Are you looking for a WordPress caching or minification plugin? Or are you simply searching for ways to make your WordPress installation run faster?
I’ve got you protected in any case.
This article will show you how to use ten-strong plugins to make your WordPress website load faster. You’ll find caching plugins, minification plugins, lazy loading plugins, and other plugins that enable you to customize your website in a variety of ways.
As a result, you won’t lose traffic, subscribers, or customers due to sluggish page load times.
Let’s get started:
The best WordPress speed-enhancing plugins
WP Rocket
WP Rocket is the all-in-one WordPress performance plugin.
You get all of the caching functionality you’d expect, plus a few extras you wouldn’t have expected.
…and it’s all rolled up in the most user-friendly GUI I’ve ever seen in a plugin.
Whereas some caching plugins seem to take an entire course to find out how to use them, WP Rocket makes the setup phase a breeze.
It contains functionality that would usually necessitate the installation of a few additional plugins. You get picture lazy loading, database optimization, and the ability to host Google Analytics code on your own site, for example.
Furthermore, the ability to postpone the execution of Javascript can have a significant effect on page load times and Google PageSpeed ratings.
If you want a speed optimization plugin that does everything, WP Rocket is a great option.
Features:
- User-friendly interface
- Minimal tweaking is required for speed improvements
- Minify CSS, HTML, and Javascript
- Page caching
- Cache pre-load
- Image lazy loading
- Advanced caching rules
- Database optimization
- CDN integration
- Direct Cloudflare integration
- Google Analytics integration to load the code from your server
- Settings import and export
- Version rollback
- Delay Javascript execution time
Price- From $49
Also Read: How To Beef Up Security Of Your WordPress Site
Perfmatters
Perfmatters takes a different approach to page load speed optimization than the majority of the plugins on this list.
WordPress comes with some options available by default that aren’t required for most sites and slow down performance. With the click of a few keys, Perfmatters allows you to disable these options.
However, the most significant factor that slows down the rendering of your pages is HTTP requests that aren’t needed.
You can also disable these scripts on a per-page basis with this plugin. This means you can prevent plugins from loading unnecessary code.
You may also use performance-enhancing features such as DNS prefetch, preconnect, and local Google Analytics script hosting, among others.
Perfmatters can be used even if you have a WordPress caching plugin enabled.
Features:
- Works with your existing caching plugin
- Disable WordPress options that are slowing your site down
- Disable scripts on per page/post basis
- Supports advanced performance-boosting functionality such as DNS prefetch and preconnect
- REST API control
- Heartbeat control
- Lightweight plugin
Price- From $24.95/year.
Also Read: Tips to Manage your WordPress Blog Effectively
NitroPack
NitroPack is a full-speed optimization tool, not just a WordPress output plugin.
The aim of this platform is to make the process of speeding up websites as simple as possible. NitroPack optimizes it for you, so you don’t have to use many plugins or decide what to customize manually.
Simply enter your website’s URL and activate the connector plugin. The optimizations can then be as aggressive as you want them to be.
NitroPack will then begin optimizing the website on its own. It will implement a global CDN, different caching types, minification, compression, file optimization, serving images in next-generation formats (e.g. SVG), DNS prefetching, JavaScript deferring, and so on.
And since all of these optimizations are performed by their servers, your own server use is reduced.
All of these tweaks will help you increase your time to first byte (TTFB), reduce main-thread work, and improve your Web Core Vitals, among other things.
You can tweak the settings for even better results, but even the “solid” setting will result in significant improvements in page load times and Google PageSpeed ratings.
Features:
- Automatic website optimization
- Supports WordPress and other content management systems
- Global CDN included and automatically configured
- Various caching types (page, browser, and more)
- Automatic image optimization
- Convert images to next-gen formats
- DNS prefetching
- Defer JS loading
- HTML, JS and CSS minification
- HTML, CSS and JS compression
Price- For very limited sites or testing purposes, the free plan is available, but it includes a driven-by badge in your footer. Paid plans get rid of the badge and give you access to more resources.
Also Read: Top 10 Social Media Plugins For WordPress
WP Fastest Cache
WP Fastest Cache is a caching-focused output plugin for WordPress. It has a fantastic collection of features that are well-balanced with ease of use.
Some plugins are too simplistic, while others are overly complex; the creator of this plugin has clearly found a happy medium.
Simply download, trigger, and go through the settings. After that, press saves and you’re good to go.
