
Ask HN: Best Self-Hosted, Server-Side Image Optimization Tools? - DivineTraube
Compressing images is extremely important for web performance. There are several desktop apps (e.g., ImageOptim, Trimage, ImageAlpha) and web services (e.g., TinyPNG, Kraken, Cloudinary, Imgix, CompressPNG, ImageOptim) that perform optimizations.<p>Thumbor (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;thumbor.org&#x2F; ) is a tool that can be installed locally in an application architecture. However, it is focused on cropping &amp; resizing, though it can also transcode to WebP and call external optimizers.<p>What is the most complete solution you are aware of that compresses &amp; optimizes png, jpeg, and webp and can be operated on a server? It should not only be able to optimize as part of the build process but also in response to user-generated content.
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wsxiaoys
I believe the most complete solution is a full unix environment with shell
piping the image stream. so i make [https://bash.rocks](https://bash.rocks),
which is a web frontend backed by a unix environment.

Snippets:

1\. Resizing with imagemagick:
[https://bash.rocks/Gxlg31/3](https://bash.rocks/Gxlg31/3)

2\. Resizing and convert to webp:
[https://bash.rocks/7J1jgB/1](https://bash.rocks/7J1jgB/1)

After creating the snippet, you could either use GET
[https://bash.rocks/0Be95B](https://bash.rocks/0Be95B) (query parameters
become environment variable) or POST
[https://bash.rocks/jJggWJ](https://bash.rocks/jJggWJ) (request body become
stdin).

It's not hard to roll your backend like this for private usage (simply exec
from node). I'm also working on an open source release.

~~~
wsxiaoys
And now the backend (running arbitrary unix command as http service) is open
sourced at
[https://github.com/bashrocks/shebang](https://github.com/bashrocks/shebang)

------
matrix
For Java (or other JVM languages such as Kotlin), TwelveMonkeys is powerful
and does not have external dependencies:

[https://github.com/haraldk/TwelveMonkeys](https://github.com/haraldk/TwelveMonkeys)

------
Theodores
Google Pagespeed for Nginx and Apache is another way to go. The benefit of
this approach is that you don't have to bulk out your code.

As for metadata, today I decided to add it back in.

[https://www.gs1.org/sites/default/files/docs/gdsn/Product_Im...](https://www.gs1.org/sites/default/files/docs/gdsn/Product_Image_Specification.pdf)

For ecommerce it will eventally help to have product data, e.g. brand, product
name etc embedded in the image.

My other tip if you go the Imagemagick/PAGESPEED route then you can use 4:2:2
colour space and ditch half the bits used for chroma.

------
tobltobs
In my experience not the optimization is the hard part. But the eventually
necessary scaling down you have to do first. Doing this with Imagemagick,
Pillow or whatever will result in possible OOMs or gigabyte sized, not so
temporary files filling your /tmp dir for large source images.

The only tool I ever found which does this job reliable even for huge images
is [http://www.vips.ecs.soton.ac.uk](http://www.vips.ecs.soton.ac.uk) .

~~~
brightball
Need to use the thumbnail flag with imagemagick. Gives it a huge performance
boost and strips the metadata out of the file.

~~~
r1ch
Be very careful with this one!

-thumbnail causes ImageMagick to embed "freedesktop.org Thumbnail Managing Standard" metadata into the output image. Such metadata includes the full local path (!). I found this by accident on our wiki (Mediawiki, which uses ImageMagick).

[https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T108616](https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T108616)

~~~
brightball
Was not aware of that....

------
cbr
I used to work on mod_pagespeed / ngx_pagespeed, and I'm very proud of our
image optimization: [https://modpagespeed.com/doc/filter-image-
optimize](https://modpagespeed.com/doc/filter-image-optimize)

It compresses and optimizes png, gif, and jpeg, creates webp for browsers that
support it, inlines small images into your html, longcaches images, and even
creates srcsets.

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fweespeech
> What is the most complete solution you are aware of that compresses &
> optimizes png, jpeg, and webp and can be operated on a server? It should not
> only be able to optimize as part of the build process but also in response
> to user-generated content.

Tbh the UGC side is just triggering the "build process side" as the upload
occurs.

As far as best,

[https://github.com/MediaCrush/MediaCrush/blob/b32e2752d1a19d...](https://github.com/MediaCrush/MediaCrush/blob/b32e2752d1a19dcf9b4a88945c9dc1441153f5a6/mediacrush/processing/processors.py)

I'd suggest you look there for some decent examples of how to go about it.
They may be defunct but I use a similar approach (slightly different knob
tweaks with the same binaries) and it works fine. May not be 100% optimal but
its good enough imo.

------
vladdanilov
I'm working on Optimage [1] for both lossless and visually lossless (lossy)
optimizations. Right now it's available for Mac only. But I have a Linux
version working internally as part of the upcoming Server plan.

[1] [http://getoptimage.com](http://getoptimage.com)

------
ikennachifo
With this recent
addition([https://webspeedtest.cloudinary.com](https://webspeedtest.cloudinary.com))
to tools you can use,
Cloudinary([http://cloudinary.com](http://cloudinary.com)) is hands down the
best for me, In all the time I've been using it, It usually has a way of
meeting all my needs. I'm obsessed with page speeds and Optimization, like I
have sleepless nights optimizing, but since using Cloudinary, I can sleep well
on some nights now. And No! I don't work there, but bless the people that work
there.

