WebP Express

More than 9 out of 10 users are using a browser that is able to display webp images. Yet, on most websites, they are served jpeg images, which are typically double the size of webp images for a given quality. What a waste of bandwidth! This plugin was created to help remedy that situation. With little effort, WordPress admins can have their site serving autogenerated webp images to browsers that supports it, while still serving jpeg and png files to browsers that does not support webp.

THE IMAGE CONVERTER

The plugin uses the WebP Convert library to convert images to webp. WebP Convert is able to convert images using multiple methods. There are the “local” conversion methods: imagick, cwebp, vips, gd. If none of these works on your host, there are the cloud alternatives: ewww (paid) or connecting to a WordPress site where you got WebP Express installed and you enabled the “web service” functionality.

BENEFITS

• Much faster load time for images in browsers that supports webp. The converted images are typically less than half the size (for jpeg), while maintaining the same quality. Bear in mind that for most web sites, images are responsible for the largest part of the waiting time.
• Better user experience (whether performance goes from terrible to bad, or from good to impressive, it is a benefit).
• Better ranking in Google searches (performance is taken into account by Google).
• Less bandwidth consumption – makes a huge difference in the parts of the world where the internet is slow and costly (you know, ~80% of the world population lives under these circumstances).
• Currently ~95% of all traffic, and ~96% of mobile browsing traffic are done with browsers supporting webp. Check current numbers on caniuse.com.
• It’s great for the environment too! Reducing network traffic reduces electricity consumption which reduces CO2 emissions.