Yahoo! Smush.it is a famous tool for web designers. It’s often considered as the best image optimization tool, but it has some limitations. One of the promising open source alternative is Trimage Image Compressor.

The Test Using 20 Random Picked Files

For this test, I randomly picked 20 files from public domain image sites. They consist of:

• 16 JPEG files, 2 PNG files, 2 GIF files
• Various of file sizes, the smallest is 8,642 bytes and the largest is 3,613,425 bytes
• Various of image dimensions, from 128 x 128 pixels to 2000 x 2568 pixels

Here is information of the files:

No.	File Name	Type	Dimension	Size
1	1500×1500-abstract-free	jpg	1500 x 1500	1,562,286
2	AfSamtidensKunstRChristiansen	png	2553 x 1726	3,613,425
3	aircraft-maintenance-vintage-photo	jpg	2100 x 1682	150,249
4	candle-in-dark	jpg	2048 x 1536	711,154
5	Computer-art-rendered-image	jpg	1600 x 1200	100,902
6	cute-boy-face-with-butterfly	jpg	2400 x 1800	247,075
7	fire-at-solstice	jpg	1024 x 768	137,361
8	helicopter-spraying-on-sky	jpg	1512 x 990	58,890
9	In_the_Conservatory-x0-y0	jpg	1024 x 1024	276,054
10	jagged-leaves	jpg	797 x 600	79,833
11	Jerusalem-Religions	jpg	1600 x 1200	414,240
12	kitten	jpg	1703 x 1148	278,395
13	lonely+tree	jpg	1024 x 682	165,658
14	pennies	jpg	1024 x 768	86,947
15	rusty-lamp-fire-in-dark	jpg	1280 x 960	169,768
16	Sausages-rolls-chimichurri-sauces	jpg	1280 x 960	190,509
17	Sperry_Cline	gif	503 x 620	85,297
18	Stock-brush-2	png	128 x 128	8,642
19	sunset_1_bg_111602	jpg	1024 x 768	97,611
20	THOMSON’S_crown_corset_1882	gif	2000 x 2568	752,318

 

File Sizes After the Test

Below is the images’ file sizes after the test, red means the file size isn’t changed before and after the test:

No.	Winner	Trimage	Smush.it
1	Smush.it	1,463,391	1,417646
2	Smush.it fail to compress	3,187,836	3,613,425
3	Trimage	137,451	140,765
4	Smush.it	679,481	659,734
5	Trimage	92,579	96,657
6	Trimage	225,443	231,484
7	Smush.it	134,774	130,754
8	Trimage	49,208	51,585
9	Smush.it	275,969	263,408
10	Smush.it	78,470	76,822
11	Trimage	388,394	414,240
12	Smush.it	242,890	240,006
13	Smush.it	164,765	155,953
14	Smush.it	85,479	84,823
15	Smush.it	160,969	159,744
16	Smush.it	180,614	180,049
17	Trimage fail to compress	85,297	78,973
18	Trimage	5,076	5,170
19	Smush.it	97,611	96,609
20	Trimage fail to compress	752,318	742,575

Total result sizes for Trimage is 8,488,015 bytes.
Total result sizes for Smush.it is 8,840,422 bytes.

Some interesting things you may want to know:

• Smush.it generated an error when trying to compress image no. 2.
• Smush.it was able to process but give 0 saving on image no. 11.
• Trimage was unable to process GIF format on image no. 17.
• Trimage was able to process but give 0 saving on image no. 19.
• Trimage was unable to process GIF format on image no. 20.

Conclusions from The Test

• Smush.it won most the times (11 for Smush.it and 6 for Trimage)
• Smush.it can compress GIF files while Trimage can’t
• Trimage can compress large files, Smush.it only can process up to 1+ MB file sizes.

Although the total result sizes for Trimage is 8,488,015 is smaller compare to Smush.it 8,840,422 but if we exclude the large file (that can’t compressed by Smush.it), Trimage will lose (Trimage 5,300,179 vs Smush.it 5,226,997).

For getting smaller result Yahoo! Smush.it is the winner, but if it fails to compress or give 0 saving you may try to use Trimage Image Compressor.