------
eeeps
Disclaimer: I work for Cloudinary. But: all of the services that you mention
have an awful lot to offer, over roll-your-own solutions. Reliability and
scalability, sure — but also, right now, just flat-out-better performance and
output. From big flashy features like automatic optimization using perceptual
metrics and on-the-fly responsive resizing with Client Hints ... all the way
down to nitty gritty stuff that doesn’t get press releases like, say, dialed-
in custom resizing algorithms... in 2017, hosted, paid services can do a lot
more a lot better than anything you can set up yourself using free tools.

Images are complicated and important enough that I don't see that changing any
time soon.

~~~
tomc1985
I'm sorry but I beg to differ. Cloud firms are trying to suffocate self-
service tooling and images are, frankly, not that complicated. If you want to
sell to technology illiterates then fine but this is an attempt to kill expert
solutions. No FUD please

~~~
jonsneyers
I also beg to differ. Images are pretty complicated. Just simple downscaling
is obviously not that hard (unless you're like me and you worry about which
colorspace you do it in, with which filter, what kind of performance for huge
images, etc). But other things like lossy compression quality setting
selection, automatic cropping for responsive art direction, etc etc: those
things are not trivial at all.

Don't get me wrong: I'm a big fan of FOSS, and I think it's great to have in-
house image management solutions based on FOSS tools like ImageMagick,
mod_pagespeed and thumbor. And if your website is relatively small and the
image workflows are relatively simple, that might very well be the best
solution.

But I also think that for companies who just need some image management
solution for their website or app, it can make a lot of sense to use an
external service. It is simply a matter of dev effort and risk management. It
makes more sense to have your devs focus on the core business. Building some
simple in-house image management infrastructure is not that hard, but what
when the next ImageTragick happens, or some new image format arrives, or
browsers get new responsive image features which require more variants or
server-side cleverness? Do you really want your devs to have to think about
that stuff? Maybe, maybe not. If not, then moving it to an external cloud
service does make sense.

Disclaimer: I work at Cloudinary; I'm also the creator of FLIF
([https://github.com/FLIF-hub/FLIF](https://github.com/FLIF-hub/FLIF)).

------
rawrmaan
Sharp for node.js has proven to be powerful, flexible and fast for my needs:
[https://github.com/lovell/sharp/](https://github.com/lovell/sharp/)

~~~
mov
We also used sharp as part of a flow based pipeline for image analysis powered
by NoFlo/Flowhub: [https://github.com/noflo/noflo-
sharp](https://github.com/noflo/noflo-sharp)

We have been processing >3k images/day and >60k images/month.

------
NicoJuicy
I use ImageResizer 4.3.2 for Asp.Net MVC ( it's free), new versions are less
free though... Best thing is, if you want to resize, you can just do it
through the url. Eg. /Assets/img/logo.png?Width=200

------
r1ch
I use a combination of jpegoptim, optipng, advpng and zopflipng.

Be especially careful with these utilities when running them on UGC. PNG /
JPEG bombs can easily cause OOM or CPU DoS conditions etc.

------
logicuce
I think Thumbor fits the bill very well. In fact, using something like APSL's
thumbor docker image [1], you get the complete setup including the optimizers,
object detection, etc. ready to go.

It works really well for UGC as an ondemand optimizer but you can easily make
some URL calls to include it in the build time as well.

[1] [https://github.com/APSL/docker-thumbor](https://github.com/APSL/docker-
thumbor)

------
v3ss0n
pilbox is very powerful :
[https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pilbox](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pilbox)

~~~
pbreit
I was going to mention Pillow, the python successor to PIL, which powers
Pilbox.

~~~
fwefwwfe
Is that still a PITA to install correctly?

~~~
peterbe
Nope. Not any more.

------
focusgroup0
[https://github.com/image-server/image-server](https://github.com/image-
server/image-server)

------
tmaly
I ended up writing something in Go that resizes images to different devices
after a user uploads the food image.

I originally tried to use Google Pagespeed but I was getting some strange
error message from image compression.

------
nielsole
Haven't tried it out, but looked quite promising:
[https://github.com/thephpleague/glide/](https://github.com/thephpleague/glide/)
Does everything basic, that I would look for in an image API

------
Mojah
I automated my workflow server side with OptiPNG.
[https://ma.ttias.be/optimize-size-png-images-
automatically-w...](https://ma.ttias.be/optimize-size-png-images-
automatically-webserver-optipng/)

------
silasb
[https://github.com/h2non/imaginary](https://github.com/h2non/imaginary)
appears to support quality/compression settings.

~~~
geektips
This is the best. I have been using this for a while and It was very easy to
run this in our vps.

~~~
sparkktv
Agree also...

~~~
sunnypritam
Cloudinary in my opinion is also the best place for optimized photo delivery.
The important part is you needn't spent any buck out of your pocket to try it.
It has some amazing tools like image breakpoint, auto quality and format which
delivers extremely optimised images speedily.

------
iamonuwa
pilbox is very powerful :
[https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pilbox](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pilbox)

However with the recent addition by cloudinary
([https://webspeedtest.cloudinary.com](https://webspeedtest.cloudinary.com)),
the tool is awesome for me.

------
tyingq
[https://pngquant.org](https://pngquant.org) lossy optimization of png images.

------
anilshanbhag
optipng and jpegoptim are pretty good. Have a feeling most of these tools use
these utilities inside them.

