The Best Online CSS Optimization Tools on Test

Learning to write clean, optimized and small CSS requires a lot of time and knowledge. Keeping your CSS files clean and optimized is one of the most important things when it comes to your website speed, productivity and load time.

CSS can also use a lot of resources on your hosting server and it may cause you a lot of problems for your website or a blog hosted on that specific server. Luckily, there are an online tools that can optimize your CSS files easily and completely for free.

Today, I am going to show you the most popular free online CSS optimization. All these tools are personally tested by me and overall results are displayed in the chart at the bottom of this post.

How Did I Test These Tools?

I have prepared a whole testing equipment necessary for the accurate and reliable results. On the test I have used all these tools with the same CSS file. Style size originally was 16 Kb, or more precisely 17.162 bytes.

Just in case, I have repeated a test 3 times and measure the average result value for the each tool. This will help you to know which one is the best online CSS optimization tool out there.

Online CSS Optimization Tools

I have used several popular and effective online CSS optimization tools on the internet. Including all these listed below. Also I need to add that I have used a default settings for each online tool! With additional adjustments for some tools you may get even better results!

• CSS Drive – Supports basic and advanced optimization interface. On the test, I have used a basic compression method. Do not support upload of your CSS files, but you can easily copy-paste any CSS code in the form.
• CSS Compressor – Has a very nice and simple user-interface. Allowing you to use some advanced features and options. Works really fast and showing a results easily. Giving you a log window where you can see what exactly is changed on that CSS code.
• CSS Optimizer – This is the tool which has the greatest results in this test. Thanks to the advanced but simple optimization process, it is also one of the easiest tools to use. Supports input by URL, from your computer and manual CSS code input. Recommendation!
• Clean CSS – This tool has a very nice user-interface. Also, it works very well by default. This tool is even translated into multiple languages. Also have some features and options that can drastically reduce your output size.
• PHP Insider – CSS Compressor by PHP Insider is one of the easiest tools you can find on this test. Allows you to compress your CSS code in just couple of clicks. Unfortunately, it does not have a support for advanced options that can give you some performances.
• SevenForty – This tool give you some relatively good results. Through it only support manual upload of your CSS files to compress. Output file is archived and inside is your uploaded and compressed CSS style or a code. Gives you some basic options too.
• Lottery Post – A simple and second most effective tool on the test. Gives you a very good results by default but does not support any other options. You can manually add your CSS code and compress it easily. This tool works with JavaScript too!
• Arantius – Arantius CSS compressor is another very good compressor. For my opinion, it has little options and features – compared to other similar tools on this test. It is free, basic and simple – so you can try it anyway and see how it works for you.
• Flumpcakes – This is a tool with worst result during this test. It may optimize and reduce your CSS code, but by default it’s not enough if we compare it to all other tools in this test. Support CSS input by URL and manually.
• CSS Portal – It is a good CSS compression tool. Allowing you to compress your CSS files easily with 4 presented and 1 customized features. Give you some additional options and features to compress your CSS files effectively.
• Code Beautifier – A very simple and easy-to-use tool for the CSS compression. Looks like it works on the similar compression engine to CSS Portal.
• Peterbe – This is an advanced tool that can compress multiple codes including HTML, CSS and even XHTML elements. Works very good and give you a relatively good results. Through it is a very simple and does not allow you to use any additional options.
• Ebiene.de – This is another simple and effective tool to compress your CSS code. A user interface is very intuitive and effective. Trough compression results are average compared to other compression tools on this test.
• AskApache – AskApache is a very good and effective tool for sure. This is a third most effective tool on this test and give you some good results by default. Allowing you to upload CSS, direct compression by URL or even just a plain CSS code compression. Interesting feature is that tool allow you to upload up to 24 Mb per CSS file.
• Refresh-sf – This is an advanced compression tool powered by YUI compression engine. Give you an average compression results. Also providing some options for you to choose. This tool works with CSS and JavaScript codes.

Who is a Winner…

You can see on the results chart who is a winner. The winner is a tool which has the best results during this compression process. Note that less is better in this case, because we want that CSS file to be smaller and by that more optimized for us:

I have to say that most of these tools work their job well. Anyway, we have to choose a winner here. You should also note that all these results rely on the default settings – for each online compression tool I have had in test here.

You should consider that these results may improve drastically if you use some advanced features – if they are provided with that specific online tool!

So there are 3 most effective tools from the test:

1. CSS Optimizer

2. Lottery Post

3. AskApache

I also recommend you to try to use some other tools listed above if you want to get maximum functionality and results. Some tools might work good with my style, some may not – and that’s something you have to accept!

If you know some other tool, service or a tip. Do not be afraid to post comment below – let we all hear your experience and knowledge. Enjoy!