# Hermoso: Free Image Tools vs Paid: Compress, Resize, Read Text and Make GIFs Without Uploading Anything > Machine-readable twin of https://hermoso.ai/blog/free-image-tools-vs-paid/. Generated from the shipped page. Do not edit by hand. > Full agent guide: https://hermoso.ai/llms.txt · MCP: https://app.hermoso.ai/mcp [Blog](https://hermoso.ai/blog/) # Free Image Tools vs Paid: Compress, Resize, Read Text and Make GIFs Without Uploading Anything Compress and resize pictures, copy text out of a screenshot and turn video into a GIF for free, in your browser, with nothing uploaded. How they compare with TinyPNG, iLoveIMG, OnlineOCR and Ezgif as of November 2026. By the Hermoso team · Published November 11, 2026 · 4 min read **You don't need an account or a subscription to compress a picture, resize a batch, copy text from a screenshot or make a GIF.** [Hermoso's image compressor](https://hermoso.ai/tools/image-compressor/), [image resizer](https://hermoso.ai/tools/image-resizer/), [image to text](https://hermoso.ai/tools/image-to-text/) and [video to GIF](https://hermoso.ai/tools/video-to-gif/) all run inside your browser, so the file never leaves your computer. Paid sites still win on a few jobs, and those are listed below. We make Hermoso, so read this with that in mind. Every competitor number below comes from that company's own page, read on November 1, 2026, and prices change, so check the page before you buy. ## Tool by tool Read on each site on November 1, 2026. Job Hermoso, free The usual site Its free limit Uploads your file? Compress [Image compressor](https://hermoso.ai/tools/image-compressor/): JPG, WebP or PNG, your choice of quality and maximum size TinyPNG Up to 20 images, 5 MB each Yes. Ours: no Resize [Image resizer](https://hermoso.ai/tools/image-resizer/): up to 40 at once, social size presets, zip download iLoveIMG Basic plan allows 30 resizes Yes. Ours: no Image to text [Image to text](https://hermoso.ai/tools/image-to-text/): printed English OnlineOCR 15 MB, 5 files an hour as a guest Yes. Ours: no Video to GIF [Video to GIF](https://hermoso.ai/tools/video-to-gif/): up to 20 seconds, no watermark Ezgif 200 MB By default, deleted after an hour. It also has a local mode iLoveIMG's Premium plan is 10 CA$ a month, or 6 CA$ a month billed yearly. TinyPNG sells Web Pro and Web Ultra plans. Its page didn't print the amounts when we read it, so check them there. ## Why "no upload" matters A client's unreleased product photo, a screenshot with a customer's name in it, a scan of a contract: uploading those to a free website means trusting a company you've never heard of. Our tools do the work on your own machine. You can test that yourself: load the page, turn off your wifi, then compress a picture. There's also a small speed gain, since nothing travels anywhere. Re-saving a picture through the compressor also strips the camera details and location data from the copy, which is worth knowing before you post a photo of your house. ## When a paid or server tool is better - **Handwriting or other languages.** Our image to text reads printed English only. OnlineOCR and Google Lens do more. - **Very large batches.** Your browser does the work, so hundreds of big photos will be slow on an old laptop. A paid API is the right call for a production pipeline. - **Long GIFs.** Ours stops at 20 seconds. A GIF that long is usually huge anyway, so try 3 to 6 seconds first. - **Background removal.** We don't offer this one free. It needs a model we haven't found a way to run well in a browser, so paid tools are the honest answer here. ## Handy settings - **Photos for the web:** WebP or JPG at 70 to 85% quality usually looks the same on screen and is much smaller. - **Social sizes:** the resizer has presets for an Instagram post (1080 x 1080), portrait (1080 x 1350), Story or Reel (1080 x 1920), link previews (1200 x 630) and YouTube thumbnails (1280 x 720). The full list lives in the [social media size guide](https://hermoso.ai/tools/social-media-size-guide/). - **Smaller GIFs:** drop the width to 480 and the frame rate to 10. Working with documents too? [Free PDF tools vs paid](https://hermoso.ai/blog/free-pdf-tools-vs-paid/) covers merging and converting. All of them are on the [free tools page](https://hermoso.ai/tools/). Hermoso itself is an AI marketing agent that makes the ads those pictures go into. That part uses credits, and the tools on this page never do. ## Questions people ask ### Is there a free image compressor with no upload? Yes. Hermoso's image compressor runs in your browser. Your pictures stay on your device, there is no sign-up, and it saves as JPG, WebP or PNG. ### What is TinyPNG's free limit? As of November 1, 2026, TinyPNG says up to 20 images at once, with a maximum of 5 MB each. ### How many pictures can I resize at once for free? Up to 40 at a time on Hermoso's image resizer, downloaded one by one or as a single zip. ### Can the image to text tool read handwriting? No. It reads printed English, such as screenshots, scans and photos of pages. ### Do the free tools add a watermark? No. None of them adds a watermark, and none needs an account.