TinyPNG is the default answer to "how do I make this image smaller", and for a handful of files it's great. People go looking for alternatives when they hit the free caps, when they've got hundreds of images, or when they'd rather not upload client photos to someone else's server. Our Image Compressor does the job in your browser with no upload. Below we compare it with six other free options and say plainly where each one wins.
Here's the free web tier next to the paid web plans, as listed by TinyPNG (now part of Tinify) in October 2026.
| Plan | Images per go | Max file size | Format conversions | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 20 | 5 MB | 3 per session | $0 |
| Web Pro | Unlimited | 75 MB | 3 per session | Yearly, about $39 in third-party listings |
| Web Ultra | Unlimited | 150 MB | Unlimited | Yearly, higher than Pro |
| Developer API | 500 free a month | n/a | Via API | Pay as you go after that |
It reads AVIF, JPEG XL, WebP, JPEG, PNG and animated PNG, and it writes AVIF, WebP, PNG or JPEG. Every file is uploaded, and TinyPNG says it keeps uploads for up to 48 hours before deleting them. That's a reasonable policy. It's still an upload.
The 5 MB cap. A straight-off-the-camera JPEG from a modern phone or mirrorless body can easily pass 5 MB, and a large PNG screenshot often does too. On the free plan those files just get refused.
Batches bigger than 20. You can keep dropping groups of 20, but for a 400-image product catalog that's 20 rounds of dragging and downloading.
Privacy. Unreleased product shots, medical images, ID scans and client work are often covered by agreements that don't allow third-party uploads, however short the retention.
Control. TinyPNG picks the compression level for you. That's its charm, but sometimes you want to set quality yourself or resize at the same time.
| Tool | Where it runs | Uploads your file? | Batch | Lossy PNG | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ToolAspect Image Compressor | Browser | No | One at a time | No, convert to WebP | Quick private jobs with resize |
| Squoosh | Browser | No | One at a time | Yes, palette reduction | Fine control with side-by-side preview |
| ImageOptim | Mac app | No | Yes, whole folders | Optional | Mac users with lots of files |
| Caesium | Windows and Mac; Linux from source | No | Yes | Yes | Point-and-click batch jobs |
| XnConvert | Windows, Mac, Linux | No | Yes | Via color reduction | Batch resize, rename and convert together |
| pngquant | Command line | No | Yes, scriptable | Yes, that's its job | Developers and build pipelines |
| WordPress plugins (ShortPixel, Imagify) | Their servers | Yes | Automatic on upload | Yes | Sites that want it hands-off, with monthly free quotas |
XnConvert is free for private and educational use. Commercial use needs a license, so check before you roll it out at work.
A normal PNG can hold millions of distinct colors. TinyPNG reduces that to a much smaller palette, picked so the difference is hard to see, then saves the result as an 8-bit PNG. Fewer colors means far less data, which is why a PNG can drop by half or more. The trade-off is that it's lossy. Smooth gradients and photos can show banding.
That's also why our compressor won't match TinyPNG on PNG-to-PNG. It re-saves PNG losslessly, which only trims a little. You get the big savings by switching the output to WebP, which keeps transparency and is supported by every current browser. If the file has to stay a PNG, use Squoosh with palette reduction turned on, or run pngquant.
If you're compressing yourself instead of letting TinyPNG decide, these starting points work for most web images.
| Image type | Format | Quality | Max width |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blog or article photo | WebP | 75 to 80 | 1,600 px |
| Product photo | WebP or JPEG | 80 to 85 | 2,000 px |
| Email attachment | JPEG | 70 to 80 | 1,200 px |
| Logo or icon with transparency | WebP, or SVG if it's vector | 90+ | Display size × 2 |
| Screenshot with text | WebP or PNG | 85+ | Keep original |
Resizing usually beats the quality slider. A 4,032-pixel phone photo shown at 1,200 pixels carries about 11 times the pixels anyone sees. Set a max width first, then adjust quality. Our image format guide goes deeper on WebP versus AVIF, and the Image Cropper handles exact social sizes. For SVG icons, the SVG Optimizer is the better tool.
If you compress a few images a week, they're under 5 MB and they aren't confidential, TinyPNG is hard to beat for speed. Drop, wait, download. The alternatives earn their place when you need batches, bigger files, specific settings or no upload. For most people the practical set-up is a browser tool for one-offs and a desktop app for the big jobs. Our best free image tools roundup covers the rest of the image workflow.
The web version is free for up to 20 images at a time, 5 MB each, with up to 3 format conversions per session. Bigger files and unlimited conversions need a paid Web Pro or Web Ultra plan. The developer API gives 500 free compressions a month.
TinyPNG uploads your images to its servers to compress them, and says it keeps them for a maximum of 48 hours before deleting them permanently. If you'd rather a file never left your computer, use a tool that compresses in the browser or a desktop app.
For big batches, a desktop app is the easiest route: ImageOptim on a Mac, or Caesium or XnConvert on Windows and Linux. None of them has a per-session cap. Developers can script pngquant for lossy PNG compression across whole folders.
PNG is lossless, so re-saving it as PNG only trims a little. TinyPNG gets its big PNG savings by cutting the number of colors, which is a lossy step. To match that, either convert the image to WebP, or use a tool with palette reduction such as pngquant or Squoosh.
Yes, Squoosh.app from Google's Chrome team still works in the browser and compresses on your device. It handles one image at a time but gives very fine control over codecs, quality and palette reduction, with a side-by-side preview.