The Evolution of Web Optimization: Sunsetting ImageRecycle

Why we are closing our doors to new subscriptions and the timeline for existing users.

After 10 years of helping thousands of websites speed up their loading times and improve their SEO through image compression, we have made the difficult decision to sunset the ImageRecycle service.

Effective immediately, we are closing ImageRecycle to new subscriptions and halting all new development.

Why are we doing this?

The web landscape looks very different today than it did when we launched. Back then, server-side image compression was a critical, standalone necessity. Today, the ecosystem has evolved for the better:

Next-Gen Formats: Modern formats like WebP and AVIF offer superior compression natively and are now widely supported by browsers.

Integrated Solutions: Image optimization is increasingly handled automatically at the edge by CDNs or is a standard, free feature within modern CMS platforms.

Maintaining a standalone compression service and keeping extensions updated across multiple CMS ecosystems requires significant resources. We believe those resources are better spent developing new tools that solve today’s current problems, rather than maintaining legacy solutions for problems the web has largely solved.

What this means for existing customers:

We are committed to a graceful exit. We will keep the service running for one full year to ensure you have ample time to transition.

Service Continuity: Your API keys and plugins will continue to work normally for the next 12 months.

No New Features: There will be no further updates to our plugins or the API.

Transitioning: We recommend using this year to transition your workflow to a CDN-based optimization solution or a native CMS plugin that supports WebP/AVIF generation.

We want to thank all the web designers, developers, and eCommerce managers who trusted ImageRecycle with their media. It has been a pleasure serving you.