#354 by installs
Modern Image Formats
Converts images to more modern formats such as WebP or AVIF during upload.
- Installs
- 100,000+
- Rating
- 3.6 (26)
- Updated
- 2 months ago
WebP Express
Serve autogenerated WebP images instead of jpeg/png to browsers that supports WebP.
- Active installs
- 300,000+
- #167 of 1,000
- Downloads, all time
- 4.6M
- 4,619,311
- Downloads, 30 days
- 150.1K
- 30.4K in the last 7
- Rating
- 4.4 / 5
- 162 reviews
- Last updated
- 13 days ago
- Oct 18, 2026
- Version
- 0.25.16
- 94 releases
Upkeep and compatibility
| Last updated | October 18, 2026Updated in the last 3 months |
|---|---|
| Tested up to | WordPress 6.9.11Older than WordPress 7.1.4, the current release |
| Needs WordPress | 4.0 or newer |
| Needs PHP | 5.6 or newer |
| First published | August 1, 2018 |
| Support, last two months | 0 of 4 threads resolved (0%) |
Reviews
4.4 / 5 from 162 reviews
| 5 stars | 131 |
|---|---|
| 4 stars | 6 |
| 3 stars | 2 |
| 2 stars | 7 |
| 1 star | 16 |
Downloads, last 30 days
What the author says it does
More than 9 out of 10 users are using a browser that is able to display webp images. Yet, on most websites, they are served jpeg images, which are typically double the size of webp images for a given quality. What a waste of bandwidth! This plugin was created to help remedy that situation. With little effort, WordPress admins can have their site serving autogenerated webp images to browsers that supports it, while still serving jpeg and png files to browsers that does not support webp.
The image converter
The plugin uses the WebP Convert library to convert images to webp. WebP Convert is able to convert images using multiple methods. There are the “local” conversion methods: imagick, cwebp, vips, gd. If none of these works on your host, there are the cloud alternatives: ewww (paid) or connecting to a WordPress site where you got WebP Express installed and you enabled the “web service” functionality.
The “Serving webp to browsers that supports it” part.
The plugin supports different ways of delivering webps to browsers that supports it:
- By routing jpeg/png images to the corresponding webp – or to the image converter if the image hasn’t been converted yet.
- By altering the HTML, replacing image tags with picture tags. Missing webps are auto generated upon visit.
The opening of the plugin's own description. The full text, installation notes and changelog are on its WordPress.org page.
Questions the author answers
How do I verify that the plugin is working?
Verifying that the plugin works in “Varied image responses” mode
1. Make sure at least one of the conversion methods are working. It should have a green checkmark next to it.
2. If you haven’t saved yet, click “Save settings”. This will put redirection rules into .htaccess files in the relevant directories (typically in uploads, themes and wp-content/webp-express/webp-images, depending on the “Scope” setting)
No conversions methods are working out of the box
Don’t fret – you have options!
- If you a controlling another WordPress site (where the local conversion methods DO work), you can set up WebP Express there, and then connect to it by configuring the “Remote WebP Express” conversion method.
It doesn’t work – Although test conversions work, it still serves jpeg images
Actually, you might be mistaking, so first, make sure that you didn’t make the very common mistake of thinking that something with the URL example.com/image.jpg must be a jpeg image. The plugin serves webp images on same URL as the original (unconverted) images, so do not let appearances fool you! Confused? See next FAQ item.
How can a webp image be served on an URL ending with “jpg”?
Easy enough. Browsers looks at the content type header rather than the URL to determine what it is that it gets. So, although it can be confusing that the resource at example.com/image.jpg is a webp image, rest assured that the browsers are not confused. To determine if the plugin is working, you must therefore examine the content type response header rather than the URL.
WP CLI, but how do I use it to bulk convert?
Well, first, if you don’t know WP CLI, here is a quick start
WebP Express currently supports commands for converting and flushing webp images throug the CLI. You can use the –help option to learn about the options:
wp webp-express –help. Displays the available commands
wp webp-express convert –help. Displays the available options for the “convert” command.
A few examples:
Blank images in Safari?
WebP Express has three ways of distributing webp to webp-enabled browsers while still sending the originals to webp-disabled browsers. While method 1 can be combined with any of the other methods, you would usually just pick method 1 or one of the others if method 1 cannot be used for you.
Can some of these go wrong?
Yes. All!
Method 1: Varied image responses
Latest changelog entry
(released 18 Oct 2026)
* Fixed vulnerability in dom parser library used for altering html. Credit goes to Jakub Herman for discovering the problem. Also fixed a loophole that made it possible to use the web service (if activated) with carefully crafted inputs, even without an api key. Thanks to the third party that found and reported this to the WordPress security team – and thanks to the security team for bringing the issue to my attention
Screenshots
WebP Express settings
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Where this page's numbers come from
Read from the WordPress.org plugin API on , when WordPress 7.1.4 was the current release. WordPress.org rounds active installs into buckets. These are the directory's figures, not my verdict, and I haven't tested this plugin. The author takes donations at their donate page.