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ImageOptim VS Purlo.dev

Compare ImageOptim VS Purlo.dev and see what are their differences

ImageOptim

Faster web pages and apps.

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Open source
Alternatives Is it good?
Purlo.dev

A simple image API — resize, convert (WebP/AVIF), compress and strip EXIF/GPS metadata in one call.

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Freemium £5 / Monthly (Starter — 5,000 images/mo)
Alternatives Is it good?
HasData
HasData is a top web scraping platform for developers and enterprises. It delivers structured, real-time data from the web using scalable APIs and no-code tools, removing the need to manage proxies, browsers, or anti-bot systems. sponsored

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, ImageOptim seems to be more popular. It has been mentioned 54 times since March 2021.

social mentions
54 vs 0
Image Optimisation popularity
99% vs 1%
alternatives listed
240+ vs 8

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

ImageOptim
Purlo.dev
Website imageoptim.com purlo.dev
Pricing
Open source
Freemium £5 / Monthly (Starter — 5,000 images/mo) Official pricing
Platforms —
SaaS Cloud REST API Web Node JS +2
Company — Startup from the United Kingdom · 1 - 9 employees · 2026
Listed in
Image Optimisation Image Editing Image Effects File Sharing +1
Image Processing Developer Tools APIs Developer APIs Image Optimisation +2

About ImageOptim and Purlo.dev

In their own words, as submitted to SaaSHub.

ImageOptim
Purlo.dev

No description of ImageOptim yet.

Purlo is a cheap, simple image-processing API for developers who need to clean up user uploads — without running their own pipeline or paying enterprise-platform prices. One endpoint, POST /v1/image, does the whole job in a single call: Resize — fit to width/height, never upscales Convert — WebP,...

Read more about Purlo.dev

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

ImageOptim 6 features
Purlo.dev 8 features
  • Lossless Compression
    ImageOptim performs lossless image compression, meaning it reduces file sizes without sacrificing image quality.
  • Privacy Focused
    ImageOptim processes images on your Mac, ensuring that no data is sent to a third-party server, which enhances privacy.
  • Easy to Use
    The software has a simple, intuitive drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy for users to optimize images quickly.
  • Supports Multiple Formats
    ImageOptim supports a variety of image formats including PNG, JPEG, and GIF, making it a versatile tool for different types of images.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source software, ImageOptim allows users to inspect the source code, contribute to its development, and ensure its security.
  • Free of Charge
    The software is available for free, allowing users to take advantage of its features without any cost.

Possible disadvantages

  • Limited Advanced Features
    ImageOptim lacks some advanced features found in paid image optimization tools, such as detailed file analysis and batch processing options.
  • Mac-Only
    The software is only available for macOS, so users on other operating systems cannot use it.
  • Potentially Slower for Large Jobs
    While efficient for individual images, ImageOptim may be slower for optimizing large batches of high-resolution images.
  • No Cloud Integration
    ImageOptim does not offer cloud integration, which means users can't directly optimize images stored in cloud services.
  • Operations
    Resize, convert, compress, strip metadata — chained in one call
  • Output formats
    WebP, AVIF, JPEG, PNG
  • Metadata Handling
    Strips EXIF/GPS, keeps the ICC colour profile
  • Input
    Multipart upload or URL fetch (SSRF-guarded)
  • Image storage
    None — stateless, images deleted after processing
  • Authentication
    API key (Bearer token)
  • Free Tier
    1,000 images/month, no card
  • Client library
    Zero-dependency @purlo/cli (npm)

Analysis

An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.

ImageOptim
Purlo.dev

Overall verdict

  • Yes, ImageOptim is considered a good tool for image optimization. It is user-friendly, effective, and integrates well with various workflows, making it a popular choice among web developers and designers.

Why this product is good

  • ImageOptim is highly regarded for its ability to compress images without significant loss of quality. It optimizes images by removing unnecessary metadata and employing various compression techniques. This results in smaller file sizes, which helps speed up website load times and reduces bandwidth usage.

Recommended for

  • Web developers looking to improve website speed and performance
  • Designers who need to optimize images for digital use without compromising quality
  • Photographers seeking to reduce file sizes for online portfolios
  • Anyone needing a straightforward tool for reducing image file sizes

No analysis of Purlo.dev yet.

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

ImageOptim 3 videos + Add
Purlo.dev 0 videos + Add

An absolute beginers guide to using Imageoptim on a Mac

More videos

  • - An introduction to ImageOptim CLI
  • - Ускоряем загрузку сайта [Сжимаем графику при помощи ImageOptim или FileOptimizer]

No Purlo.dev videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100
ImageOptim
Purlo.dev
99% 99%
Image Optimisation
1% 1%
0% 0%
APIs
100% 100%
100% 100%
Image Editing
0% 0%
0% 0%
Image Processing
100% 100%

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing ImageOptim and Purlo.dev.

What makes your product unique?

Purlo.dev's answer:

Purlo does one thing deliberately well: a single API call that resizes, converts (WebP/AVIF/JPEG/PNG), compresses and strips EXIF/GPS metadata — chained in one request, in a fixed, documented order. It's stateless by design — images are processed in memory and discarded immediately, never stored — and it keeps the ICC colour profile when it strips metadata, so privacy-sensitive data is removed without shifting your colours. It's not a media platform or a CDN; it's the focused "clean up an upload" step, built and priced to stay simple.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

Purlo.dev's answer:

If you just need to clean and resize user uploads, the big platforms (Cloudinary, imgix, ImageKit) are more than the job asks for — more features, more concepts, and usage-based pricing to model. Purlo is cheaper and simpler: flat pricing from £5/month, a generous free tier (1,000 images/month, no card), one endpoint to learn, and a ten-minute integration. The privacy angle comes for free — images are never stored and EXIF/GPS is stripped by default. Choose Purlo when you want the upload-cleaning job done simply and affordably, not a whole media platform.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

Purlo.dev's answer:

Solo developers and small teams building apps that accept image uploads — SaaS products, marketplaces, social and content apps — who need to resize, convert and strip metadata from those uploads without running their own image pipeline or paying enterprise-platform prices. Developers who value a fast, well-documented integration and a clear privacy story.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

Purlo.dev's answer:

Node.js (Express) with sharp (libvips) for image processing, SQLite (better-sqlite3) for accounts/keys/usage, Stripe for billing, Resend for transactional email, and Docker behind nginx with Let's Encrypt TLS.

What's the story behind your product?

Purlo.dev's answer:

The problem behind Purlo is one I've watched repeat for well over a decade. Since working at the BBC around 2010, the single most common reason I've seen sites turn slow is simple: people upload full-size, unoptimised images straight off a phone or camera and wonder why their pages crawl. Even today, page weight is one of the first things I check for a new client — it's one of the most common mistakes on the web, and one of the easiest to fix. Almost every app that takes image uploads needs to resize them, convert to a web-friendly format, compress, and strip the EXIF/GPS metadata those files carry — yet most teams rebuild that same pipeline every time, security corners (resource limits, SSRF protection) included. Purlo packages that whole job into one simple, affordable API, so a developer can fix it in ten minutes instead of maintaining their own. Built and run by Axiom Testing Ltd.

User comments

Share your experience with using ImageOptim and Purlo.dev. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

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Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

ImageOptim 54 mentions
Purlo.dev 0 mentions

View more

Tracking Purlo.dev since Sep 2026.

Alternatives to ImageOptim and Purlo.dev

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