FastPixel vs FlyingPress: Best Website Optimizer for WordPress
FastPixel and FlyingPress are standout plugins, each with distinct features aimed at turbocharging website speed, efficiency, and user experience.
Let’s take a deep dive into comparing these two, so you can pick the perfect fit for your website’s needs.
Understanding the plugins
FastPixel
FastPixel stands out as a cloud-based website optimizer. Offering a range of optimization features, including image compression and CDN integration, it provides users with a suite of functionalities aimed at boosting their website’s speed and efficiency.
FlyingPress
FlyingPress is an optimization solution designed to improve the website’s performance. Created by the same author behind Flying X plugins like Flying Images and Flying Scripts, FlyingPress consolidates these functionalities into an all-in-one tool. Similar to WP Rocket, it focuses on local optimization, ensuring ease of use, performance, and customization within your site’s environment. Additionally, it shares similarities with NitroPack by offering CDN support for content delivery.
Feature comparison
Image optimization
FastPixel primarily focuses on image optimization with cloud-based compression, WebP, and serving adaptive images.
FlyingPress, on the other hand, provides cloud-based image optimization services through a paid add-on.
Both plugins contribute to an enhanced overall website performance; however, FastPixel’s unique advantage lies in its specialized focus on advanced image optimization, coupled with the added benefit of not requiring any additional payments. This combination provides FastPixel with a distinctive edge in this area.
| FastPixel | FlyingPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Image compression | Yes | Only with a paid add-on |
| Local/cloud compression | Cloud | Cloud |
| Adaptive images | Yes | Yes |
| WebP generation & delivery | Yes | Only with a paid add-on |
| Lazy loading | Yes | Yes |
| Lazy loading iframes | Yes | Yes |
| Add missing height and width attributes | Yes | Yes |
| LQIPs | No | No |
Caching
Both FastPixel and FlyingPress incorporate essential caching features such as page cache and preloading to optimize website performance. However, FlyingPress lacks HTTP caching capabilities.
| FastPixel | FlyingPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Page cache | Yes | Yes |
| Preloading cache | Yes | Yes |
| HTTP caching | Yes (for the resources on the CDN) | No |
CSS & JS optimization
FastPixel offloads CSS and JS minification onto a CDN without requiring an additional add-on. In contrast, FlyingPress holds an advantage by locally minifying both CSS and JS.
| FastPixel | FlyingPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Local minify CSS | No | Yes |
| Offload CSS minification (on CDN) | Yes | Only with a paid add-on |
| Combine CSS files | No | No |
| Critical CSS generation | Yes | Yes |
| Load CSS asynchronously | Yes | Yes |
| Deal with unused CSS | Yes | Yes |
| Local minify JS | No | Yes |
| Offload JS minification (on CDN) | Yes | Only with a paid add-on |
| Combine JS files | No | No |
| Deferred loading JS | Yes | Yes |
| Delay JS execution | Yes | Yes |
Fonts & database optimization
FastPixel incorporates a distinctive feature that efficiently identifies characters and symbols in active use on a web page, subsequently integrated into a custom font. This approach allows websites to load only the necessary font glyphs, optimizing performance by reducing the overall font file size and improving page load times. However, it doesn’t provide local font hosting or any database optimization capabilities.
Both plugins support font preloading. In addition, FlyingPress also offers specific database optimization functionalities.
| FastPixel | FlyingPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-load fonts | Yes | Yes |
| Delete unnecessary database entries | No | Yes |
| Schedule database maintenance | No | Yes |
| Optimize database tables | No | Yes |
CDN integration
FastPixel seamlessly integrates with a CDN service (via bunny.net) to efficiently deliver HTML, images, CSS, JS, and fonts. In contrast, FlyingPress offers CDN-related features but requires an additional payment for access.
| FastPixel | FlyingPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Included in the price or pay extra? | Yes, included | No, pay extra |
| What does the CDN serve? | Images, HTML, CSS, JS, fonts | Images, CSS, JS |
| CDN provider | bunny.net | bunny.net |
| Purge CDN cache in 1 click | Yes, but CDN cache is cleared only if images are updated | Yes |
| Custom subdomain | No | Yes |
Other optimizations
Unlike FlyingPress, FastPixel has the capability to preload requests. It remains uncertain whether FlyingPress can preconnect to required origins.
| FastPixel | FlyingPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Heartbeat Optimization | No | No |
| DNS prefetch | Yes | Yes |
| Preconnect to required origins | Yes | Unknown |
| Preload requests | Yes | No |
| GZIP/BRotli compression | Yes | Yes |
Pricing structure
FastPixel offers various plans billed monthly or yearly for one website, including a free plan. The cheapest plan starts at $10 per month for a website that has approximately 50,000 page views/month. All plans include all available features, image optimization, and unlimited CDN traffic.
FlyingPress’ pricing starts at $60 for the initial year, with a $42 renewal fee for a single website. Users also have the option to include a CDN addon, available at $3 per 100GB per month for each website.
Takeaways
Both plugins are geared towards boosting WordPress performance, sharing similar goals but employing distinct approaches.
FastPixel operates as a cloud-based accelerator, excelling in various optimization aspects. On the flip side, FlyingPress takes inspiration from WP Rocket’s local optimization and NitroPack’s CDN-centric approach. This combination allows FlyingPress to offer both local and CDN optimization.
The choice between the two depends on your specific needs, priorities, and budget. Opt for FlyingPress if you seek a tool with dual optimization capabilities (local and cloud-based), along with the option for CDN integration at an additional cost. Otherwise, if your focus is on cloud-based optimization, particularly in image compression and broader WordPress-specific enhancements, FastPixel might be the more suitable option for you.
Give FastPixel a try for free
Take a brief pause to check the performance of your WordPress site for free and measure the before and after results to see the value FastPixel adds to your site.
