Preload Featured Images

70 Quality Score

Active Installs

14/30

With only 1,000 active installs, this is a niche tool far behind mainstream caching plugins, but it has grown enough to earn a reasonable popularity score relative to its size.

Update Freshness

25/25

A perfect maintenance score reflects a very recent update (June 2026) and a clean changelog with no outstanding issues flagged.

User Rating

9/15

A perfect 100/100 rating is encouraging but based on only 3 ratings, which is not a statistically meaningful sample size.

Support Health

8/15

With zero support threads opened, there is no track record to evaluate, and the neutral 50/15 score reflects an absence of evidence rather than proven responsiveness.

WP Compatibility

15/15

Full marks here because the plugin is tested with WordPress 7.0 and requires PHP 7.4 and WordPress 6.3, which covers all current installations.

Scores higher than 23% of indexed plugins

About

Preload Featured Images automatically in posts to increase the PageSpeed Score.

Active Installs 1k+

Rating ★★★★★ 5/5

Last Updated 2026-08-20 7:37pm GMT

Requires WordPress 6.3+

Tested Up To 7.1

Requires PHP 7.4+

✓ No known vulnerabilities

What It Does

Preload Featured Images injects resource hints into your pages so browsers can fetch featured images before they are needed, which can improve Largest Contentful Paint times and your overall PageSpeed Insights score. It focuses narrowly on a single optimization technique rather than offering a full caching or performance suite. In practice it is a set-and-forget plugin that adds <link rel="preload"> tags to posts and pages automatically.

Who It's For

This plugin is best for content-heavy sites like blogs, news publishers, magazines, and photography portfolios where the featured image is usually the largest above-the-fold element. Site owners chasing a few extra PageSpeed points without installing a full caching plugin will find it useful. It also suits developers who want a targeted micro-optimization without the overhead of a broader performance suite.

Who Should Skip It

If you already use a caching plugin like LiteSpeed Cache, WP Fastest Cache, or Jetpack Boost, those tools already handle featured image preloading and this plugin will be redundant. Sites with fewer than a few posts, or sites where featured images are not the primary LCP element, will see little to no measurable benefit.

The Bottom Line

Preload Featured Images does one thing and does it well, with strong maintenance signals and clean compatibility. However, the tiny install base, the 3-rating sample, and the lack of any support history mean you are taking a small leap of faith. It is worth installing only if you need a minimal, focused LCP fix and are not already using a caching plugin that covers this ground.

Related Plugins

LiteSpeed Cache 95/100

Pick LiteSpeed Cache if your host runs LiteSpeed servers, as it handles image preloading alongside a full caching, CDN, and image optimization stack.

Jetpack 94/100

Pick Jetpack if you want image performance improvements bundled with security, backups, and growth tools from a single trusted vendor.

Redis Object Cache 92/100

Pick Redis Object Cache if your real performance bottleneck is database query time rather than image loading.

Super Page Cache (Cloudflare) 90/100

Pick Super Page Cache if you are already on Cloudflare and want edge caching that covers far more than just featured image preloading.

WP Fastest Cache 89/100

Pick WP Fastest Cache if you want an all-in-one caching solution with a simpler interface and a much larger install base.