Does your website take too long to load? If so, then you should install the WordPress caching plugin. In this article, we are going to tell some best WordPress caching plugin that will help your website to load faster.
But before talking about caching plugin, let’s take a quick look at what is a caching plugin and the benefits of every wordpress caching plugins.
What is a caching plugin?
As your website grows older, the website’s content and installations make your website to load slower. Even if you install a new WordPress you will still face this problem due to high traffic or low-quality host server. Caching plugins are the software that helps the website to load faster.
Why using cashing plugin
As we have explained earlier that cashing plugins helps websites to load faster and improve their performance. But if you are wondering what is a problem if my website loads slower, then you should know that if your website is loading slower it is going to affect the website’s user experience.
Suppose you visit a website and that website is taking too much time to load, then you won’t want to visit their other pages and you will move to another website. The same thing happens with your website if your website doesn’t load faster. A faster website attracts more traffic and Google gives the SEO advantage to the website which helps to increase the ranking website.
Best WordPress caching plugins
Perfmatters
By default, WordPress enables so many options that are not necessary which causes the website to slow down. With perfmatters plugin, you can disable those settings with just a few clicks. The biggest thing that makes websites to slow down is HTTP requests which are not needed. This plugin allows you to disable these scripts on every page manually. By using this plugin you can stop plugins from loading code where you don’t need them to load.
There is also performance booster features like local Google Analytics script hosting, DNS prefetch, preconnect, etc.
Features
- Disable WordPress settings that make your website slow down.
- REST API control
- Heartbeat control
- Allows you to disable scripts on per page/post basis.
W3 Total Cashe
W3 Total Cache is one of the most popular WordPress caching plugins. More than one million WordPress users are using this plugin and have rated 4.3 out of 5 stars in the WordPress Plugin Directory. W3 Total Cashe updates its version very frequently and used by so many major publications like Web Designer Depot, Mashable, etc.
W3 Total cache is one of the best Web Performance Optimization frameworks and has been trusted by million WordPress users.
Features
- Helps to rank websites higher in Google by improving the performance of websites. This can be a great option for mobile-friendly websites and those websites that uses SSL.
- By using this plugin website start rendering quickly.
- Save up to 80% bandwidth by minifying HTML, CSS, and JS files.
WP Rocket
WP Rocket is one of the best WordPress caching plugin available in the market. If you are a beginner and don’t have an idea about cache plugins then you should definitely go for it. You can use it easily even if you don’t know the technical terms used in caching plugins options.
The current users of this plugin are more than 1,00,000. With WP rocket, you can cashe your website with just one click. The crawler of this plugin automatically fetches the pages to build up the cache.
Features
- It automatically turns on the important cache settings like gzip compression, page cache, and cache pre-loading.
- Easy to setup and configure.
- Allows you to turn on the features like CDN support, minification, pre-fetching, etc.
Cache enabler
Cache enabler is a free and open-source plugin. Its disk caching engine is fast and reliable and it supports the WordPress multisite which can be an advantage for those having networks of website. You wouldn’t get much features like other paid plugins but what would you expect from a free service. It provides you WebP images without the need for JavaScript.
Features
- Its installation and setup process is easy.
- Allows you to clear cache with just one click.
- This is a free plugin.
- Allows you to set features like clearing cache after new posts.
WP Super cache
WP super cache is another free and popular plugin for caching & speed optimization. It has all recommended features that are needed for the speed optimization of a website. The feature includes advanced cache preload, cache pre-loading, page cache, etc.
Features
- The setup process is quite easy.
- Provides features like cache pre-loading, page cache, CDN support, etc.
- It has comprehensive settings section that makes it easy to use for a beginner.
WP fastest cache
Now you must have been thinking that all these WordPress caching plugins have similar names. But the features are the main thing that makes them different from others. It has paid version as well as a paid version. But if a user is using the hosting service from Kinsta then they shouldn’t use it because it can cause deteriorate performance.
To use the paid version of this plugin users need to pay only once and then they can use all the features that are not provided in the free version. But it doesn’t mean that the free version doesn’t have enough features.
Features
- The free version of WP fastest cache plugin includes minification of HTML, desktop caching, and combination options for JavaScript and CSS.
- You can easily and quickly upgrade to a premium version and you won’t have to download it from the development site.
- Allows you to minify and combine CSS and JavaScript.
Shortpixel
Shortpixel is another great plugin that is used for minimizing the size of pictures on the website. Having large size images can slow down your website and you can use shortpixel to shrink the size of images. Shrinking the image size of your website will help your website to load faster.
Features
- Allows you to compress the size of images using lossy or lossless compression algorithms.
- You can convert image PNG to JPG.
- It supports WebP conversion for supporting browser.
Choosing the best WordPress speed optimization plugin
If after reading the whole article you are still confused about what plugin should you use then here we are going to give you a final idea about the best plugin that will fulfill your requirement.
Here are some best speed optimization plugins that will definitely fulfill your requirements.
WP Rocket: In our opinion, this is one of the best plugin for speed optimization. Due to its variety of features and easy to use it is an ideal choice for beginners.
WP Fastest cache: If you are a beginner and don’t want to invest in plugins then WP fastest cache will be a great choice for you. Along with the free version, it also provides premium version. So in case you like its features and want to use advanced features then you can upgrade to the premium version.
W3 Total cache: The reason for keeping this plugin in this list is that it has so many features that it will never disappoint you. Its options and settings are complicated but for a technical person, it will be a good choice.
W3 Super cache: Again if you are a beginner and non-technical person and also want a free plugin then this will be a good choice for you.