img-1

The Best 5 WordPress Plugins For Images To Speed Up A WordPress Website

Are you looking for a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for images to speed up your WordPress website?

A long physical distance between a user and your website hosting server can give the user an impression of your wordpress website being slow, which negatively affects the user experience, causing a rise in the bounce rate, and reducing the conversion rate. 

Image optimization methods, such as Compressing and converting image formats, can reduce the file size of images, significantly speeding up the WordPress website. 

However, converting and compressing images can only achieve so much. To improve your website’s loading speed to an optimal level, it is equally important to serve the images on your website through a CDN network to reduce the loading time of your website.

Let’s understand what a CDN is, how it works, and its importance in image optimization. 

More importantly, do you need a CDN network to deliver your images? 

If the answer to the above question is yes, we will help you understand the criteria for choosing the right CDN provider for your website.   

Most website owners and SEO experts spend a lot of time researching and choosing a reliable Content Delivery Network (CDN). To save valuable time, we will list 5 reliable CDN plugins available in the WordPress ecosystem. 

Finally, we will wrap up by discussing how using RabbitLoader instead of just a CDN plugin would benefit your website’s overall performance.  

What Is A Content Delivery Network (CDN)?

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a group of proxy servers distributed worldwide, also known as PoPs (Point of Presence). 

The main purpose of using a CDN is to reduce the physical or geographical distance of the users from the servers and reduce the network latency. 

When a visitor loads a web page, in the absence of a CDN cache the browser usually generates an HTTP request and sends it to the origin server. If the physical distance between the users and the server is high, it will take more time to load the resource files for rendering the web page. This delay is known as network latency. 

A CDN network distributes the website’s resource files among its PoPs (point of presence). In the case of a CDN-integrated WordPress website, the browser sends the request to the nearest proxy server instead of the origin server (hosting). 

Thus, it will minimize the distance between users and servers, reducing network latency and improving the WordPress website’s loading time and PageSpeed performance. 

Which Resource Files Can Be Cached In A CDN? 

There are 4 types of resource files which can be cached in a CDN. 

  1. Images
  2. HTML file
  3. CSS files
  4. JavaScript files

There are many CDN providers available on the internet, but integrating them with your website might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Hence, we will mainly focus on the WordPress CDN plugins as they are by far the most convenient option for most wordpress admins

Why Is CDN needed for Image optimization? 

There are three main reasons for using a Content Delivery Network for image optimization. It is more like a domino effect, where adding CDN causes subsequent outcomes. 

  • Using CDN improves the website’s performance 
  • A fast-loading website enhances the user experience 
  • A fast-loading website is good for organic Rankings

Using CDN Improves Website’s Performance 

A proxy server acts as an intermediator between the user and the origin server. Hence, it would reduce the network latency which improves the response time of your WordPress website by improving the PageSpeed performance, a CDN also improves the website’s security protecting you from DDoS and other cyber attacks by not exposing your server address

A Fast-Loading Website Enhances The User Experience 

Regardless of the physical location of the users, they expect a fast-loading website. 

Using a CDN service would reduce the physical distance between users and the resource files a visitor is trying to load, thus reducing the response time so the visitor does not experience any delays when loading the web page. 

Since loading time creates the user’s first impression of your WordPress website, providing a fast-loading website can present a high-quality user experience and increase the average on-page time by allowing users to engage with your website’s content without any obstructions or delays. This leads to reducing the bounce rate and improving the conversion rate.

A fast-loading website is good for organic Rankings 

Since PageSpeed is considered a major ranking single, improving it gives you a leg up in today’s very competitive organic ranking race. 

Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) improves the PageSpeed performance of a WordPress website to an optimal level, which leads to improving the page’s ranking in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). This, in turn, can increase the organic traffic of your WordPress website.

Can you optimize images without a CDN?

As a WordPress website owner, you may be wondering: Is it possible to optimize images on a WordPress website without using a Content Delivery Network? 

The answer is “Yes.” There are several ways to optimize your WordPress images: converting them into next-gen formats, compressing them, resizing them, and implementing lazy loading. 

Note: The above image optimization techniques require a fair amount of time, patience, and effort if you want to Do It yourself without using any image optimization plugin. The best way to install RabbitLoader which can improve the PageSpeed performance within a few clicks.  

The above image optimization techniques are effective when the user’s location is closer to the origin server. However, they can’t reduce the physical distance between the user and the origin server. If the distance between the user and the server is high, it will take more time to load the file regardless if the images are optimized or not. 

You must use an image CDN to quickly load the images on the WordPress website from the user’s browser for the best result even if you are optimizing your images in other ways.

