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Free Plugin by Steve Truman v2.7.9

a3 Lazy Load

Use a3 Lazy Load for images, videos, iframes that are not lazy loaded by WordPress core. Instantly improve your sites load time and dramatically impro …

a3 Lazy Load

The facts

Rating
4.3★ from 148
Active installs
90k+
Price
Free
Last updated
8 Jul 2026
Added
Dec 2014
Requires WP
6.0
Tested up to
WP 7.0.4
Downloads
4,328,513

Our analysis

AI-assisted

a3 Lazy Load is a WordPress plugin designed to improve page load speed by implementing lazy loading for images, videos, and iframes. It is particularly beneficial for content-heavy sites, as it enhances performance by loading media only when it is needed, rather than all at once.

The plugin allows you to control lazy loading for images not stored in the WordPress media library, as well as for videos and iframes. It can also disable the default WordPress lazy loading feature if preferred, making it suitable for users who want more control over their site's media loading behaviour.

Best for: This plugin is best for users with media-rich WordPress sites looking to enhance loading speed.

What it does well

  • Improves page load speed for content-heavy sites
  • Supports lazy loading for images, videos, and iframes
  • Allows disabling of WordPress Core Lazy Load
  • Flexible options for lazy loading across various content types
  • Compatible with WordPress 6.0 and earlier versions

Where it falls short

  • Limited information on specific performance improvements
  • No details on compatibility with plugins or themes

Verdict

a3 Lazy Load offers useful features for optimising media loading, particularly for sites with extensive content. It is a straightforward solution for users seeking to improve performance.

From the developer

Steve Truman's own description of a3 Lazy Load, lightly tidied.

a3 Lazy Load is a Mobile Oriented, very simple to use plugin that will speed up sites page load speed. The more content heavy your site the better the plugin will perform and the more you will see the improvements in performance. See this demo of a page with 1,000 images (yes 1,000 images) to load.

a3 Lazy Load is inspired by and powered by the ressio Lazy-Load-xt JavaScript.

100% compatable with WordPress 6.0

WordPress 5.5 introduced lazy loading for all images uploaded to a sites media library and 5.7 introduces Core lazy load for iframes and 5.9 contained performance enhancements. a3 Lazy Load Image options work side-by-side with these, but then enhances it by lazy loading all the images loaded from outside of the media library, or on older browsers that do not support the new WP attribute and any iframes or videos that are not lazy loaded by WordPress.

Disable WordPress Lazy Load

The plugin includes an option to completely disable WordPress Core Lazy Load if that is what you want to do.

Image Lazy Load

For more flexibility when ON you can choose to ON | OFF lazy load all images that are not loaded from the WordPress media Library in:

  • Post, Pages and Custom Post Types (All Content areas)
  • Widgets (Sidebar, header and footer)
  • Apply to post thumbnails
  • Apply to gravatars

Horizontal scroll

Supports lazy loading of images in containers that use horizontal scroll. The admin Images options has a section where you enter the classname or ID of the container that uses horizontal scroll.

Video Lazy Load

From the a3 lazy Load admin panel turn Video Support ON | OFF. When ON you can choose to ON | OFF lazy load for videos in

  • Video embeded by URL in Post and Pages (All Content areas)
  • Video in Widget types, Text Widget and HTML Widgets.

iFRAME LAZY LOAD

a3 Lazy Load has built in support for content that is added by iframe from any source in content and widgets and will lazy load any iframe that WordPress core does not load. Examples

Read the full description on the official page →

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