Alternatives to TinyPNG and Squoosh, compared honestly
Three tools, three different jobs. What each is good at, where they actually differ, and what tinyimg still cannot do.
Three tools, three different jobs
Search results for a TinyPNG alternative, a Squoosh alternative, or the looser phrase "image squoosh" tend to blur three different jobs: compressing one image well, compressing a folder of images, and putting compression inside a build or a CMS. Most "TinyPNG vs" pages answer a question nobody asked — which tool wins — instead of asking which tool fits the work in front of you. This page tries to do the second thing.
All three belong to browser image compression in the broad sense, or sit right next to it. They are not interchangeable, and the differences that matter are usually not the ones listed.
What TinyPNG does well
TinyPNG is mature. It has been compressing images for a long time, its results are predictable, and it compresses well: the smart lossy encoding it uses usually produces a smaller file than a naive re-encode at the same visual quality.
Its bigger advantage is integration. There is an API, plugins for common CMSs including WordPress, and hooks into build tools. If you want compression to happen inside a pipeline you already have — uploads on a site, an asset step in CI, a design workflow — TinyPNG is the least work to adopt, and for many teams that is the deciding factor.
The trade is factual, not a criticism: TinyPNG processes images on its servers, so the files are uploaded. That is what makes the API and the plugins possible. If your images are allowed to leave your device, that trade is often fine.
What Squoosh does well
Squoosh is Google's open-source image tool. It runs in the browser, so files stay on the device, and it is excellent at exactly what a batch tool is bad at: looking at one image closely. You can compare formats side by side, move a quality slider and watch both the file size and the artefacts change, resize, and tune encoder options that most tools hide.
If you are deciding between AVIF and WebP for a particular photograph, or you need to see what a quality setting actually costs, Squoosh is the better instrument. It is also open source, and the codecs behind it are the same family used by many other tools, including this one.
It is not built for volume. Squoosh is organised around one image at a time; if you have three hundred files, it is the wrong shape of tool, and no amount of tuning changes that.
The one difference that is easy to check
On the axis people care about most — does the file leave my device — Squoosh and tinyimg are on the same side. Both compress in the browser. TinyPNG is on the other side, by design. It is common to see the two local tools lumped together; on this axis they do agree, even though they are built for different work.
tinyimg's claim is narrow and testable: compress images without uploading. Load the page, turn off the network, drop a file in. It still compresses, because the codecs are WebAssembly modules already in the browser and the work happens in a local worker. You can check that in a minute, which is the point.
The second difference is batch. tinyimg is built for a folder, not a file: a queue, a worker pool sized to the machine, per-file before/after sizes, and one zip at the end. Squoosh deliberately does not do this. TinyPNG does, through its uploader and API.
| TinyPNG | Squoosh | tinyimg | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Their servers | Your browser | Your browser |
| Best at | Integrations, API, mature compression | One image, format experiments, tuning | Batch compression without uploads |
| Batch of images | Yes, via uploader and API | No, one at a time | Yes, queue and zip |
| API | Yes | No | No |
| Per-image tuning | Limited | Extensive | None |
| WordPress plugin | Yes | No | Not yet |
| Track record | Long | Long, open source | Shorter |
What tinyimg does not have
This is the part a comparison page usually omits, and omitting it is exactly what makes such pages read as marketing.
- No API. There is no endpoint to call. If you need compression in a server job or a CI step, tinyimg cannot do it.
- No WordPress plugin yet. A Figma plugin exists; a WordPress plugin does not. If a CMS plugin is the requirement, TinyPNG is the answer today.
- No per-image tuning UI. You choose the output format; you do not get a quality slider per image or raw encoder switches. tinyimg picks settings and aims for a sensible result. If you want to tune, Squoosh does that better.
- A smaller track record. TinyPNG and Squoosh have years of odd files behind them. tinyimg is newer and has fewer users, which means fewer strange edge cases have been thrown at it. Treat that as a real risk, not a footnote.
- No server-side option at all. The privacy design is also a constraint: nothing runs when the browser is closed.
Our own numbers, and what they do not say
We publish measurements for tinyimg at /benchmarks: ten fixtures, five runs each, one machine (Apple M4, headless Chrome 155), using the same worker path the site ships. On the 12 MP photograph, JPEG output was 444.4 KB from a 4.92 MB input (8.8%), with a 677 ms median; WebP was 325.2 KB at 997.5 ms; AVIF was 121.8 KB (2.4%) at 1,983.2 ms. A 1.36 MB PNG screenshot came out at 600.6 KB losslessly in 613 ms, and at 21.0 KB as WebP in 151 ms.
Those are tinyimg's numbers on one machine, and they are not a comparison. We have not benchmarked TinyPNG or Squoosh. We do not know what either would produce on these fixtures, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. TinyPNG's encoder is mature and may well produce smaller files on some images; Squoosh exposes controls that can beat any fixed setting. If the decision matters, run your own images through all three and compare the output yourself.
How to choose
- Compression inside an existing system, uploads acceptable: TinyPNG. The API and the plugins are the feature.
- One image, format experiments, per-image control: Squoosh. Nothing here replaces it.
- A folder of images, no uploads, no settings to think about: tinyimg.
That is the whole honest version. tinyimg is an alternative to these tools for one job, not a replacement for them at everything, and it is not affiliated with either. TinyPNG is a product of Tinify; Squoosh is a Google open-source project; the names and marks belong to them.