Imagify from WP-Media is one of about a half dozen image compression online apps which also have WordPress plugins. This review compares Imagify compression versus the reigning compression champion, Riot.exe. Imagify runs as an app and as a plugin for free up to 50MB of compressions per month then there are a variety of plans to choose from for additional compression. Riot runs as Windows only program or as a plugin for Irfanview, Gimpp, XnView and other photofinishing tools. Riot is free.
Our Tests
In our tests we have used JPG, GIF, and PNG files both color and B+W images. Here is is a sample of the results:
In this example we see a precursors of all results – Riot outperforms Imagify in aggressive compression mode by a wide 400kb margin. the table below shows the overall results.
Image | Type & Size | Imagify | Riot |
928kb animated gif | 751kb | Fails to compress all 3 gif images | |
6kb b&w gif -6kb | 3.7kb | 2.5kb | |
18.1kb b&w jpg | 18.1kb | 15.0kb | |
24.8 kb gif | 21.4kb | 18.7kb | |
198.6kb png 10 colors | 75.9kb | 61.9kb | |
472.2 png 256 colors | 140.6kb | 123.5kb | |
3.89mb png 1694 x 1080px, True Color | 1.15mb not True Colors render | 1.23mb | |
1200kb jpg 3696 x 2448px b&w | 265.0kb | 205.7kb | |
|
608.5kb jpg 960 x 600px | 242.8kb | 161.5kb |
|
381kb jpg 805 x 404px | 242.5kb | 94.4kb |
As the test results show, Riot outperforms Imagify in all the .JPG compressions and often by a wide margin. In the PNG tests, Imagify does slightly better on a True Color compression, but the Imagify compression is to 256, colors not True Color. Finally, Imagify is able to compress animated.gif files which Riot cannot do.
Interface Features
On the interface side, Imagify has two advantages. First, it runs in a browser so Linux, Mac and Windows users can use Imagify directly. Second, there is a WordPress plugin that largely automates the process of compressing your files as they are added to the Media Gallery. The downside is that you can optimize for free 25MB of images (about 250 100kb images) every month but any overages each month must be paid for with a plan with Imagify/WPMedia. Here are the current offering:
The tradeoff is that Riot does a better job of compression, often by 20-30% better for JPGs. Also as seen in the screenshot users have with Riot more precise control of the compression:
Summary
Imagify is both a WordPress plugin and a online app for compressing image files in an automated fashion after 25MB of image compressions per month users have to pay $Month per GB of images – so small to medium sized websites with just a feature image per page or post, Imagify can automate compressions, but the downside is that Imagify does not achieve the precise control and substantially larger compressions available with the free Riot tool.