a3 Lazy Load vs Smush – Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load, WebP & CDN

a3 Lazy Load is a Mobile Oriented, very simple to use plugin that will speed up sites page load speed. The more content heavy your site the better the plugin will perform and the more you will see the improvements in performance. See this demo of a page with 1,000 images (yes 1,000 images) to load. a3 Lazy Load is inspired by and powered by the ressio Lazy-Load-xt JavaScript. 100% COMPATABLE WITH WORDPRESS 6.0 WordPress 5.5 introduced lazy loading for all images uploaded to a sites media library and 5.7 introduces Core lazy load for iframes and 5.9 contained performance enhancements. a3 Lazy Load Image options work side-by-side with these, but then enhances it by lazy loading all the images loaded from outside of the media library, or on older browsers that do not support the new WP attribute and any iframes or videos that are not lazy loaded by WordPress. DISABLE WORDPRESS LAZY LOAD The plugin includes an option to completely disable WordPress Core Lazy Load if that is what you want to do. IMAGE LAZY LOAD For more flexibility when ON you can choose to ON | OFF lazy load all images that are not loaded from the WordPress media Library in: Post, Pages and Custom Post Types (All Content areas) Widgets (Sidebar, header and footer) Apply to post thumbnails Apply to gravatars HORIZONTAL SCROLL Supports lazy loading of images in containers that use horizontal scroll. The admin Images options has a section where you enter the classname or ID of the container that uses horizontal scroll. VIDEO LAZY LOAD From the a3 lazy Load admin panel turn Video Support ON | OFF. When ON you can choose to ON | OFF lazy load for videos in Video embeded by URL in Post and Pages (All Content areas) Video in Widget types, Text Widget and HTML Widgets. iFRAME LAZY LOAD a3 Lazy Load has built in support for content that is added by iframe from any source in content and widgets and will lazy load any iframe that WordPress core does not load. Examples WordPress embedded media Facebook Like boxes with profiles, Like buttons, Recommend Google+ Profile Google Maps POST EMBED Fully compatible with WordPress embed post on any site feature introduced in version WP version 4.4 Makes embed post load much faster WORDPRESS AMP Built in auto support for WordPress AMP plugin Built in support for Better AMP plugin There are no setting options for exclude /amp – Lazy Load is just never applied to the /amp endpoint When the url is loaded in browser without /amp Lazy Load is applied JETPACK SITE ACCELERATOR (Photon) This is an option that you turn on as the Jetpack Accelerator (Photon CDN images) has its own lazy load feature that needs to be OFF first to be able use a3 Lazy Load as your lazy Load engine. Some users prefer to use a3 Lazy Load as it applies Lazy Load to videos and iframes as well as images. WebP IMAGES a3 Lazy Load has built in automatic support for WebP images. There are no settings for this as a3 Lazy Load will automatically detect if an image has a WebP version and lazy load the WebP version. If no WebP image exists, the appropriate jpg or png version will be lazy loaded. Also fully support browser detection of WebP. LAZY LOAD EFFECTS a3 Lazy Load gives you the option to lazy load images with a FADE IN or SPINNER effect FADEIN see demo SPINNER see demo Option to create a custom Lazy Load pre-load background colour PERFORMANCE TWEAKS a3 Lazy Load gives you the option to load its script from your sites HEAD or from the FOOT. Note that your theme must have the wp_footer() function if you select FOOTER load. Note the plugin CSS is always loaded from the HEAD. EXCLUDE IMAGES & VIDEO a3 Lazy Load allows you to easily exclude any image or video by class name from having the Lazy Load effect applied. See FAQ’s JAVASCIPT DISABLED FALLBACK a3 Lazy Load has built in Noscript fallback if user has JavaScript turned off in their browser. Developers who use underscore.js in their applications can use the Noscript parameter to exclude their plugins content from Lazy Load. THEME & PLUGIN COMPATIBILITY a3 Lazy Load works with any WordPress theme that follows the WordPress Theme Codex. However, many Theme & Plugin developers will use a custom written function to add objects, example the theme has a home page with layout created by a custom function they have written. a3 Lazy Load cannot know what these functions are and so cannot apply to the objects loaded by that custom function. If your images or objects not being Lazy Loaded in a certain section of your site, but are Lazy Loaded everywhere else you will know this is the cause. Please if this happens raise a support ticket with the developer, explaining that they just need to add a simple tag to their custom functions so that a3 Lazy Load apply to their custom function and be fully compatible. Here is a list of a3 lazy Load filter tags to include in your ticket to make it easy for the developer. Don’t forget when a developer does add full compatibility with a3 Lazy Load please let us know via a support ticket on this forum and we will add them to the list below. These are just some of the more popular plugins that are either tested 100% compatible with a3 Lazy Load or tags has been added for 100% compatibility. Plugin – Advanced Custom Fields (Free and Premium) Plugin – WooCommerce Plugin – JetPack Plugin – Elementor (Free and Pro) Plugin – WP Offload Plugin – WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, Autoptimize Plugin – Youtube Embed Plugin – WordPress AMP Plugin – WPTouch. Note – Set to not apply on Mobiles if WPTouch is installed Plugin – MobilePress – Set to not apply on Mobiles if MobilePress is installed WebP Plugins – Smush, EWWW Image Optimizer, Imagify, WebP Express Plugins – Will not conflict with any plugin that has lazy load built in CDN’s – JetPack Accelerator, Cloudfront, Cloudflare and all other known CDN architecture. MORE FEATURES Full support of jQueryMobile framework WordPress Multi site ready. Backend support for RTL display. Translation ready JOIN THE a3 LAZY LOAD COMMUNITY When you download a3 lazy Load, you join our community. Regardless of if you are a WordPress newbie or experienced developer if you are interested in contributing to a3 Lazy Load development head over to the a3 Lazy Load GitHub Repository to find out how you can contribute. Want to add a new language to a3 Lazy Load? Great! You can contribute via translate.wordpress.org USAGE Install and activate the plugin Open WordPress Settings menu Click on a3 Lazy Load menu Turn ON Lazy Load and all preferred settings Save Changes and enjoy the improved performance Lazy Load will give your site

Compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load automatically with the powerful Smush image optimizer to keep your WordPress site fast, without losing quality. Smush makes it easy to optimize images, compress images, and deliver images faster across your entire WordPress site. This all-in-one image optimizer automatically reduces image file sizes, enables image lazy load, and serves modern formats like WebP and AVIF, all without breaking image quality or adding extra work. Whether you’re running a blog, store, or portfolio, Smush helps you optimize images at scale and keep your site fast with a trusted WordPress image optimizer. Trusted by 1+ Million Sites | 4.8/5 Star Rating Get everything you need to optimize images and speed up your site. Smush works out of the box with no complicated setup – just install and let it handle the rest. Compress images without losing quality Reduce image file size automatically while keeping your images sharp and clear. Smush is an easy-to-use image optimizer which let’s you compress images using both lossless and lossy compression, giving you the best balance of quality and performance without extra work. You can also compress images outside the media library using Directory Smush, making it easy to optimize images stored in theme folders, plugins, or other directories on your server. Lazy load images for faster pages Enable image lazy load across your site so images load only when needed. This image optimizer improves initial page speed and creates a smoother experience for visitors without extra configuration. Serve WebP and AVIF images automatically (PRO) Convert images to WebP and AVIF and serve them automatically to supported browsers. Smush helps you optimize images using next-gen formats to reduce file size and improve load times across your WordPress site. Deliver images faster with an Image CDN (PRO) Serve images through a global image CDN to reduce latency and improve load times for visitors around the world. 119 global CDN servers Up to 500 GB of bandwidth Faster image delivery based on visitor location Improved performance for image-heavy and high-traffic sites Automatically resize and fix image dimensions (PRO) Eliminate common PageSpeed warnings and improve layout stability with automatic image sizing. Smush dynamically resizes images to perfectly fit their containers, regardless of original size, helping fix the “Properly size images” warning in Google PageSpeed Insights. It also automatically adds missing width and height attributes to your images, improving rendering speed and reducing layout shifts. This helps you meet the “Ensure images have explicit width and height” recommendation without any manual work. Optimize your entire site, automatically Smush works across your whole site as a powerful image optimizer to optimize images as you upload them and maintain performance over time without manual work. Optimize images automatically on upload Compress images in bulk or individually Works with your existing media library No need to re-upload images Enable image lazy load across your site Convert images to WebP and AVIF Deliver images with an integrated image CDN Automatically resize and serve correctly sized images Optimize images outside the media library with Directory Smush Built for performance Smush improves page speed and overall performance by reducing image weight and improving how images are delivered. Reduce page load times Improve user experience Better performance for image-heavy pages Supports image lazy load and preload images (PRO) for faster perceived performance Works with your existing setup Smush is built to work with your current WordPress setup, including popular themes, page builders, and plugins. Compatible with Gutenberg, Elementor, WPBakery, and more Works with WooCommerce stores No need to change your workflow Easy to enable and configure Designed to be simple You don’t need to be a performance expert to optimize images with Smush image optimizer. Works out of the box Simple settings when you need them No technical knowledge required Safe to use on any site Why choose Smush? There are plenty of image optimization plugins, but Smush focuses on making it easy to optimize images, compress images, and improve performance without complexity. As a leading WordPress image optimizer, Smush gives you powerful optimization tools without the technical hassle. Trusted by over 1 million WordPress users Built specifically for WordPress Regular updates and improvements Backed by the WPMU DEV team Get started in minutes Install Smush, activate it, and start to compress images, optimize images, and enable image lazy load right away. This easy-to-use image optimizer helps most sites see improvements immediately without changing how they upload or manage images. About Us WPMU DEV is a premium supplier of quality WordPress plugins, services and support. Learn more here: https://wpmudev.com/ Don’t forget to stay up to date on everything WordPress from the Internet’s number one resource: WPMU DEV Blog Hey, one more thing… we hope you enjoy our free offerings as much as we’ve loved making them for you! Contact and Credits Originally written by Alex Dunae at Dialect (dialect.ca, e-mail ‘alex’ at ‘dialect dot ca’), 2008-11.