10 Best Preload Featured Images Alternatives in 2026
Updated September 7, 2026 · Ranked by how closely each plugin matches, from WordPress.org data · How this works
Preload Featured Images has 1,000+ active installs on WordPress.org. These 10 plugins share its category or its tags on WordPress.org, are actively maintained, and each has at least 100 active installs. They are ordered by how closely they match, not by our opinion.
The 10 closest alternatives to Preload Featured Images
- 1
WP Performance Score Booster
Closest matchWP Performance Score Booster – Optimize Speed, Enable Cache & Page Preload
4.6 (339) 10,000+ active installsMake website faster, speed up page load time and improve performance scores in tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, Pingdom, and more.
Shares the performance, preload tags on WordPress.org. About 10 times the installs, last updated 17 days ago.
- 2
4.8 (28) 10,000+ active installsUse Insights from Google PageSpeed to increase your sites performance, your search engine ranking, and your visitors browsing experience.
Shares the pagespeed, performance tags on WordPress.org. About 10 times the installs, no update since July 7, 2024.
- 3
4.4 (69) 4,000+ active installsThis plugin automatically performs several front end optimizations to your site to boost performance and increase PageSpeed scores.
Shares the pagespeed, performance tags on WordPress.org. About 4 times the installs, last updated 15 days ago.
- 4
A faster website! (aka defer.js)
4.9 (45) 200+ active installs🚀 Unleash the power of cutting edge WordPress optimization tech. 💯 SEO-Optimized and 🎯 Effortlessly User-Friendly!
Shares the pagespeed, performance tags on WordPress.org. About a quarter of the installs, no update since September 2, 2025.
- 5
Site Speed Test – SpeedGuard
5.0 (20) 200+ active installsTracks Core Web Vitals for you. Every single day, for free.
Shares the pagespeed, performance tags on WordPress.org. About a quarter of the installs, no update since July 12, 2024.
- 6
4.6 (66) 2,000+ active installsRabbitLoader WordPress connection and performance dashboard.
Shares the pagespeed, performance tags on WordPress.org. About 2 times the installs, last updated 4 days ago.
- 7
BerqWP – All-In-One Optimization for Core Web Vitals, Cache, CDN, Images, CSS & JavaScript
4.2 (52) 4,000+ active installsAutomatically boost your PageSpeed score to 90+ for both mobile & desktop and pass Core Web Vitals for WordPress website without any technical skills.
Shares the pagespeed, performance tags on WordPress.org. About 4 times the installs, last updated 3 days ago.
- 8
WPSpeed
Paid version availableWPSpeed – WordPress Speed, Cache & Performance Optimization (Core Web Vitals, PageSpeed 100)
4.9 (39) 2,000+ active installsWordPress speed optimization plugin to boost PageSpeed, improve Core Web Vitals, reduce TTFB and enable static HTML caching for 100/100 performance.
Shares the pagespeed, performance tags on WordPress.org. About 2 times the installs, last updated 18 days ago.
- 9
4.6 (36) 7,000+ active installsIf a YouTube or Vimeo video embed exists near the start of a post, we'll automatically set the post's featured image to a thumbnail of the video.
Shares the featured images tag on WordPress.org. About 7 times the installs, last updated July 14, 2026.
- 10
4.9 (33) 1,000+ active installsThis plugin works within the Genesis Framework, to display featured images in beautiful and dynamic ways.
Shares the featured images tag on WordPress.org. A similar number of installs, no update since November 11, 2023.
Switching from Preload Featured Images: common questions
What is the best alternative to Preload Featured Images?
WP Performance Score Booster is the closest match: it shares the same WordPress.org tags and has 10,000+ active installs with a 4.6 out of 5 rating.
Which Preload Featured Images alternative has the most users?
WP Performance Score Booster, with 10,000+ active installs reported by WordPress.org.
Which Preload Featured Images alternative is rated highest?
WP Performance Score Booster, rated 4.6 out of 5 by 339 reviewers. Only plugins with at least 50 reviews are counted.
Are these Preload Featured Images alternatives free?
Every plugin listed here is free to install from WordPress.org. Where WordPress.org marks a plugin as commercial, the developer also sells a paid version or add-ons, and that is shown on each plugin.
How are alternatives chosen?
Automatically, from WordPress.org data: plugins that share a category top 10 with Preload Featured Images score highest, then plugins that appear in the same WordPress.org rankings, then plugins with the same tags, weighted so rare tags count more than common ones. Plugins by the same author and plugins rated under 4.0 are left out.
How we choose these alternatives
Nothing on this page is picked by hand. Every day we walk the whole WordPress.org directory, then score every plugin against Preload Featured Images on three signals: sharing a category top 10 counts most, then appearing in the same WordPress.org rankings, then carrying the same tags, with rare tags counting for more than common ones like "wordpress". Plugins by the same author are excluded, so an author's own add-ons cannot fill the list, and so is anything rated below 4.0 or with fewer than 100 active installs. The ten highest scores are what you see, in that order. Full methodology.
The bottom line
WP Performance Score Booster is the closest match to Preload Featured Images by the data we track, and WP Performance Score Booster has the widest reach with 10,000+ active installs. BerqWP shipped the most recent release, on September 4, 2026. The list is rebuilt every day from WordPress.org, so a plugin that stops being maintained drops out on its own.
Weekly · free
What moved this week
One email a week, built from the same daily snapshots these rankings come from: the plugins that climbed, what launched, and one ranking worth a look.