WordPress 7.1 is changing where some of the work involved in image processing takes place — and that could make it worth reviewing what your image optimisation plugin is actually doing.
The Blog Edit looks at WordPress 7.1’s new client-side media processing, which can move jobs such as compression, resizing, cropping and thumbnail generation from the web server into supported browsers. The new libvips-based system can also produce more efficiently compressed JPEGs and improve handling of formats including WebP and AVIF.
But this isn’t a case of image optimisation plugins suddenly becoming obsolete.
The article makes an important distinction between a plugin that simply compresses new uploads and services that also optimise an existing media library, generate alternative formats, dynamically resize images or deliver them through a CDN. WordPress Core may increasingly cover some of the first category, while leaving plenty of work for the second.
The takeaway is less about removing plugins and more about checking whether each one still earns its place.