For a while now we have been using the image compression tool Kraken.io for our clients to optimize their images in Magento and WordPress. Overall I’ve been fairly happy with their service, it’s easy to install and use and got the job done. However, a client asked us about another tool and I started wondering what image compression tool does the best job? I decided to compare three of the most popular tools: Kraken.io, tinypng.com and compressor.io.
For the first test I left all the settings as they default to when you use each of their web interfaces.
| File | Original Image | Kraken | Tinypng | Compressor |
| png-test-rainbow | 3526 | 1778 | 1792 | 2122 |
| jpg-test-rainbow | 606 | 403 | 297 | 392 |
| jpg-test | 10 | 9 | 8 | 8 |
| png-test | 19 | 7 | 6 | 4 |
| png-test-large | 305 | 108 | 110 | 63 |
| jpg-test-large | 504 | 280 | 214 | 261 |
Here you can see Kraken wins only with the large PNG that has no transparency. Compressor does best with transparent PNGs and Tinypng actually does the best with JPGs.
It’s important to note here that all three services start you out with Lossy compression and this should give you the smallest file size!
Kraken also offers us an Expert settings where we can further tweak our files. I decided to move the image quality down from 100% to 80%. I picked 80% as the amount to use as anything below this was clearly starting to get noticeably blurry or pixelated. With our quality reduced to 80% Kraken wins the most out of all three tools.
| File | Original Image | Kraken | Kraken 80% | Tinypng | Compressor |
| png-test-rainbow | 3526 | 1778 | 1696 | 1792 | 2122 |
| jpg-test-rainbow | 606 | 403 | 354 | 297 | 392 |
| jpg-test | 10 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 8 |
| png-test | 19 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 4 |
| png-test-large | 305 | 108 | 60 | 110 | 63 |
| jpg-test-large | 504 | 280 | 193 | 214 | 261 |
How does this all compare to using Save for Web in Photoshop? Well, all of these images were saved for web before I uploaded them, so clearly Photoshop isn’t the right tool for compressing your website images. If your looking for something that will give you compression directly in Photoshop you should checkout the Photoshop Plugin by Tinypng which is available for $50.
Compressor is a great tool if you don’t have many images or are manually updating your images to be compressed. On pages such as a homepage or important landing page I would definitely recommend using Compressor to squeeze the best quality and size out of one tool. However, because this tool doesn’t offer an API or other bulk upload method it’s not going to be helpful for most websites.
Tinypng and Kraken offer integrations with popular platforms or an API so you can run hundreds or thousands of images. Tinypng offers pricing per image while Kraken offers pricing based on the size of your files. If you have lots of small images Kraken would be a better price for you, but if you have a few large images then Tinypng would be a better price. Kraken has yet to release their Magento 2 extension, so if your on M2 Tinypng is going to be your best option for compressing lots of images.
Have another image compression tool you want me to compare? Leave a note in the comments below.