I particularly appreciate how simple it is to specify cache expiration times for specific URL strings.
Much better, this plugin is used by over a million people and has excellent feedback on WordPress.org.
Features:
- Easy setup
- 1-click to clear cache and/or minified CSS etc
- Minify CSS and HTML
- Set posts/pages to exclude (some like admin area excluded by default)
- Set expiration times for all posts/pages or certain URL strings
- CDN integration
- Premium version available with extra features
Price: Free.
Also Read: How to Fix ‘Upload: Failed to Write File to Disk Error in WordPress’
Cache Enabler
Cache Enabler is a fantastic plugin from the KeyCDN team.
It’s a lightweight caching plugin that takes just a few minutes to set up.
It can set the cache expiry time, as well as minification settings and a few other features. Aside from that, it’s lacking in functionality, but that’s the whole point of the plugin.
If you need to add a content delivery network service, you can use CDN Enabler, which is a sister plugin to this one. The same idea applies: it’s light and easy to set up.
Features:
- Simple setup
- 1-click to clear cache
- Set cache behavior (e.g. clearing after new posts)
- Minification feature
- Set post ID’s to exclude from the cache
- Set expiration times
Price: Free.
Also Read: Why WordPress Is Suitable For Small Businesses?
WP Super Cache
One of the most commonly used caching plugins for WordPress is WP Super Cache. It has over 5.5 million downloads at the time of writing this story.
It’s simple to set up, but there are some advanced settings for advanced users who want to get the most out of the plugin.
Features:
- Support for multiple caching types (Mod_Rewrite, PHP, and Legacy)
- Serve static Html files
- Cache preload
- CDN support
Price: Free.
Also Read: How to Hire A Right WordPress Development Company?
W3 Total Cache
Another common speed-boosting plugin is W3 Total Cache. It’s more than just a basic caching plugin.
There’s a large selection of solutions and caching methods to choose from.
CloudFlare and other CDN providers provide advanced support.
However, since there are so many choices, it is not the simplest to set up. You might also smash anything if you don’t know what you’re doing. That is why I advise advanced users to use this plugin.
It’s also worth noting that uninstalling this plugin is a bit of a pain – it requires more than just deactivating and deleting.
Features:
- CDN Support
- Browser caching
- Database caching
- Object caching
- Minifying
- And lots more
Price: Free.
Also Read: 9 Best WordPress SEO Plugins For Your New Website
WP Super Minify
The aim of minification is to merge JS, HTML, and CSS files so that they can be compressed and served to visitors faster.
It’s worth noting that you should exercise extreme caution when installing these plugins; in the past, I’ve discovered that certain themes and plugins will clash with this form of a plugin.
If there are any conflicts, WP Super Minify gives you the option to disable compression of JavaScript and/or CSS.
Features:
- Minifies JavaScript, CSS and HTML
- Option to disable compression of CSS/JavaScript
- Extremely straight forward and easy to use.
Price: Free.
WP Smush.it
Yahoo Smush is the foundation for WP Smush. It is a service that optimizes images and removes unwanted bytes from image files.
Most tools use ‘lossy’ formats, which reduce consistency, but WP Smush uses lossless formats, so you won’t notice any difference.
I previously tested this plugin and found it to be very unstable.
It broke all of my picture thumbnails at the time, but luckily, a plugin called ‘Regenerate Thumbnails’ solved the problem on my web in less than 5 minutes, so no harm is done.
It’s worth remembering that this occurred a long time ago, and WPMU DEV now maintains the plugin.
Features:
- Strips un-used colour from images
- Strips meta data from JPEG’s (this isn’t needed anyway)
- Optimizing JPEG compression
- Integrates with the Smush.it API
- Choose to run existing images through the plugin
Price: Free
Also Read: Top 10 WordPress Security Plugins
LzyLoad by WP Rocket
When a visitor comes to your website and wants to load a tab, the page will usually load in its entirety.
This can cause your loading times to spike if it’s a long page with a lot of photos.
The truth is that you don’t need the entire page to load at once, especially the photos, which take the longest to load.
The concept behind ‘lazy loading’ is that certain elements are only loaded when they are needed. That’s exactly what WP Rocket’s LazyLoad plugin would do.
You can replace your YouTube iFrames with preview thumbnails, which is a neat feature.
Features:
- Replaces post images, post thumbnails, etc.
- No use of jQuery or Javascript so it’s ultra light-weight
- YouTube iFrames can be replaced with preview thumbnails
Price: Free
