The need for speed is an age old human desire- we want things to go faster, we want things done faster… faster faster faster! While there are certainly good reasons for slowing down life in places, there are exactly zero good reasons for a slowly loading website. Caching plugins for WordPress offer one of the best ways to really floor it for online content delivery.
On the market for one? Heard about them but haven’t quite wrapped your head around how they work or why you need one? We’ll touch on the how and the why, and then run through a few of the best caching plugins for WordPress right now. Have a seat and hang on!
What Are They and How Do They Work?
The basic concept behind caching plugins for WordPress (or even just in general) is pretty straight forward. Under normal circumstances when a user connects to a page of your website via their browser, WordPress processes the request and generates an HTML file for the requested page, which is then served to the requesting browser.
Each visit represents a new request, processing, and serving of content. Each request takes time to fill, and many requests in a short period of time can bog down the process. That’s time each visitor spends looking at an incomplete page!
A caching plugin speeds up this process by making a cache- a temporary stash- of fixed HTML files for your website. It’s like a snapshot in time of your website (that’s periodically refreshed), ready to be served at a moment’s notice when a request is made. This exponentially reduces the loading time of the page and therefore wait time on the visitor’s end, and also reduces load on your server.
Do I Need a Caching Plugin if I Use a CDN?
We’ve reviewed CDN plugins for WordPress already, and if you’re familiar with CDNs then you might wonder if you need a caching plugin too. The short answer is yes, you’ll see an added benefit from using a caching plugin alongside your CDN.
It’s pretty common to describe what a CDN does as caching content and serving it from servers sprinkled all over the world, but the term caching as it’s used there is a loose simplification in all honesty. Some CDN services don’t use caching at all, others use alternative delivery methods, and not all content can be delivered as a static, cached HTML file.[1]
Caching Plugins for WordPress
These plugins are recommended based on benchmarking data collected by wpdevshed, colorlib, and our own independent research. Check the footnotes if you’d like to see the numbers! [2][3]
1) WP Rocket
WP Rocket is the only plugin on this list that isn’t in the WordPress repo, but that is its only downside if you even want to call it that. There is a pricetag attached as well, but it is a one time non-recurring cost and it is very reasonable. WP Rocket’s upside is high: it by far and away has the lowest median page load time in benchmark testing. In short, it isn’t free but you undoubtedly get your money’s worth out of the investment.
Features:
- Setup is as simple as activate and go with minimal configuration (most all other caching plugins require minor code edits)
- SEO friendly cache preloading
- “Lazy load” images loads images only when they are viewable by the user
- HTML, JavaScript, and CSS minification
- Clean and commented code for developer tinkering
- Many hooks available for developer customization
Second only to WP Rocket in median page load time benchmarking. WP Super Cache is actively updated, rated well in the repo, and has over a million active users. They feature a variety of different options to serve the cached files depending on what’s best for speed of delivery. The only real downside is that it does not natively support caching of pages formatted specifically for mobile, though that can be added via plugin.
Features:
- A variety of delivery method options for fastest possible content delivery
- “Supercaching” for busy or underpowered servers
- Comments dynamically update cached files by default
- Ability to make select parts of the page dynamically update cached versions
- GIT repository for developer contributions
- Translated into 17 different languages
W3 rounds out the “big three” of popular WordPress caching plugins. It consistently performs in the same league if slightly behind the previous two plugins in terms of median page load time, but to be fair we’re talking fractions of seconds. It is also regularly updated and has over a million active installs. It is a recommended caching plugin of web hosts like Page.ly, GoDaddy, and Dreamhost, and is used by goliaths like AT&T and Mashable.
Features:
- 10x improvement in page load times when fully configured as measured by industry standard testing
- Minification and HTTP compression of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- In-house CDN management/support
- Native mobile support
- Caching of objects and database objects in memory or on disk
WP Fastest Cache consistently delivers high performance in benchmarking and is most definitely a great caching plugin choice if you find you prefer it to the bigger names. It is actively updated with over 100,000 active users. While it’s smaller than the others so far on this list, that can absolutely be an advantage depending on what you’re looking for. Its only real drawback is lack of Multisite support.
Features:
- Very easy installation
- Easy configuration, all around very user friendly
- Automatic and configurable intervals for cached pages to refresh
- SEO friendly cache preloading
- HTML and CSS minification
- Gzip compression of files for faster content delivery
- Over a dozen supported languages
5) Comet Cache
Formerly ZenCache, Comet Cache is another very viable alternative to the big names in caching plugins for WordPress. ZenCache consistently held its own with the big dog plugins, and they very recently did a full-code rewrite of the plugin to enhance performance even more. They are regularly updated with over 30,000 active installs. They have the advantage of being one of the most user friendly caching plugin in terms of installation and configuration.
Features:
- Super easy installation
- Simple and well documented configuration
- Variety of options to control caching behavior
- Client side caching to allow double caching in the visitor’s browser
- RSS, RDF, and Atom Feed caching
- Automatic and configurable intervals for cached pages to refresh
- Pro version available for extended features
When we reviewed CDN services, KeyCDN stood out for their level of immersion in the WordPress ecosystem. Cache Enabler, while new and small in terms of active installs (5,000+), is a caching solution written by KeyCDN. In light of that, it obviously integrates perfectly with their CDN service. How does it perform on its own merits as a caching service, though? According to internal benchmarking, it’s toe to toe with WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache.[4]
Features:
- Excellent integration with KeyCDN
- Fast and efficient disk cache engine
- Dashboard display for admin
- Minification of HTML and inline JavaScript
- Multisite support
- Responsive image support
- Serves WebP lossless/lossy images without JavaScript
If you’re serious about speeding up your WordPress website, caching plugins for WordPress are a must. This is a sample of the best of what’s out there. Hopefully you find something to your liking! The caching plugin market, both within and outside the repo, is one of the larger WordPress samplings. If you know of some others that are smaller and have slipped under my radar, I’d love to hear about them! Questions and suggestions are welcome in the comments any time. Also, if you haven’t read our two part series on speeding up WordPress, check it out! Since you’re shopping caching plugins for WordPress it’ll be right up your alley! Part 1 Part 2
I am using “WP Rocket” to boot my website’s. It has helped me to fulfill my wish and I am absolutely very happy with this plugin.