Image Compression: Imgbot GitHub app vs built-in Optimize plugin

[santaimpersonator]

Has anyone tested the Imgbot Github app against the built-in Optimize plugin, from the MkDocs-Material theme?

	Imgbot GitHub App	Built-in Optimize Plugin
Pros	Provides image compression for multiple file types Utilize either a lossy or lossless compression Open-source and verified GitHub app Free for public GitHub repositories	Only compresses images when copying them to the site directory Only runs on builds for documentation, in a specific repository
Cons	Runs across all repositories Compresses images directly in the repositories	Only provides image compression for *.png and *.jpg files Insiders only feature

[squidfunk]

To add to that: you can actually combine it with the privacy plugin to store images outside of the repository (which VCS like git don't particularly like due to their binary nature), creating a workflow that downloads, optimizes, and inlines those images with your documentation.

This option makes the built-in privacy plugin an excellent choice for when you want to host assets like images outside of your git repository in another location to keep them fresh and your repository lean.

Additionally, as of insiders-4.30.0, the built-in privacy plugin was entirely rewritten and now works perfectly with the built-in optimize plugin, which means that external assets can be passed through the same optimization pipeline as the rest of your documentation. This means you can store and edit unoptimized files outside of your repository, and let both plugins built a highly optimized site for you.

If you want to implement separate pipelines, i.e., optimize some images differently from others or exclude some images from downloading, you can use multiple instances of the built-in privacy plugin.

Additionally, you can run the optimize plugin in constrained environments without internet connection, no third-party service needed. Other than that, we'll provide more possibilities for optimization in the future, but we currently have other priorities. Additionally, the optimize plugin will soon be released to the public version 🤟