Flying Images: Optimize and Lazy Load Images for Faster Page Speed

77 Quality Score

Active Installs

16/30

With 3,000 active installs, this is a relatively niche plugin compared to Smush or Imagify, which is why the raw popularity signal is modest even though the score reflects reasonable traction for its size.

Update Freshness

25/25

Last updated on 2026-05-20 and tested against WordPress 7.0, the plugin is clearly being actively maintained and kept current with core releases.

User Rating

14/15

A 96 out of 100 from 26 reviewers is an excellent rating, though the small sample size means it is less statistically reliable than ratings from thousands of users.

Support Health

8/15

Zero support threads and a 0 percent resolution rate is a yellow flag, but it can also mean there simply have not been issues worth posting about rather than unanswered problems.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Requires WordPress 4.5 and PHP 5.6, which is an extremely low bar and means it will run on virtually any host still in use today.

Scores higher than 60% of indexed plugins

About

Optimize and lazy load images to reduce load times, save bandwidth, and improve performance, delivering a faster and smoother user experience.

Active Installs 3k+

Rating ★★★★½ 4.8/5

Last Updated 2026-05-20 11:01am GMT

Requires WordPress 4.5+

Tested Up To 7.0.4

Requires PHP 5.6+

Security History

1 known vulnerability, all patched

1 Medium

Most recent: October 31, 2025

View details ▸

What It Does

Flying Images optimizes and lazy loads images on your WordPress site to reduce page weight and improve load times. It handles on-the-fly image compression and defers off-screen images until they scroll into view. The plugin also supports adaptive image sizing based on the visitor's device, helping deliver appropriately sized files rather than oversized originals.

Who It's For

This plugin fits content-heavy sites where image performance directly affects engagement or revenue, such as photography portfolios, news sites, e-commerce stores, and travel or food blogs with many large photos per page. It is also a reasonable pick for smaller sites whose hosts lack built-in image optimization or who want a simple, set-and-forget approach without paying for a SaaS image service.

Who Should Skip It

If your host or CDN already handles image optimization and lazy loading natively (for example, Cloudflare with Mirage or Polish enabled, or SiteGround's built-in optimizer), adding this plugin is redundant. Sites with fewer than a handful of images per page will see little practical benefit from installing it.

The Bottom Line

Flying Images is a quietly capable plugin with strong ratings, recent updates, and broad compatibility, scoring 77.47 out of 100 on PluginCheck. Its small install base and the fact that 'flying-images' style lazy loading is now partially handled by WordPress core make it a niche rather than essential choice. Worth trying if your current image stack is missing or unreliable, but Smush or Imagify are safer picks for most site owners.

Pick this if your site is already on Cloudflare and you want image lazy loading and optimization bundled with full-page caching and Core Web Vitals tuning.

Smush – Image Optimization, Compression, Lazy Load, WebP & CDN 89/100

Pick Smush if you want a battle-tested plugin with over a million installs, built-in WebP conversion, and a CDN option out of the box.

Converter for Media – Optimize images | Convert WebP & AVIF 88/100

Pick Converter for Media if your main goal is server-side conversion of existing media to WebP or AVIF without changing your optimization workflow.

Imagify Image Optimization: Optimize Images | Compress & Convert to WebP/AVIF 87/100

Pick Imagify if you want a managed image optimization service backed by the WP Rocket team and are willing to pay for bulk compression credits.

SpeedyCache – Cache, Optimization, Performance 87/100

Pick SpeedyCache if you want image optimization and lazy loading combined with page caching and asset minification in a single plugin.