Imagify Vs RabbitLoader: Which One You Should Use To Improve PageSpeed

When optimizing images on your WordPress website, the first plugin that comes to mind is Imagify. Since 2016, this plugin has been used to optimize large images on a WordPress site. 

Several alternative PageSpeed performance optimization plugins are now available in WordPress. RabbitLoader is one of them, and it is popular for increasing your WordPress website’s PageSpeed score.

Let’s compare the most image optimization plugins Imagify with RabbitLoader in detail including their usability. Also, inspect the PageSpeed score in Google PageSpeed Insights for a particular website after installing them individually.  

Why Use Image Optimization Plugins

Image optimization tools improve the website’s PageSpeed performance by optimizing image files. This will provide a better user experience, a high conversion rate, a better SEO ranking, and so on. 

Provide A Better User Experience:

Providing a fast-loading website can significantly enhance your user experience. Users will engage with the content of the webpage and spend more time on the website if your website takes less time to load. So, it will reduce the higher bounce rates.

According to  Marcus Tober, founder of Searchmetrics, “The best SEO strategy is to focus on the user”.

High Conversion Rate:

A fast-loading website leads to a better user experience. That means the average on-page time will automatically increase. So. if the user spends a huge time on your website then the conversion rate will automatically increase. 

Optimization for Mobile Devices: 

Most people browse the internet on mobile devices. An image optimizer can speed up your website and make it mobile-friendly, which can lead to a good conversion rate. 

What Is Imagify?

Imagify is a popular image optimization tool available in the WordPress ecosystem. By using an advanced image compression algorithm, it can reduce an image file size.

Imagify helps you to speed up your WordPress website with lighter images by converting the original images to AVIF and WebP format. This plugin has a bulk optimization feature, that indicates you can optimize multiple images at once. 

By converting images into AVIF and WebP format, Imagify compresses them without affecting their quality. This is called lossless compression. However, some Imagify users reported a noticeable decrease in image quality after optimizing them with RabbitLoader. Furthermore, their free plan applies if the image file size is under 2 Mb. 

What is RabbitLoader

RabbitLoader is a PageSpeed performance optimization tool that applies all optimization techniques essential for improving PageSpeed performance, such as image optimization, CSS and JavaScript optimization, implementing web caching, and others.  

When using WP Media to speed up your website, you need to plug in more than 3-4 optimization tools. For speed optimization, you need to install WP Rocket and to get a premium Content Delivery Network (CDN) install RocketCDN. Whereas, to optimize the image you need to install Imagify. These all are chargeable. It also requires to installation of a lazy loading that is known as Rocket Lazy Loading.   

Sometimes using too many plugins can decrease the website’s PageSpeed. Plugins also have some code. So, when you are loading a page codes are also executed. It will significantly increase the web page loading time. It is best practice to you less number plugins.

When you are optimizing your website’s PageSpeed performance with RabbitLoader, it’s not required to install different plugins for PageSpeed optimization purposes. RabbitLoader itself is an all-in-one performance optimization tool. 

Imagify vs RabbitLoader: A Comparison Based on Core Features

Now you have some basic idea of WordPress plugins – Imagify and RabbitLoader. Both WordPress plugins optimize your website’s PageSpeed performance. But RabbitLoader has some core features that make it different from Imagify.

Imagify vs RabbitLoader: A detailed comparison

Imagify vs RabbitLoader: optimize an image

Both Imagify and RabbitLoader can optimize images to increase the PageSpeed. Now, which one can give you the best result?

• Checking an Unoptimized Image Size:

Here, we can see the actual size of an unoptimized image is 93.6 kb. This is a large-size image file. It can increase the loading time of any website.

• Let’s Check the Image Size After Installing Imagify:

Now, we are installing Imagify in WordPress for image optimization.  Imagify optimizes the image in AVIF format and manages to reduce the size to just 63 kb from 93.6 kb.

• Checking the Image Size After Installing RabbitLoader: 

Finally, by installing RabbitLoder in WordPress, the image size is reduced to 10 kb from 93.6 kb. That indicates good image compression. It also converts the image into AVIF format.    

Imagify vs RabbitLoader: Impact on PageSpeed Score

For a better understanding of the comparison between Imagify and RabbitLoader, we must analyze the PageSpeed performance of the demo WordPress website in Google PageSpeed Insights.

