Smush – Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load, WebP & CDN vs Animation Kit – Animated Backgrounds & WebGL Effects

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.

Animation Kit lets you add a moving WebGL background to any WordPress page — a particle field, an aurora wash, a sweeping radar pulse — from a single admin screen. No theme editing, no shortcodes, no CSS. Pick an effect, tune the colors and motion, save, and your visitors see a smooth canvas layer behind your content. The plugin is builder-agnostic: it renders at the document level, so it cooperates with classic themes, block themes, Elementor, Bricks, WPBakery, and Gutenberg page builds without needing a per-builder integration. How it works You get a dedicated Background Animation screen inside the WP admin. From there: Pick one of 13 free effects (full list below). Adjust the live controls — colors, speed, density, opacity, z-index, position. Toggle the background on. The canvas appears site-wide. The free tier targets the whole website (single configuration). Pro adds multiple stacked configurations and per-page placement rules. Effects included in the free version Antigravity — Magnetic particle field that reacts to pointer movement. Good for tech, SaaS, and sci-fi-style hero sections. Aurora — Flowing color washes. Suits portfolios, night-mode brands, and creative agencies. Color Bends — Multi-stop color gradient with noise warp and slow rotation. Works as a brand backdrop. Grid Scan — Animated grid with a sweep line. Tech, cyber, and dashboard aesthetics. Line Waves — Concentric line waves with color cycling. Graphic, poster-like. Liquid Ether — Fluid simulation that ripples and bends with cursor movement. Most “wow” of the set. Particles — Drifting particle systems with configurable count, color, and spread. Pixel Blast — Animated pixel patterns (square, circle, triangle) with optional click-ripples. Retro and game-style. Plasma — Classic plasma shader with direction, scale, and color. Soft demoscene feel. Prism — Rotating 3D prism with bloom. Crystalline, futuristic. Radar — Sweep-style radar visualization with ring and spoke controls. Soft Aurora — Lower-intensity aurora with two-color gradient. Easier on small-screen viewers. Light Pillar — Vertical light column with adjustable glow, width, height, and rotation. Good for landing-page focal points. Each effect has its own controls; you only ship the code for the effect you enable (lazy-loaded chunk per effect, not a single fat bundle). Use cases Hero sections that need motion without an animated video. Landing pages where you want a moving backdrop behind a CTA. Portfolios and agency sites that want a signature visual. Conference, course, and event sites that want a “live” feel. Dark-mode marketing pages where Aurora or Light Pillar adds depth. Performance and Core Web Vitals Animation Kit is built around lazy loading. The frontend script only ships when a background is enabled; the heavy rendering code (Three.js, OGL, the per-effect shader) is split into separate chunks loaded on demand after DOMContentLoaded. On mobile, particle counts and pixel ratios are clamped automatically. Compatibility filters are registered for WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, Autoptimize, W3 Total Cache, and WP Fastest Cache so their delay-JS / combine-JS / minify rules don’t break the lazy chunks. Accessibility The canvas wrapper is aria-hidden="true" and pointer-events: none — assistive tech ignores it, and visitors can still click links, forms, and menus through it. prefers-reduced-motion: reduce is honored: when the user’s OS preference is set, the WebGL mount is skipped entirely. If the preference is toggled off during a session, the animation mounts at that point. Animation Kit Pro When the free tier stops fitting, Pro adds: Multiple background configurations stacked or rotated on the same site. Per-page placement rules — specific pages, CSS selectors, or HTML element targets. Premium roadmap access and priority support. Pricing and details: https://wpxero.com/plugins/wpxero-animation-kit/pricing