How To Reduce Server Response Times (TTFB) In WordPress: Preferably Under 200ms – Lighthouse + PageSpeed Insights Item

Need to reduce server response times?

Servers are controlled by your hosting. The easiest way to reduce server response times in WordPress is to avoid shared hosting and use a more powerful server. That’s because shared hosting has limited resources + CPU limits. Some host’s TTFB like SiteGround and WP Engine, have also gotten worse. There are many polls, migration results, and conversations about “the fastest hosting” you can find in Facebook Groups like WordPress Hosting + WP Speed Matters.

Other than hosting, the other way to improve TTFB is by reducing CPU and lightening the load on your server. Cloudflare has many features that can reduce TTFB including their CDN, Brotli, HTTP/3, bot protection, and APO. You can also use server-level caching, latest PHP versions, clean up junk (database, bloated plugins, page builders, and admin bloat), and disable heartbeat.

 

What Is A Good TTFB?

Google recommends a TTFB of under 200ms.

This can be realistic for some WordPress sites, but you need to have a fast infrastructure (hosting, theme, plugins). If TTFB is over 600ms, it’s considered slow and will fail the audit.

Slow servers affect load times, PSI scores (multiple items), and admin panel speed. Since web vitals are becoming a larger ranking factor, achieving a fast TTFB is more important than ever.

 

How To Properly Test Your TTFB

Lighthouse

Lighthouse is an ideal place to test TTFB. According to Google, “this audit fails when the browser waits more than 600 ms for the server to respond to the main document request.”

GTmetrix

GTmetix shows your TTFB in the Summary and Structure tabs. Sign up for a free GTmetrix account so you can run tests from the data center closest to your visitors instead of Vancouver.

KeyCDN

KeyCDN measures TTFB across 14 different locations (it’s also my preferred tool). TTFBs can be fast when testing locations close to your origin server and slow when testing long distances.

Pingdom

Pingdom measures TTFB as “wait” time and lets you test from various locations.

Chrome DevTools

Chrome DevTools measures TTFB but is affected by your computer’s latency and internet connection, so you may want to measure TTFB from a data center using one of the tools above.

 

 

1. Reduce CPU Usage

Reducing CPU (found in your hosting account) is one of the best ways to reduce server response times. The majority of this tutorial will be focused on reducing CPU and therefore, lightening the load on your server. Avoid using 75%+ of CPU limits so your server stays relaxed.

That’s why it’s so important to choose a plan with enough server resources. Host companies give you guidelines based on monthly visitors, but they don’t take into account how many plugins you have, whether they consume lots of resources, and whether you’re using a CDN.

 

2. Avoid Shared Hosting

Shared hosting has limited server resources, often resulting in a slow TTFB.

If your neighbors (other sites on the server) are hogging resources, your website is being starved. Not to mention most shared hosts have low CPU limits. That’s why you often see 500 errors on shared hosting. One day your website is fast, the next day, it’s sluggish. I would never run Elementor, Divi, or WooCommerce on shared hosting – they demand too many resources.

 

3. Switch To Faster Hosting

Server response times are almost always the result of hosting.

However, most hosting recommendation are garbage. That’s why I recommend joining the WordPress Hosting Facebook Group (WP Speed Matters is good too) to get unbiased feedback. Instead of reading biased reviews, I encourage you to do your own research. Join Facebook Groups and look at polls, migration results, and conversations on the best hosting (see below).

I use Cloudways is who is #1 in most recent Facebook polls and my TTFB is consistently <200ms. I’m currently on their Vultr High Frequency plan, and DigitalOcean is good too. It’s $10-$13/month, but we’re talking about fast cloud hosting, not cheap hosting with slow TTFBs.

Recent Facebook polls show many people are moving away from low quality hosts to Cloudways, LiteSpeed, Kinsta, GridPane, and A2 Hosting (click on thumbnails to enlarge):

People who moved to Cloudways and posted their results (click thumbnails to enlarge):

 

4. Avoid Slow Plugins + Page Builders

Plugins can slow down your website, admin, and TTFB.

