Squoosh vs TinyPNG vs Squishly

Three good image compressors, three different philosophies. We use all of them — here’s an honest take on what each does best, so you can pick the right one for the job. (Yes, we make one of them. We’ll keep it fair.)

TinyPNG alternative: private and without limits

The most common reason people look for a TinyPNG alternative is the free web version’s ceiling. TinyPNG’s own page says free users can upload up to 20 images at once, with a maximum of 5 MB each, and that uploaded images are kept on its servers for up to 48 hours before they are deleted. For a quick batch of web graphics that is fine. For a folder of phone photos, where a single shot is often 6 to 12 MB, the 5 MB cap means many files are turned away before they are compressed at all.

Squishly takes a different route: the compression runs inside your browser, so nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored and there is no daily or monthly quota. You can compress up to 30 images per batch at up to 50 MB each, run as many batches as you like, and download the results as one ZIP. If privacy is the deciding factor, for example ID scans, medical photos or anything under an NDA, not uploading the file at all is a stronger guarantee than a short retention period.

Where TinyPNG still wins is integration. Its developer API includes 500 free compressions each month with no payment method required, and its plugins slot into design and publishing tools that Squishly does not touch. If you need compression to happen automatically on a server, TinyPNG is built for that and Squishly is not.

A practical way to choose: if the images are public anyway, such as blog graphics or product shots already on your site, and you value the TinyPNG workflow, the upload is not much of a concern. If the images are personal or confidential, or simply bigger than 5 MB, an in-browser tool saves you a round trip to someone else’s server and the wait that comes with it. Both approaches produce files you can use straight away; the difference is where the work happens and how much you can send at once.

A Squoosh alternative for whole batches

Squoosh is the tool we admire most on this list. It is open source under the Apache 2.0 license, and its page says images never leave your device because Squoosh does all the work locally. The workflow is built around a single image: open it, compare the before and after side by side, adjust the settings, save. For getting one hero image exactly right, that hands-on control is the point.

It is less handy when you have twenty photos from a trip or a product shoot. You repeat the open, tune and save routine for every file, and there is no single download at the end. Squishly keeps the same private, in-browser approach but is built for the batch: drop the whole set, pick a quality, and download everything as one ZIP. It also covers the jobs around compression, so you can resize an image, crop it or convert PNG to WebP without switching sites.

The honest trade-off is control. Squoosh exposes every encoder knob and a live preview; Squishly hides most of them behind sensible defaults. If you like to tune, use Squoosh for the one image that matters and Squishly for the rest of the folder.

Both tools share one limit worth knowing: because the work happens on your own device, a very old phone or a huge batch of 40 megapixel photos takes longer than it would on a fast desktop. That is the price of privacy, and for everyday photo sizes it is a matter of seconds. Neither tool asks you to create an account, and neither keeps a copy of what you compressed, because there is nothing on a server to keep.

Squoosh vs TinyPNG: which one compresses smaller?

It depends on the image and the settings, and anyone who quotes a single winning percentage for every photo is simplifying. TinyPNG picks the settings for you and aims for the smallest file that still looks right, which makes it very good for a one-click result, especially on PNG graphics. Squoosh lets you choose the format and the quality yourself, so in skilled hands it can match or beat TinyPNG on a given image, and it can also produce a bigger file if you leave the quality high.

Format is often a bigger lever than the tool. The same photo saved as WebP or AVIF is usually noticeably smaller than as a JPG at similar visual quality, and TinyPNG’s page lists AVIF, WebP, JPG, PNG, APNG and JPEG XL among its supported formats. If the destination accepts WebP, converting is worth more than switching compressors.

The fair test is your own files. Take three typical images, run them through each tool at its default setting, and compare the file sizes and how they look at 100 percent zoom. For most people the deciding factors end up being something else entirely: whether the files may be uploaded, how many there are, and whether they need resizing or converting at the same time.

If you want to try the format route, Squishly can convert PNG to WebP or AVIF in the same private, in-browser way, and you can compare the result side by side with what TinyPNG or Squoosh gives you for the same file. Keep the original next to the converted copies, open all of them at full size, and look at fine detail such as hair, foliage and text on signs, which is where heavy compression shows first. If you cannot tell them apart, the smallest file wins; if one looks softer, step the quality up a notch and check again. Ten minutes of this on a few representative images tells you more than any general benchmark.

Resizing deserves a special mention, because it often beats any compressor. A 4000 pixel photo shown in a 1200 pixel slot on a web page carries more than ten times the pixels it needs, and no amount of clever encoding makes up for that. Resize to the size the image is actually displayed at, then compress, and the file usually ends up a fraction of what compression alone would give you. Squishly does both in one place, in the same batch.