WP Rocket vs WP Smush
Compare WordPress plugins and tools side by side. Pick products with “Compare” in the software directory.
| Feature | WP Rocket v3.23.3.3 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Paid Visit Details | WP Smush v4.3.5 · checked 23 Oct 2026 Free + paid · ★ 4.8/5 Visit Details |
|---|---|---|
| At a glance | ||
| Active installs | — | 1M+ |
| Last updated | — | October 20, 2026 |
| Editions | WP Rocket ($) | Smush · Smush Pro ($) |
| Pros | Page caching and minification with default settings; Preloading, critical CSS and unused CSS removal; Cloudflare and Sucuri integrations | Bulk and on-upload image compression at no cost; Lazy loading for images and embedded video; Works with common page builders, WooCommerce and caching plugins |
| Cons | No free edition; a licence is required; Several features call the vendor's cloud services; Usage analytics is opt-in but adds a vendor script in admin | WebP, AVIF, resizing and the image CDN need Smush Pro; Images are sent to the WPMU DEV API for compression |
| Mentioned in our posts | 2 | 3 |
| Features (Speed Optimization plugins checklist) | ||
| Page cache | Paid | — |
| Browser cache | Paid | — |
| Minify CSS/JS | Paid | — |
| CDN | Paid | Yes |
| Object cache | No | — |
| Database cleanup | Paid | — |
| Free version | No | Yes |
| More features | ||
| Other features | Cache preloading ($), Critical CSS generation through vendor API ($), Unused CSS removal through vendor API ($), RocketCDN content delivery ($), Cloudflare API integration ($), Sucuri WAF integration ($), Scheduled database optimisation ($) | Bulk compression of the media library, Lazy loading for images and embedded video, WebP and AVIF conversion (Pro) ($) |
| Integrations | ||
| Analytics | Mixpanel ($) | — |
| Storage | RocketCDN ($) | — |
| E-commerce | — | WooCommerce |
| Plugins | — | WP Rocket, Elementor, Divi, Gravity Forms |
| Other | Cloudflare ($), Sucuri ($) | WPMU DEV Smush API |
| Requires WordPress | 5.8 | 6.4 |
| Requires PHP | 7.4 | 7.4 |
| Tested up to | — | 7.1 |
| Phones home | Only if you agree | Only if you agree |
| External services | cpcss.wp-rocket.me, api.wp-rocket.me, b.rucss.wp-rocket.me, saas.wp-rocket.me, rocketcdn.me, api.cloudflare.com, waf.sucuri.net, cdn.mxpnl.com | smushpro.wpmudev.com |
| Custom tables | — | 1 |