Best WordPress Speed Plugins

Ever visited a site with a very long load time? Nothing short of frustrating right? Research carried out by Forrester Consulting shows that almost 40% of users abandon a site after more than three seconds of wait time. Slow load time could also lead to fewer page views, an overall decrease in customer experience, and of course poor conversions.

If you manage a WordPress site you definitely want to get ahead of this problem. You could start by using a WordPress speed plugin to optimize your site and increase its performance. Having a fast site not only decreases your site’s bounce rate but also helps in increasing traffic.

Trust me, finding the right speed plugins from the vast WordPress plugin pool could be a hassle. In this article, I have carefully reviewed some top-tier WordPress speed plugins that’d make your search a lot easier.

Let’s dive right into it

The Best WordPress Speed Plugins

WP Fastest Cache

WP Fastest Cache comes with an amazing set of features and focuses on caching. It seeks to reduce the number of database queries required to render your site and the associated server load by producing and maintaining a static replica of your articles and pages.

Its simplistic design makes it very intuitive and easy to use. The developers of this product really struck a balance between functionality and usage.

In order to make use of this amazing tool, you simply download, activate, and go over the settings. After that, hit save and you’re good to go.

I really appreciate how simple it is to specify cache expiration times for certain URL strings.

It gets even better: this plugin maintains a vast community of users estimated to be over a million people. This means you get support readily when you encounter roadblocks in setting it up. The solution to your problem is just a google search away.

WP Fastest Cache has a free version. Of course, it has limited features, but it has all of the essentials, such as HTML and CSS minification and browser caching among other things.

The premium version comes with image optimization for compressing images, reducing the impact on storage space and page load times, and other great functionalities.

Main Features

The setup is simple.
1-click to delete cache and/or minify CSS, and so on.
Ability to set timers for all posts/pages or specific URL strings to expire.
Free version available with extra functionality offered in the paid version.
Ability to integrate a content delivery network.
Ability to minify CSS and HTML

WP Rocket

If you’re looking for a user-friendly, fast and reliable WordPress speed plugin then WP Rocket is your best bet. It comes with caching functionality straight out of the box and a bunch of other add-on features you probably wouldn’t expect. Indeed it’s the full package!

Still in doubt? Let me paint a bigger picture. Imagine a WordPress plugin with features you probably would have installed a few other WordPress plugins for. Now that’s extra functionality in a single package. To name a few, you get database optimization, the ability to lazy load images, and the ability to include Google Analytics to your site.

Although WP rocket doesn’t ship with a free version, the extra features ensure you get your money’s worth when you go premium. The premium plans are considerably inexpensive so you don’t need to break the bank for a purchase. You’re even guaranteed a 14-day money-back period after your purchase.

Main Features

Google Fonts optimization
Compatible with Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, Varnish, Cloudflare, and Sucuri
Delayed JS loading
Mobile Detection
Cache preloading
Developer friendly
Sitemap preloading
DNS Prefetching
Image optimization
GZIP Compression
User-friendly Interface
Ability to revert back to an earlier version
Compress HTML, CSS, and Javascript
Database optimization
Ability to integrate a content delivery Network

NitroPack

Unlike other tools on this list, NitroPack is a cloud-based optimization platform used to boost up a website’s performance. It takes the burden of having to install several WordPress plugins for different forms of optimization away. With NitroPack, everything is done under the hood.

Cloud-based means all optimizations processes are run on their powerful servers, therefore, reducing your server usage. To name a few, you get minification, various caching types, image optimization, compression, DNS prefetch, lazy loading, and Javascript deference all in one package.

NitroPack is very flexible and can be used on various content management systems. For WordPress, you simply need to install its connector plugin and configure how rigorous you want its optimization to be. You then connect your site to the NitroPack’s platform via CDN and watch it do its job.

NitroPack’s beginner-friendly pricing plan ensures you pay less for more. With a 14-day money-back guarantee, which provides you enough time to get used to the tool and decide on whether your purchase was worth it. They offer plans ranging from 0$ to 159$ per month to suit all pocket sizes. The free plan comes with a NitroPack’s “powered by” badge on the footer of your site which is enough for a small site. Paid plans come without the watermark and a bulk of other functionalities.

Main Features

Inbuilt Amazon Cloudfront
Automatic website optimization
DNS prefetching
Image optimization and lazy loading
Cloud-based infrastructure
Simple setup and installation
Flexible pricing plans
Code minification and compression
Cache invalidation

W3 Total Cache

With over a million active installations, W3 Total Cache ( W3TC) stands tall as one of the most popular WordPress speed plugins. With improved server performance, complete asset and page caching, and an impeccable content delivery network, W3TC boasts one of the fastest and most complete performance plugins. The average rating for W3TC on the WordPress plugin marketplace stands as proof of its efficiency.

One downside of using the W3 total cache is the difficulty associated with setting it up. There are just so many advanced options and if you’re not careful you could mess things up. I’d only recommend this tool to advanced users and not beginners.

After getting used to the tool, everything becomes seamless moving forward. W3TC ships with advanced support for Cloudflare and all other CDN services.Makes it the right tool for your performance needs.

Main Features

Minifying HTML, CSS and Javascript.
Support for CDN services.
Caching of page’s Assets.
Image optimization.

Perfmatters

Perfmatters takes a different approach to confront page optimization from other plugins on this list. Developed by renowned SEO and web optimization guru, Brian Jackson and his brother, Perfmatters amps up page load time by reducing page size and the overall number of HTTP requests your page makes.

By default, your gorgeous new site built with WordPress gets set up with many unnecessary features that can slow up performance. Perfmatters makes it possible to disable these settings seamlessly with just a click.

Once you install the Perfmatters plugin, you’d be able to access and toggle off or on several performance options listed in the settings menu. Every option has a question mark icon right in front which takes you to complete documentation of what the option does with just a click. This makes the tool very beginner-friendly and easy to use.

Every experienced web developer knows that nothing slows down the rendering of your pages as much as HTTP requests that aren’t needed. Perfmatters tackles this problem by disabling scripts that aren’t currently needed in the page being rendered. You can also take advantage of its other performance-improving features like DNS prefetch, asset caching, code minification, etc.

Main Features

Can be integrated with your existing performance-boosting plugins.
Very Lightweight.
Ability to disable scripts on a per-page basis.
DNS prefetch and preconnect.
REST API control.
Ability to disable WordPress’ default options that slow down performance.

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