Criteria to choose a CDN provider for images

There are many CDN providers in the market today, but choosing a CDN provider for images can be challenging. A reliable CDN has a tremendous impact on the WordPress website’s PageSpeed performance. 

When choosing a CDN service provider for your website you should consider these 3 things 

  • Number of POPs available in the CDN cache 
  • Is the CDN easy to add to your website?
  • Is it affordable 

Check The Number Of PoPs Available In The CDN Cache 

Before investing your time and effort in any Content Delivery Network, you need to check the depth of the CDN network, but check the number of PoPs or edge servers it offers. From this number, you can get an indication of the performance of the CDN plugin.  

Most CDN provider mention the number of PoPs on their website & most of the time it’s very accurate, but if you still wish to check the number of PoPs you can check it on websites like uptrends.com

Check Whether The CDN Is Easy To Implement 

CDN integration can be challenging if you are not from a technical background. It’s essential to check whether the CDN is easy to implement or not. Since you are on the WordPress CMS, using a CDN service provider with a WordPress plugin is what you should look for.  

A plugin-based CDn would save you a lot of time-consuming efforts from the beginning to the long run.

Review The Price Plan Of The CDN Caching Plugin

Although most CDNs are not very expensive, double-check their affordability before you explore the CDN plugin.



CDN services come in different plans, whether monthly subscriptions or consumption-based; consider the one that best suits you.

Top WordPress CDN Plugins for Images

Let’s see the top 5 CDN plugins for the WordPress websites to deliver your images & other resource files.

  1. RabbitLoader
  2. Bunny.net
  3. KeyCDN
  4. Cloudflare
  5. Sucuri 

RabbitLoader

When it comes to WordPress website optimization, RabbitLoader is capable of achieving unparallel results both in the form of PageSpeed scores & real-life loading speed

It can replace all performance-related plugins from image optimization to CDN . To help you reach high 90s in the pagespeed score test for all your pages,

As an image CDN, RabbitLoader serves the images from its inbuilt premium CDN, which has 300+ edge/ proxy servers.

Bunny CDN

Bunny CDN is one of the most affordable CDN plugins available in the WordPress ecosystem. It spreads the static resource files among proxy servers worldwide so that users can access your WordPress website from anywhere. The only drawback is their low amount of PoPs.

Key CDN

KeyCDN is one of the most popular image CDNs on WordPress; it offers almost 34 edge servers distributed in 25 countries. It delivers the website’s content faster to the user and also improves the website’s security. In addition, it offers two-factor authentication.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare is, of course, wildly popular for its security benefits. It is available on the WordPress ecosystem as an easy-to-install plugin. It is popular with small business owners as well as enterprises. 

It allows a premium CDN with almost 310 proxy servers. This will significantly improve the WordPress website’s PageSpeed performance and enhance the user experience.

Sucuri

Sucuri is one of the commonly used WordPress plugins that share static files among the proxy servers and speed up the website’s PageSpeed performance. Not only improving the PageSpeed performance, it also improves the website’s security. This can enhance the user experience.

FAQ: How to check the efficiency of a CDN?

To check the efficiency of a CDN cache, you need to calculate the cache hit and cache miss ratio. To know more about this, you need to go through our previous blog on “Cache hit rate”.

Why Should You Use RabbitLoader

Good PageSpeed performance is extremely important for enhancing the user experience and improving the organic rankings in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). 

To speed up your WordPress website, RabbitLoader serves the images along with other resource files such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files from its in-built CDN, which has 300+ edge servers. 

As an image optimizer, it will also optimize your images by converting them into next-gen formats, which can significantly reduce the image size and speed up the WordPress website. 

Let’s see, compared with the CDN how RabbitLoader is the best CDN. 

WordPress CDN pluginNumber of PoPsFeatures


RabbitLoader 
300Speed up a WordPress website by serving the static resource in the proxy server. 

Not only that, but to provide a superior result in PageSpeed performance, RabbitLoader optimizes the image, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.

Bunny CDN114Bunny CDN speeds up the WordPress website with the CDN and improves the website’s security.
KeyCDN34Improve the page loading time by optimizing the images.
Cloudflare310Mainly focuses on increasing the website’s security.
Sucuri12Like Cloudflare, Sucuri also improves the website’s security.

As PageSpeed makes the first impression of a website, you must improve it if you are aiming to achieve a better conversion rate.

RabbitLoader has an all-in-one PageSped optimization feature that can optimize your all images along with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files to achieve a better result. 

If you are also serious about your WordPress website’s PageSpeed performance, install RabbitLoader and speed up your WordPress site which leads to enhancing the user experience and improving the SEO rankings.