Find Your Slowest Plugins – Query Monitor and New Relic are great for finding slow plugins. Install Query Monitor, view a page on your site, hover over the Query Monitor tab, and go to Queries → Queries By Component. You can check multiple pages/posts for different queries.

WP Hive is a nifty Google Chrome Extension that tells you whether a plugin will impact your memory usage / PageSpeed Insights scores when viewing plugins in the WordPress repository.

Avoid Heavy Page Builders – Elementor + Divi got crushed in core web vitals. On top of extra CSS, JavaScript, and countless div wrappers, these websites typically rely on extra third-party plugins and addons. This results in even more bloat. I migrated from Elementor to Gutenberg and it made a huge improvement. Even hard coding your menu, header, footer, and sidebar in CSS can remove a lot of page builder bloat. You can also use Asset CleanUp and Perfmatters to unload unused CSS and JS (and use Elementor’s Experimental features) but I would avoid them.

Many people are moving away from slow page builders (i.e. Elementor/Divi) to lightweight builders like Oxygen, GeneratePress, Kadence, and Gutenberg  (click thumbnails to enlarge):

Lightweight Plugin Alternatives

• SEO – Rank Math.
• Backups – UpdraftPlus.
• Sliders – Soliloquy or MetaSlider.
• Page Builder – Oxygen, Kadence theme, Gutenberg, Genesis.
• Gallery – Gutenberg Gallery or Meow Gallery.
• Analytics – Google Analytics and Google Search Console (no plugins).
• Social Sharing – Grow By Mediavine (fastest social sharing plugin in WP Rocket’s test).
• Comments – native comments or wpDiscuz with optimized settings and JavaScript delay.

 

5. Clean Your Database

A thorough cleanup of your database can improve TTFB.

Many of you are using WP Rocket for automatic database cleanups, but this doesn’t let you go through your actual database tables and remove tables left behind by old plugins. For this, I recommend WP-Optimize. View the “Tables” tab and look for plugins that are “Not Installed.” If you deleted a plugin (or disabled a plugin module) and don’t use it anymore, you can remove it.

 

6. Increase Cache Lifespan

Most cache plugins let you set the cache lifespan. By increasing this, you’re saving server resources since the cache doesn’t need to be built as frequently. This is good if you don’t publish content frequently (like a news website), otherwise you should likely leave this as the default.

 

7. Disable WordPress Heartbeat

WordPress Heartbeat consumes resources by showing real-time plugin notifications, when other users are editing a post, etc. For most website owners, it usually does more harm than good. There are many plugins to disable this (WP Rocket, Perfmatters, most cache plugins).

To disable the WordPress Heartbeat API without a plugin, go to Appearance > Theme Editor, then edit the functions.php file of your theme. Next, paste the code right after the <?php tag:

add_action( 'init', 'stop_heartbeat', 1 );
function stop_heartbeat() {
wp_deregister_script('heartbeat');
}

 

8. Don’t Combine CSS + JavaScript

Smaller sites should usually combine CSS/JS while larger sites should not. According to WP Johnny, websites with a CSS/JS size of under 10KB should combine while over 10KB should not. He goes on to say that regarding TTFB, it’s all about starting sooner, not finishing sooner.

 

9. Update To PHP 7.4

Many hosts have already released PHP 8.0, newer MySQL versions, and new features to make your site faster while reducing TTFB. Make sure you’re using the optimizations your host offers. Many plugins/themes still have compatibility issues with PHP 8.0 in which you can use PHP 7.4.

 

10. Increase Memory Limit

Elementor and WooCommerce both require a 256MB memory limit, but you should really increase it to 256MB anyway especially if your website is getting fatal memory limit errors.

Add the code to your wp-config.php before “Happy Blogging.”

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');

Some hosts also have an option to increase it in their dashboard.

 

11. Use Server-Level Caching

Many hosts offer server-level caching which reduces TTFB and speeds up your site. Cloudways, SiteGround (and SG Optimizer), Kinsta, and A2 Hosting are just a few of them. I personally use memcached, NGINX, and Redis (with Varnish disabled) in Cloudways. Server-level caching is faster than cache plugins because it’s from your server, which is faster than file-based caching.

