12 Free Tools to Optimize and Compress PNG to Reduce Image Size
There are many types of different image formats and some of those most commonly found on the Internet are JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF and PNG. Each image format has its own purpose such as GIF is used for animated images, JPEG for high quality photos which automatically gets degraded after each save or even a resize, while our favorite PNG is best used on small and transparent pictures. Another huge advantage in PNG files is they’re lossless meaning you can compress them without losing quality.
You can easily find many tools on the Internet to compress PNG files but most, if not all of them produce different file sizes due to the algorithm unless they are using the same library/technology. Reducing the image file size to the maximum helps to save bandwidth cost, time to download and even achieving a higher Google PageSpeed score because “optimize images” is one of the priorities. In this article we’ve put 12 free PNG compressor tools (online, command line, desktop) to the test to find the one that produces the smallest file size.
Two 8-bit and 24-bit PNG files are compressed using the 12 free image compression tools listed below. The list consists of command line tools, desktop programs and online services. Command line tools are more flexible for automation in batch files but require you to type in the full command including option switches and path. A desktop tool is an easier to use program with a graphical user interface that normally requires a few mouse clicks to work. Finally online services are applications hosted on remote servers where the processing is done on the server and the user doesn’t need to install any third party software.
Two 8-bit and 24-bit PNG files are compressed using the 12 free image compression tools listed below. The list consists of command line tools, desktop programs and online services. Command line tools are more flexible for automation in batch files but require you to type in the full command including option switches and path. A desktop tool is an easier to use program with a graphical user interface that normally requires a few mouse clicks to work. Finally online services are applications hosted on remote servers where the processing is done on the server and the user doesn’t need to install any third party software.
Command Line Tools
1. advpng
advpng is part of AdvanceCOMP that contains multiple free utilities to recompress PNG, ZIP, MNG and GZ files. advpng hasn’t been updated since 2005 but the compression speed and results will surprise you. Older machines with slower hardware specifications takes slightly longer to process while the newer multi-core CPU takes only a second to produce amazing results.
advpng maximum compression command:
advpng.exe -z4 file.png
2. OptiPNG
OptiPNG is another open source command line PNG compressor that supports Windows and Linux operating system. Both stable and development versions are available to download. Do take note that the maximum command line compression for the stable and development versions are slightly different. The highest level of compression for the OptiPNG stable is -o7 while the development is only -o6. If you try to force -o7 on the development build, you will still get the same file size as -o6.
OptiPNG stable maximum compression command:
optipng.exe -o7 file.png
OptiPNG development maximum compression command:
optipng-hg-latest-win32 -o6 file.png
3. Pngcrush
Pngcrush is also a commandline application that attempts to optimize PNG images by trying out different compression levels and PNG filter methods. If you use the -brute switch, Pngcrush will test the image with 148 methods to find the one that gives the best compression.
Pngcrush maximum compression command:
Pngcrush.exe -brute file.png output.png
4. PngOptimizerCL
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