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

Featherweight makes your site faster by switching off the features you don’t use. Every disabled item is one less HTTP request, one less script, or one less query — adding up to lighter pages and better Core Web Vitals. Pick only what you need; nothing is forced on. Formerly WP Disable. Same plugin, new name. Featherweight is part of the Folium Studio suite — your existing settings carry over untouched on update. Reduce requests & strip front-end bloat Disable emojis (removes the emoji detection script and styles) Remove query strings from static assets (?ver=...) for cleaner caching Disable oEmbeds (the auto-embed script that loads site-wide) Disable Gravatars Remove jQuery Migrate on the front end Combine and asynchronously load Google Fonts and Font Awesome Add DNS-prefetch hints for external hosts Remove the password-strength-meter script where it isn’t needed Drop Dashicons on the front end when the admin toolbar is hidden Clean up the page header Remove the generator tag, shortlink, RSD, Windows Live Writer, and REST API link tags Comments & discussion Disable comments everywhere, or selectively per post type Close comments on older posts and paginate long threads Strip links from comments Disable pingbacks and trackbacks Schedule automatic spam-comment cleanup Admin & performance controls Limit or disable post revisions and autosave Control the WordPress Heartbeat (frequency and where it runs) Disable the REST/XML feeds (RSS), XML-RPC, author archive pages, and admin notices SEO helpers Remove the Yoast SEO HTML comment from the head Remove duplicate names in Yoast breadcrumbs Optional WooCommerce optimisations When WooCommerce is active, you can stop its scripts and styles from loading on non-store pages, defer cart fragments, disable product reviews, and skip the password-strength meter on unrelated pages. Good to know Disabling emojis does not affect normal emoticons — it only removes the extra emoji-detection script. Removing query strings can interfere with some CDNs that key cache on them; leave it off if unsure. Everything is optional and reversible — toggle a setting off and the behaviour returns. Have an idea or found a bug? The plugin is developed in the open — see the public GitHub repo to contribute or open an issue.

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.