Imagify vs External Images Plugin

Dave Hilditch •

Want faster results? Try External Images on your store.

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Comparing Imagify with External Images? This page breaks down the key differences and similarities so you can find the best fit for your WordPress or WooCommerce store.

Overview of Imagify

Imagify is a WordPress image compression and optimization plugin that automatically compresses images on upload, converts them to WebP or AVIF, and resizes images that exceed a set dimension — all with one click.

Visit Imagify →

How External Images differs from Imagify

All plugins from Super Speedy Plugins share a SQL-first architecture and an uncompromising focus on performance — and External Images is no different. Here is what sets it apart:

If a supplier, merchant or CDN already hosts your images, downloading copies into WordPress wastes import time, CPU and disk. External Images lets WooCommerce use those remote URLs without creating local attachments or thumbnails.

How to choose between Imagify and External Images?

If Imagify has ever caused your site to slow down after an update, or if you have noticed performance degrading as your catalogue grows, External Images offers a genuinely different approach. Built on a SQL-first architecture and stress-tested against a one-million-product WooCommerce store on every release, it is designed to hold up as your store scales. Migration is simpler than most expect, and a free trial means you can validate the improvement on staging with no financial commitment.

What do others say about External Images?

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Thomas Petersen — January 2024

Great plugin that saves a huge amount of diskspace on your server. And the support is great and impressively fast šŸ™‚ Thank you very much šŸ™‚

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Adam Nicklos — June 2024

We recently implemented the use of external images across several hundred websites on our network and it has really helped our overall process from load times, disc space usage, etc. I have used almost all of superspeedys plugins and this one is amazing, just like all the others.

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piltchev — November 2024

I had to import 500k posts in my website. As you can imagine that process takes time. I did some research and I found out that if I want to import posts with images that would have probably taken me 10 years to do so. After that I saw this plugin mentioned in a forum and gave it a try – my import was completed in less than 1-2 hours. Amazing plugin that solves a really bad problem! Thank you!

What's new in External Images?

3.43 (3rd August 2026)

  • Updated the shared Super Speedy settings module: AI agents can check your licence and install other Super Speedy plugins over MCP, now also exposed on AI Engine's MCP endpoint when AI Engine is active
  • New Check frequency setting – cap licence, update and changelog checks to once a day or once a week, and see when the licence was last checked
  • Licence and changelog checks fail fast when superspeedyplugins.com cannot be reached, instead of hanging the settings page
  • The newest installed copy of the shared Super Speedy settings code now runs site-wide, whichever plugin loads first – previously the alphabetically-first plugin's often-older copy won
  • AI agents can read and change External Images settings over MCP, count how products are imaged, and verify a sample of external image URLs – also exposed on AI Engine's MCP endpoint
  • Fixed a fatal `array_key_exists(): Argument #2 ($array) must be of type array, false given` on PHP 8, hit on an HTTPS site when a product carried a malformed `http://` image URL such as `http:///photo.jpg` or one with a non-numeric port
  • Malformed image URLs no longer raise PHP 8.1 deprecation notices when the proxy filename or the image host is read from them
  • Security: the Per Website tab's HTTPS checkbox now requires a nonce and the `manage_options` capability, and only ever writes its own `eissl-` options
  • Removed `ssl-proxy.php`, an unused legacy file that was still reachable over the web
  • New Proxy HTTP Images setting, off by default. On an HTTPS site, an image whose host offers no HTTPS at all is blocked by browsers as mixed content. Switch this on to serve those images from your own server instead, at the cost of storing each one in `uploads/external-images/`
  • Removed the "External Images DB update required" notice and its Run DB Update now button. The one statement behind it now runs by itself, once, with nothing to click
  • Security: the variation gallery endpoint now checks that the id it is given is a published variation, instead of acting on any post id
  • Removed the `EI_BETA` constant. It was defined but never read, so setting it did not opt a site into beta releases
  • Tested up to WordPress 7.0
  • Removed leftover debug logging. The plugin no longer writes to the browser console, including once per row per second on the WP All Import review screen
  • The HTTPS support probe now times out after 3 seconds instead of stalling the page when a supplier host is unresponsive
  • A supplier recorded as having no HTTPS is re-checked monthly, so a host that was briefly down is not proxied forever. Untick it on the Per Website tab to pin the choice and stop the re-check
  • Pick largest now ignores an image whose size could not be read, rather than letting the failure decide which image wins
  • Fixed a notice "Translation loading for the external-images domain was triggered too early" on WordPress 6.7 or later when the site language is not English, and the "Cannot modify header information – headers already sent" warnings it caused when activating the plugin
  • Licence declarations in the plugin header and readme corrected to GPLv3
View full changelog →

Want faster results? Try External Images on your store.

Get External Images →

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