it’s essential to optimize images for mobile devices. Optimized images load faster on smartphones and tablets, ensuring a smooth and seamless experience for mobile users.
What is Imagify?
Imagify is an image optimization plugin for WordPress. It was created by the same team that created WP Rocket (our review), which is one of the best caching plugins for WordPress.
With Imagify, you can either optimize images as you upload them or use the Bulk Optimization option to do so afterward.
In addition, Imagify can also convert images to newer image formats such as WebP. Currently, it supports image optimization formats such as JPG, PNG, PDF, and GIF.
How Does Imagify Work?
Are you the one who thinks that Imagify can put a lot of force on your server like a WordPress plugin? Then we suppose you might be wrong. Imagify doesn’t put any kind of stress on your server at all. Everything is performed on the Imagify server.
When you upload the image, the Imagify server uploads it to its own server (through API) and optimizes it. Following optimization, the Imagify server saves the optimized files to your server, which are then shown to your visitor.
Furthermore, the Imagify server does not keep your uploaded images on its server for longer than one hour. As a result, ensure that your data is safe.
Imagify also saves the original unoptimized version of the image to your server in a separate folder. If you want, you can go back anytime to get the original version.
Lastly, Imagify can also optimize images that are uploaded before you install the plugin. Just run a bulk optimization, and Imagify will also optimize all your old images.
Imagify Review: Types of Compression
Imagify offers three different levels of compression:
- Normal: This is the standard compression level. It offers an excellent balance between image quality and file size.
- Aggressive: This level of compression will reduce the size of your images even further, but it may also slightly affect their quality.
- Ultra: This is the most aggressive level of compression. It will reduce the size of your images as much as possible, but it may significantly affect their quality.
Key Features of Imagify
Here are some of the best Imagify features that make it the best image optimization plugin for WordPress.
1. Automatically Image Compressing and Optimizing
Imagify makes image optimization easier by automatically compressing and optimizing images as you upload them to your website.
This feature ensures that each image on your site is optimized without the need for manual intervention. This saves time and effort, especially for websites with a large number of images.
2. Bulk Image Optimization
With the Imagify bulk optimization feature, you can optimize multiple images in one go. This is very helpful when you want to optimize all existing images on your website. It streamlines the optimization process and helps you quickly achieve optimal image performance.
3. Customizable Compression Levels
Imagify offers three optimization modes: Normal, Aggressive, and Ultra, allowing you to adjust the compression level to your specific needs.
As a result, your images strike the right balance between quality and file size based on your preferences.
4. Integration and Compatibility
Imagify seamlessly integrates with popular content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress, making it easy to incorporate image optimization into your website workflow.
You can optimize images directly from your CMS media library or use the plugin’s API for more advanced integrations.
5. No Stress On Your Server
Imagify operates on a SaaS business model. That is, all optimizations are performed on the Imagify server rather than on your web server.
As everything is handled on the Imagify server, there is no additional strain on your web server, and it will continue to run as quickly as before.
6. Supports Multiple Image Formats
Imagify can optimize JPG, PNG, PDF, and GIF files. So, in general, Imagify supports the most common image formats.
7. WebP Delivery
WebP is the most recent format that is lightweight and does not cause pixel distortion. Most modern browsers support images in the WebP format.
With Imagify, you may convert images to WebP format and display them on your website. As Imagify will do it automatically in the background, manual conversion is not necessary.
How to Use Imagify to Optimize WordPress Images
Here are the steps to install and configure Imagify to get the most out of it.
Install Imagify Plugin
From your admin WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins » Add New and then search for Imagify.
Next, install and activate the Imagify plugin. For more, check out how to install the WordPress plugins.
Create an Imagify Account and Get Your API Key
Once activating the plugin, a prompt to sign up for an Imagify account and get your API key will appear. Getting an API key is important since this is the only route through which Imagify can optimize your images.
Here’s what the prompt will look like:
Next, click on the SING UP, It’s Free button. Once clicked, a new popup appears where you can enter your email to sign up for an Imagify account to get your API key.
Once you’ve signed up for and logged into your Imagify account, go to the Profile section and click on API-Integration to get the API Key, as shown below:
Simply copy the Access Token value and enter that into the API key section. If your API key is valid, you can access the setting.
Customize the Default Settings as Per Your Need
To customize your settings, go to Settings » Imagify.
General Settings
- Auto-Optimize Images On Upload: Please check this option since it will optimize all of your images when you upload them. This will guarantee that the plugin is in auto-pilot mode.
- Backup Original Images: Check this option if you want to keep a duplicate copy of the original unoptimized images on your server. This, however, will take up more space. It is all up to you.
- Lossless Compression: Check only if you are a photographer who values image quality above page performance. Otherwise, leave it unchecked. By default, Imagify optimizes images at a smart compression level without losing their quality.
Optimization Setting
- Create WebP Version Of Images: This will create your optimized images into WebP format. The conversion takes place on the Imagify server before being sent to your server.
- Display Images In WebP Format On This Site: If you want to show the WebP version of the image on your site, check this box. This is essential since it will increase the speed of your website.
- Resize Images: Check this box if you want the images resized while uploading. You can also specify the pixels at which images should be resized.
- Select Folder For Optimization: This option allows you to select folders containing images that are displayed on your site so they are all optimized using Bulk Optimization.
That’s it. Your Imagify plugin is ready to optimize your images.
Imagify Review: Pricing
Imagify has both monthly and yearly plans available. If you choose to purchase a yearly plan, you’ll get two months free. Imagify offers three plans:
- Starter Plan: free. You can upload up to 20MB of images per month.
- Growth Plan: $4.99/month (or $49 yearly). This plan allows you to upload 500MB of images per month. Great for a new blog or website.
- Infinite Plan: $9.99/month (or $99 yearly). This is the right plan for you if you have an active blog or regularly create pages on your website. You get unlimited image compressions per month if you follow a fair use policy.
Imagify Review: Pros and Cons
Pros
- Easy to configure
- Serve images in WebP format
- Bulk Image optimization
- Automatically Image Compressing and Optimizing
- Compression on Imagify servers, not yours
Cons
- Limited free plan
- No image CDN
Imagify Review: Conclusion
Imagify is a powerful image optimization tool that can help you save bandwidth, improve your website’s loading speed, and boost your SEO.
With Imagify, you can easily compress your images without sacrificing quality. Plus, you can quickly and easily optimize all of your images with just a few clicks.
Therefore, if you’re looking for a way to improve your website’s performance, Imagify is the perfect plugin for you.
Say goodbye to slow-loading sites and pixelated images, and embrace the power of Imagify to take your website to new heights.
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