mod_pagespeed: self-hosted web optimization — ModPageSpeed

Skip to main content<br>ModPageSpeed 2.0: AVIF, WebP, and critical CSS — up to 69% less page weight on the live demo

Lighthouse 56 to 90.<br>On your own servers.

ModPageSpeed 2.0 transcodes images to AVIF, minifies CSS and JS, and injects critical CSS as<br>nginx serves the page. No proxy, no CDN, nothing third-party in your request path.

Running Apache, IIS, Envoy, or ASP.NET Core? Use mod_pagespeed 1.15 &rarr;

The optimization core behind 230,000+ live sites (BuiltWith, May 2026) — rebuilt in C++23 by the former mod_pagespeed maintainer.

56 &rarr; 90

Lighthouse performance score

1.8s &rarr; 0.8s

page load, cut in half

&minus;76%

product image, JPEG &rarr; AVIF

third parties in the request path

Launch pricing — year one at half price on 1.15 and 2.0<br>· through June 16, 2026

Download & run

Install and run unlicensed — it fully optimizes and adds an X-PageSpeed-Warn: unlicensed header. A commercial license is required for production use.

Flat per-server pricing — no per-image or per-request metering like a CDN. Cancel and keep<br>running the version you have. See pricing &rarr;<br>See the demo Browse the examples Read the docs

Built by We-Amp — the sole active maintainer of the open-source PageSpeed project, rebuilt from scratch for nginx.

ModPageSpeed 2.0 is developed by We-Amp B.V. and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google. mod_pagespeed is an open-source project originally<br>developed at Google.

Before 167,824 B<br>$ curl -I https://example.com/<br>HTTP/2 200<br>content-type: text/html<br>content-length: 167824<br>cache-control: max-age=600<br>server: nginx<br>date: Sun, 17 May 2026 09:14:02 GMT<br>(no X-PageSpeed header)<br>After 53,120 B &middot; &minus;68%<br>$ curl -I https://example.com/<br>HTTP/2 200<br>content-type: text/html<br>content-length: 53120<br>cache-control: max-age=600<br>server: nginx<br>date: Sun, 17 May 2026 09:14:08 GMT<br>x-pagespeed: HIT (mmap,

Illustrative — run it against your own origin. The X-PageSpeed: HIT header confirms the response was served from the zero-copy variant cache — not regenerated.<br>≈40% of the top 1,000 sites render almost nothing for AI assistants. Check yours with RenderPeek &rarr; (our scan, May 2026 &rarr;)

Two products. Both maintained. Pick the one that fits.

mod_pagespeed 1.15 is the in-process module that stays compatible with your existing<br>pagespeed.conf — the drop-in continuation of open-source mod_pagespeed. ModPageSpeed<br>2.0 is a ground-up rewrite that runs an async worker behind an nginx reverse proxy or as<br>ASP.NET Core middleware. Both are actively maintained with security patches and new<br>features.

Which one is for me?<br>nginx · Apache · IIS · Envoy<br>native module &rarr; mod_pagespeed 1.15<br>ASP.NET Core<br>one dotnet add package, two ways:<br>Classic filters, Linux<br>&rarr; mod_pagespeed 1.15<br>(WeAmp.PageSpeed.Sidecar)<br>Newest optimization core (AVIF, ML), cross-platform<br>&rarr; ModPageSpeed 2.0<br>(WeAmp.PageSpeed.AspNetCore)

any HTTP origin<br>via Docker reverse proxy &rarr; ModPageSpeed 2.0

Same 1.15 optimization core either way: the native module (no sidecar) on Apache, nginx, and IIS, or<br>the bundled-nginx Sidecar package for ASP.NET Core.

mod_pagespeed 1.15

Drop-in continuation of open-source mod_pagespeed

Apache nginx IIS ASP.NET Core &middot; NuGet Envoy &middot; experimental 4 platforms Stable<br>✓ Native in-process<br>module — no sidecar, no extra hop

✓ Drop-in: same pagespeed.conf,<br>same directives

✓ Apache, nginx, IIS<br>native + experimental Envoy

✓ Classic filters:<br>combine, sprite, IPRO, domain mapping

✓ Built-in<br>/pagespeed_admin/ console

✓ ASP.NET Core?<br>dotnet add package WeAmp.PageSpeed.Sidecar — bundles<br>nginx, Linux only

1.15 overview &rarr;

ModPageSpeed 2.0

Ground-up C++23 rewrite<br>Any HTTP origin via nginx reverse proxy ASP.NET Core &middot; NuGet<br>✓ Async out-of-process<br>worker

✓ Zero-copy mmap serving

✓ Critical CSS extraction

✓ ML quality + SSIMULACRA2

✓ Web console + Prometheus

See 2.0 features &rarr;

Start here: docs & deep dives

The pages that answer the questions most readers arrive with.

Docs

Configuration

PageSpeed module options for nginx: directives, safe and aggressive cache modes, worker<br>flags, per-location overrides, and the capability mask.

Read the docs &rarr;<br>Docs

PageSpeed filters reference

Every rewrite filter and what it does: image transcoding, CSS and JS minification,<br>combining, spriting, IPRO, and domain mapping.

Read the docs &rarr;<br>Blog

Image optimization cost: self-hosted vs CDN (2026)

Cost comparison at 100K, 1M, and 10M monthly image requests — with break-even<br>analysis against self-hosted optimization.

Read post &rarr;<br>Blog

mod_pagespeed Alternatives in 2026

Google's mod_pagespeed and ngx_pagespeed are no longer actively developed. Two actively<br>developed successors exist — here is how to choose.

Read post &rarr;

Install. Configure. Verify.

Both products follow the same three-step pattern: add optimization to your server, set the<br>options you want, and check the response...