Images quietly wreck sites by slowing pages, eating bandwidth, and frustrating users—especially on mobile. Optimole is a WordPress tool built to fix that with minimal fuss. It promises automatic shrinking, faster delivery, and format selection tailored to each visitor without daily fiddling. I’ve used Optimole for several years and tested it thoroughly for this review: what it is, how it feels to use, how well it works, what it costs, and where it falls short.
What is Optimole?
Optimole started as an image optimization plugin and has grown into a full media optimization, real-time transformation, and digital asset management service for WordPress. Its three main elements:
– Automatic image optimization (real-time, smart resizing, multi-format delivery).
– A global CDN (images served from a location close to each visitor).
– A centralized media library for asset management.
Why you need image optimization
Images often make up the majority of a page’s size—sometimes 70–85%. That beautiful hero image can be the reason a page feels slow. Image optimization shrinks files without wrecking quality, picks modern formats like WebP/AVIF, serves appropriately sized images to mobile or HiDPI screens, and lazy-loads offscreen images. The result: real load-time savings and often much better user experience on slower connections.
Key features
Automatic image optimization
All images are optimized the moment you upload them. Originals stay untouched while Optimole serves optimized versions, so you can always revert. It converts to modern formats and balances quality and size automatically.
Real-time resizing and format delivery
Optimole resizes images on the fly for each visitor’s screen and chooses the best format their browser supports. It also adapts quality based on device and connection, serving higher quality on fast networks and lighter versions on slow ones.
Global CDN with 450+ edge locations
Optimole distributes image copies across 450+ locations and serves each visitor from the nearest edge. This reduces latency, especially for international audiences, with no extra configuration.
One-click WordPress setup
Install the plugin, connect your site via an API key or account, and Optimole starts optimizing. It’s designed to be largely hands-off after initial setup.
Smart lazy loading
Optimole delays loading images until they’re needed, reducing initial page weight. It aims to do this without adding heavy JavaScript, and settings let you control lazy-loading behavior.
Centralized media management
Optimole provides a cloud library where you can sort, group, and tag files, and perform edits like resizing, brightness/contrast adjustments, and watermarking—features beyond the default WordPress media library.
Using Optimole
Setup is simple: Plugins → Add New → install Optimole, then create or connect your account on Optimole.com and enter the API key in WordPress. After connecting, images begin optimizing automatically.
Settings include a master “Enable Optimole Image Handling” toggle, lazy loading and smart scaling options, and an Image Storage setting that can offload media to Optimole’s cloud to save server disk space. The Advanced tab offers presets:
– Speed Optimized: prioritize load time.
– Quality Optimized: prioritize visual fidelity.
– Custom: tweak individual options (compression level, format preferences, etc.).
Enable the cloud library to offload images and manage them in Optimole’s dashboard. The editor includes adjustments (brightness, contrast, saturation) and watermarking.
Testing image optimization
I ran a basic before-and-after test on ten images (five PNGs, five JPGs). Results were strong across diverse images. Highlights:
– Most images shrank by 80–95%.
– Some extreme reductions reached ~97%.
– One image saw a smaller reduction (~45%), depending on original type/content.
Summary of that sample: large reductions for both JPGs and PNGs across different contrasts and color counts, showing Optimole handles varied inputs well.
Page load tests
I placed all test images on a single blog page and measured load times from multiple locations with Optimole disabled vs enabled. Key takeaways:
– Page size dropped by about 716 KB in tests.
– Substantial improvements in overall load time, especially from U.S. locations (up to ~650 ms reduction).
– LCP, FCP, and Speed Index generally improved.
– TTFB was slightly worse in some runs (likely network/variation related), but the visual/load improvements outweighed that for most tests.
– European tests showed smaller improvements when the origin server was already in Europe (less room for gain).
Pricing
Optimole offers a capable free tier and several paid plans.
Free plan:
– Free to use for up to 2,000 visits/month.
– Unlimited image size/bandwidth.
– Access to the CDN and auto-scaling, smart lazy-loading.
– Email support (12–48h depending on plan).
The main limit is the 2,000 visits/month cap—fine for new or very small sites but restrictive if you grow.
Paid plans (yearly billed) raise the visit cap and add features. Compared to competitors (EWWW, Imagify, WP Smush, ShortPixel), Optimole’s main differentiator is the CDN plus cloud offload and centralized asset management. Competitors may be cheaper or have different trade-offs (local optimization, bandwidth limits, or replacing originals). For many, Optimole’s bundle—CDN + on-the-fly resizing + cloud storage—can justify the price.
Pros
– Truly automatic optimization—minimal hands-on work.
– Real-time resizing and format selection tailored to each visitor.
– Global CDN (450+ edges) speeds delivery worldwide.
– Smart lazy loading and device/connection-aware quality.
– Centralized cloud library with basic editing and watermarking.
– Easy WordPress setup and simple presets for typical goals.
Cons
– Free plan limited to 2,000 visits/month.
– Paid plans can be pricier than some single-feature competitors.
Final verdict
Optimole is a robust all-in-one image optimization and delivery solution. It compresses images effectively while keeping originals safe, serves images via a global CDN, and provides a cloud media library with editing tools. For small sites, the free plan is a risk-free way to try image optimization. For growing sites with international audiences or those wanting to offload media and simplify image delivery, Optimole’s combination of CDN, real-time transformations, and management features make it a compelling choice. If pricing is a concern and you only need local optimization, some competitors might be cheaper, but few combine CDN delivery and cloud offload so seamlessly.
If you’ve tried Optimole, I’d love to hear whether it became your image optimizer of choice.
