Gumlet vs External Images Plugin
Want faster results? Try External Images on your store.
Get External Images →Comparing Gumlet with External Images? This page breaks down the key differences and similarities so you can find the best fit for your WordPress or WooCommerce store.
Overview of Gumlet
Gumlet is an image optimisation and CDN service that compresses, resizes, and converts images to modern formats on the fly via a proxy CDN. For WordPress, it integrates as a plugin that rewrites image URLs to route requests through Gumlet's processing network, delivering optimised images without modifying source files on your server.
How External Images differs from Gumlet
All plugins from Super Speedy Plugins share a SQL-first architecture and an uncompromising focus on performance — and External Images is no different. Here is what sets it apart:
Store your images anywhere – a CDN, Amazon S3, a Digital Ocean space or your affiliate feed – and serve them straight through WordPress. Nothing gets downloaded to your server, so imports run faster and your disk stops filling up. Works with any post type and every WooCommerce product type, including variations and galleries.
Rated 4.65 out of 5 across 26 reviews.
- Import products without WordPress downloading or resizing a single image
- Scale to millions of products on low-cost hosting, with no image storage to worry about
- Works with WP All Import, Datafeedr and any tool that can set a custom field
- Cut disk usage and the CPU normally spent generating 20+ thumbnail sizes per image
Gumlet optimises the delivery and format of images that are hosted on your server, applying compression and format conversion at the CDN layer. External Images does not optimise existing images but removes the need to host product images on your server at all — storing only the external URL reference and pointing WooCommerce at the original source. For large imported product catalogues, eliminating hosting entirely is a different class of solution from delivery optimisation.
How to choose between Gumlet and External Images?
Gumlet's image processing is valuable for optimising images you host yourself. External Images solves a different problem — eliminating server-hosted product images entirely for stores where images live at external source URLs. SQL-first, one-million-product tested, free trial available.
What do others say about External Images?
I have been looking a very long time for a plugin that does what this plugin does! Amazing support and answers to my questions. Thank you!
Purchased the external images plugin which was superb. Needed some bespoke work so it was compatible with a third party plugin and Dave was only to happy to help and in record time. Very happy.
I'm impressed. I wasn't sure I would be able to accomplish what I needed with my images. I'm hosting images on my site for SEO purposes. On product upload, I don't need WP to download those images and create multiple versions that a browser could serve (more images served = slower website load). Since I've optimized my images I want WordPress to use those images. With the external images plugin, I'm able to upload my images via FTP. Then I upload a reference to those images in the product upload file. Also, support is fantastic. My theme had a slight issue with external images. Dave personally looked into it and was able to quickly resolve the issue for me.
External Images Knowledge Base
View full Knowledge Base →Articles about External Images
View all articles →- December Development Update
- More speed, more updates, and a bit of a roadmap for our plugins
- More beta updates available
- Dev Diary #7
- Dev Diary #6
- Dev Diary #4
- Dev Diary #2
- External Images 1.97 released
- External Images upgrade released – gallery support added
- External Images upgrade released
What's new in External Images?
3.35 (26th May 2026)
- Added new postmeta filter to add front-end gallery compatibility to latest Houzez theme – they no longer use metabox for their metadata
3.34 (20th May 2026)
- Updated the Super Speedy Settings page: added a "Recheck Licenses" button above the licence table so customers have a clear way to refresh licence status after a renewal or upgrade without scrolling down to the licence-key field. The button is disabled until a licence key is entered/saved and re-enables as you type.
- The Recheck flow now also force-bypasses the auth-server's own 1-hour licence cache (via a `force=1` flag on the `wpiapi/check_product_key` call), so renewals/upgrades that completed less than an hour before a recheck no longer show as expired/exceeded. Normal admin page loads continue to use both caches as before — only an explicit Recheck click bypasses them. (Lives in the `super-speedy-settings` submodule, so the change propagates to every Super Speedy plugin.)
3.33 (18th November 2025)
- Added full namespacing for plugin update checker to prevent conflicts with 3rd party plugins
3.32 (27th May 2025)
- Removed code for checking for and deleting orphans – this can be handled through a KB article instead as it's a one-off job to clean up data
Want faster results? Try External Images on your store.
Get External Images →