Let’s check the website’s speed without using any optimization tools:

Let’s check the website’s PageSpeed score without using any performance optimization tools. As expected the PageSpeed performance is not up to the mark.

In mobile mode, the website fails the PageSpeed test.  The Google PSI score is very poor, it’s only 33.  This is not good for any website, especially keeping the mobile-first policy of Google in mind. 

The core web vitals metrics that had affected the website’s performance are:

• First Content Paint (FCP): 4.4s
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): 7.2 s
• Total Blocking Time(TBT): 1,450 ms
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0.001
• Speed Index: 10.2 s

In desktop mode, the PageSpeed performance score of 68, is not so high but it looks far better than the mobile version. 

Here the Core Web Vitals that affect the PageSpeed performance are:

• First Contentful Paint (FCP): 1.9s
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): 2.3s
• Total Blocking Time (TBT):180 ms
• Cumulative Layout Shift(CLS): 0.009
• Speed Index: 3.7 s.

Checking the Website’s Performance after Installing Imagify:

After installing Imagify for image optimization purposes, let’s check the impact on the website’s PageSpeed score.

Well, in mobile mode the PageSpeed is just 37 which means no performance improvement after installing Imagify. Not only that, but the most disappointing thing is even after optimizing the images, the Total Block Time (TBT) is typically increased. 

Here, we can see the performance metrics that affect the PageSpeed:

• First Contentful Paint (FCP): 3.7 s
• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): 5.4 s
• Total Blocking Time (TBT): 2,650 ms
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): 0
• Speed Index: 7.8 s

However, in desktop mode, the PageSpeed score is increased to 75 from 68. So, the optimized version of this website managed to achieve a respectable PageSpeed score.

Below are the Core Web Vitals metrics that decrease the performance:

• First Contentful Paint: 1.9s
• Largest Contentful Paint: 2.1s
• Total Blocking Time: 130 ms
• Cumulative Layout Shift:0
• Speed index:2.6 s.

Let’s Check the PageSpeed Performance After Installing RabbitLoader: 

Here, we are installing the all-in-one performance optimizer RabbitLoader, to analyze the performance of the WordPress website PageSpeed. And, here’s the result.

In mobile mode, after installing RabbitLoader, the PageSpeed score improved drastically. While Imagify improved the score from 33 to 37, RabbitLoader improved the score to 75. 

Let’s see the improvement in the performance metrics behind this PageSpeed score improvement. 

• First Contentful Paint ( From 4.4 s to 3.8 s)
• Largest Contentful Paint ( From 7.2 s to 4.1 s)
• Total Block Time ( From 1,450 to 160 ms)
• Cumulative Layout Shift ( From 0.001 to 0)
•  Speed Index ( From 10.2 s to 4.6 s)

Finally in desktop mode, where the Imagify achieved a respectable 75 from the original PageSpeed score of just 68. RabbitLoader is managed to achieve a near-perfect PageSpeed score of 99 out of 100.

So how RabbitLoader can achieve such a near-perfect score?

RabbitLoader reduced the FCP to just 0.6 from 1.9s. Where LCP became 0.7s from 2.3s, and TBT came down to 30 ms from 180 ms. Also, you can notice the CLS became 0 and the speed index is 1.2s. 

Conclusion

In this article, you have understood the difference between Imagify and RabbitLoader. These two WordPress plugins are used to optimize your WordPress site. But without any doubt, RabbitLoader is a more affordable plugin compared to Imagify.     

Now it’s your turn. If you are a new website owner, install the all-in-one optimization plugin RabbitLoader. This one plugin will help you to optimize website large images, enable CDN, minify HTML, CSS, JavaScript files, and many more.

FAQ’s:

1. Which format can be optimized?

These image optimization tools convert all PNG and JPEG images to AVIF and WebP images in the Next-Gen Formats gallery for optimizing the original image.

2. What is WebP format?

WebP is an image format which is developed by Google to provide lossless compression for images on the website. The main goal of this format is to compress the image file size without affecting the quality.

3. What is AVIF?

AVIF is the next-generation image format that is used to provide both lossy and lossless compression as well as features like animation and transparency.