Yea I wished it were easier to use out of the box too. The code is fortunately very well organized so you can just copy the pieces you need: https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/squoosh/tree/master/src/...
It also does make sense for you to pick and choose only the compression codecs you will need. Otherwise the cost of making every client download huge and unused wasm libraries might outweigh any bandwidth savings from compression.
In JavaScript Image Compress Using HTML5 Canvas and File API Before UploadGoogleChromeLabs
squoosh
TypeScript2018–2026
GoogleChromeLabs / squoosh
squoosh
Make images smaller using best-in-class codecs, right in the browser.
24Distinct people
27Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
26.2KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Make images smaller using best-in-class codecs, right in the browser.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 12:03:30 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year27 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2018-11-13 18:47:05 UTC to 2026-10-17 02:37:44 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 1 | 6 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Squoosh!
Squoosh is an image compression web app that reduces image sizes through numerous formats.
Privacy
Squoosh does not send your image to a server. All image compression processes locally.
However, Squoosh utilizes Google Analytics to collect the following:
Basic visitor data.
The before and after image size value.
If Squoosh PWA, the type of Squoosh installation.
If Squoosh PWA, the installation time and date.
Developing
To develop for Squoosh:
Clone the repository
To install node packages, run:
npm install
Then build the app by running:
npm run build
After building, start the development server by running:
npm run dev
Contributing
Squoosh is an open-source project that appreciates all community involvement. To contribute to the project, follow the contribute guide.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
4 sourcesSquoosh is a much better demo of how to do in-browser compression (using optipng, mozjpeg, etc): https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/squoosh/
There are far more knobs you can tune whereas the native browser conversion only has mimetype and quality (via toBlob: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLCanvasE...)
In JavaScript Image Compress Using HTML5 Canvas and File API Before UploadHey, no, https://github.com/caub/im-optim runs on node.js, server-side, and it's not maintained. Someone else mentioned https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/squoosh for server-side image optimization, it might be better maintained, it seems to use webpack image optimizers plugins https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/squoosh/blob/master/pack.... There's also https://github.com/imagemin/imagemin for doing this
For https://caub.github.io/misc/optim, source: https://github.com/caub/misc/blob/master/optim.html, and it runs the following optimizers (compiled with emscripten to run browser-side) from a Web Worker: https://github.com/as-com/mozjpeg-js, https://github.com/psych0der/pngquantjs
In Show HN: Imgsquash – My image compression website projectFigured this is worth a note here: Squoosh is an image compression web app that allows you to dive into the advanced options provided by various image compressors.
https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/squoosh
In Spectrum – Image transcoding library for Android or iOS