by
Jumedeen khan
5 (5 reviews)
Smart LazyLoad – Lazy Load Images, Videos and Iframes
The best free lazy load plugin for WordPress. Lazy load images, videos, and iframes and improve page speed, performance, and Core Web Vitals scores.
Smart LazyLoad ranks #9,982 among WordPress.org plugins with 300+ active installations, is #1,134 of 6,651 in the Media category, a 5/5 rating from 5 reviews, and was last updated Oct 13, 2026. Data from WordPress.org, refreshed twice daily — see methodology.
Compatible with WP 7.1
v3.1.0
Current Version v3.1.0
Updated 3 weeks ago
Last Update on 13 Oct, 2026
Refreshed 1 week ago
Last Refreshed on
#1,134 of 6,651 in Media
Top 25% by installs
Downloads -28.8% this week
Actively maintained
Rank
#9,982
—
No change
Active Installs
300+
-24.4%
KW Avg Position
37.5
—
No change
Downloads
13.9K
+8 today
Support Resolved
0%
—
No change
Rating
100%
Review 5 out of 5
5
(5 reviews)
Next Milestone 400
300+
400+
161
Ranks to Climb
-
Growth Needed
8,000,000
Active Installs
Pro
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Rank Changes
Current
#9,982
Change
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Downloads
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Peak
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5.0
5 reviews
Overall
100%
5
5
(100%)
4
0
(0%)
3
0
(0%)
2
0
(0%)
1
0
(0%)
Security History
Source: WPVulnerabilityNo known vulnerabilities on record for Smart LazyLoad. Checked 3 months ago.
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- Version
- 3.1.0
- Last Updated
- Oct 13, 2026
- Requires WP
- 5.8+
- Tested Up To
- 7.1
- PHP Version
- 7.4 or higher
- Author
- Jumedeen khan
Support & Rating
- Rating
- ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5
- Reviews
- 5
- Support Threads
- 0
- Resolved
- 0%
Keywords
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TL;DR
AI summary of the plugin's readmeThis plugin is for WordPress site owners who want to speed up their pages without adding jQuery or extra bloat. It solves slow page loads and poor Core Web Vitals scores by deferring the loading of images, videos, iframes, and background images until they are near the viewport.
- Lazy load images in posts, pages, widgets
- Lazy load iframes and embedded videos
- Lazy load background images
- YouTube iframe replacement with thumbnails
- First-image skipping for LCP
- Native browser lazy loading support
- Inline plugin CSS and JavaScript
- Disable lazy loading for logged-in users
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Smart LazyLoad – Lazy Load Images, Videos and Iframes
Smart uses the JavaScript engine for viewport-based loading and the plugin's loading controls. Hybrid uses native loading for supported images and iframes, with JavaScript handling other eligible media. Native leaves image and iframe loading to the browser without loading the main lazy-loading library. Native mode does not defer background images. For HTML5 videos, it adds preload="none" when no preload value is set, rather than deferring sources and posters. Optional YouTube thumbnail replacement uses a separate click-to-play script. Thresholds and JavaScript loading effects do not control native browser loading.
Open the Performance tab and enable Protect Important Images. Choose the first image, first two images, or a custom count. In content-only mode, the count applies separately to each processed content fragment; in full-page mode, it applies to the page response. For a specific image, use loading="eager", fetchpriority="high", or an exclusion marker. Check your page's actual LCP image rather than relying on its position alone.
In General → Exclusions, enter classes such as .site-logo or IDs such as #hero-image under Exclude with Classes & IDs. These are individual class or ID matches, not complex CSS selectors. Source URL exclusions match plain substrings of media URLs, not page URLs or regular expressions. You can also add the skip-lazy class or a data-skip-lazy attribute directly to an image, video, iframe, or supported background element. Other recognized markers include no-lazyload, data-no-lazyload, and data-no-lazy. Example: <img src="logo.png" alt="Site logo" class="skip-lazy">
Use General → Page Type Exclusions to skip the front page, blog index, archives, or search results. For an individual post, page, or supported public custom post type, use the Smart LazyLoad editor panel: Default: follow the site-wide settings. Enable: allow processing for this entry, including when its page type is excluded. Disable: skip processing for this entry. The master switch must remain on. A per-post Enable selection does not bypass the master switch or request-level exclusions, such as AMP protection or disabling processing for logged-in users. Turning off the master switch preserves your saved configuration.
By default, the plugin processes supported WordPress content fragments, such as post content, widgets, featured images, and comments. Enable Full-Page Lazy Loading in Advanced to process the complete HTML response, including eligible media printed directly by theme templates. Only one processing approach runs at a time.
Enable Background Images in the Content tab to process inline declarations such as <div style="background-image:url(photo.jpg)"></div>. Backgrounds declared only in external stylesheets are not detected automatically. For manual markup, use <div class="smart-background" data-bg="photo.jpg"></div>. The data-bg value can be a plain image URL. Enable the background variants option for supported retina attributes, multi-layer expressions, and image-set() backgrounds. Gradient-only backgrounds are left unchanged. Background processing requires Smart or Hybrid mode. The plugin adds fallback CSS for processed backgrounds when JavaScript is disabled.
A low-quality image placeholder (LQIP) is a small preview shown while the full image loads. Select it in Appearance and choose a registered image size as its source. Previews for eligible media-library images are generated in the background and cached; an unavailable preview uses the standard placeholder instead. To prepare previews with WP-CLI, run wp smart-lazyload generate-lqip. Use --force to rebuild existing previews or --limit=100 to restrict the command to the first 100 matching attachments. The limit is not a pagination or resumable-batch option. Run wp smart-lazyload clear-lqip to remove cached previews.
Page-builder editor protection and AMP exclusions are enabled by default. The plugin detects supported editing contexts, including Elementor, Avada, Divi, Beaver Builder, WPBakery, and Oxygen, and skips processing there. AMP pages detected through the AMP plugin are also skipped. These controls are available in Advanced. Feeds, previews, admin screens, and REST requests are not processed. Review the published frontend page when testing lazy loading.
Smart LazyLoad rewrites eligible frontend markup without modifying the original media files. Test it with your theme and caching or CDN setup, and clear cached pages after changing settings. Avoid running multiple lazy-loading systems on the same media. The Advanced tab includes optional controls to disable WordPress core lazy loading for managed media and Jetpack Lazy Images processing. Enable these only when needed; the Jetpack option does not disable its image CDN.
JavaScript-deferred images, iframes, and videos include <noscript> fallbacks. Processed backgrounds use fallback CSS. Native mode keeps the media sources available and relies on the browser's loading behavior.