 

12. Offload Resources To Cloudflare

Cloudflare can be a blessing for reducing server response times in WordPress.

By offloading bandwidth to their data centers, you’re lightening the load on your server while using a faster DNS (better than the DNS offerred by GoDaddy or NameCheap). They also have other features in the dashboard that can reduce TTFB like Brotli, HTTP/3, bot protection, page rules, and APO which I’ll get into in the next steps. For now, just make sure Cloudflare is setup.

Step 1: Sign up for a free Cloudflare account, add your site, and run the scan prompted by Cloudflare. You will eventually come to a page where Cloudflare assigns you 2 nameservers.

Step 2: Add Cloudflare nameservers to NameCheap. Go to Dashboard → Domain List → Manage → Nameservers → Custom DNS. Add the two nameservers Cloudflare provided you.

 

13. Enable Brotli

Brotli is faster than GZIP compression. Both will reduce the file sizes of your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This allows these resources to download faster and improves TTFB. Cloudflare has an option to enable Brotli in the speed settings, otherwise you’ll use Gzip in your cache plugin.

 

14. Enable HTTP/3

In the Cloudflare blog, they say that on average, with HTTP/3 we see the first byte appearing after 176ms. With HTTP/2 we see 201ms, meaning HTTP/3 is already performing 12.4% better.

HTTP/3 can be enabled in the Network settings of your Cloudflare dashboard. And if you’re using Quic.cloud or another CDN, be sure the check whether they have HTTP/3 support as well.

 

15. Enable Bot Protection

Your wp-login page is a high target for bad bots.

Even if bots don’t succeed in logging into your site, you may find them attempting to login which consumes server resources. You can block them by moving your login page (using Perfmatters or WPS Hide Login) to a custom login URL, then enabling bot protection in Cloudflare’s settings.

Step 1: Install Wordfence.

Step 2: View the live traffic report for a few minutes to see who is hitting your site in real-time.

Step 3: Move your wp-login page. You can do this with Perfmatters or WPS Hide Login.

Step 4: Block spam bots even further by enabling bot fight mode in Cloudflare → Firewall → Bots → Bot Fight Mode (Cloudways also has bot protection) or try Blackhole For Bad Bots.

 

16. Create A Cache Everything Page Rule

If you’re using Cloudflare, add a page rule to cache everything.

Go into your Cloudflare dashboard → Page Rules. Copy/paste the rule below, only replace my domain with yours. If you have WooCommerce or a dynamic site and run into issues when adding the cache everything page rule, try using the WP Cloudflare Super Page Cache plugin.

Additionally, you can create a page rule for the wp-admin to protect it, bypass the cache, and prevent apps and performance features (i.e. Rocket Loader) from running in the admin area.

 

17. Consider Cloudflare’s APO

Cloudflare tested their APO on 500 sites and found on average, it improved TTFB by 90ms. This servers your entire site from Cloudflare’s edge network. It’s $5/month but worth testing if you have a slow TTFB. Make sure it’s compatible with your cache plugin since it’s not in WP Rocket.

 

18. Use A Faster Cache Plugin

WP Rocket and LiteSpeed Cache are the gold standards for cache plugins.

However, most people don’t configure these with the optimal settings. I have written popular tutorials on configuring WP Rocket, WP Fastest Cache, W3 Total Cache, and WP Super Cache.

With most other cache plugins, you would need to install about 6 extra plugins to get these features, when WP Rocket has them all built-in, reducing the number of plugins on your site. If you’re like me, you only want to use 1 plugin, otherwise you will need to research which features your cache plugin comes with, then install these plugins if it doesn’t support them.

• Database cleanup – WP-Optimize
• CSS/JS optimization – Autoptimize
• Delay JavaScript execution – Flying Scripts
• Host Google Analytics locally – Flying Analytics
• CDN URL integration – BunnyCDN / CDN Enabler
• Heartbeat control – Heartbeat Control / manual code
• Lazy load images/videos – Optimole / WP YouTube Lyte
• Preload links / instant page – Perfmatters or Flying Pages
• Host Facebook Pixel locally – no plugin does this that I know
• Prefetch/preload – Pre* Party Resource Hints / manual code
• Font-display:swap – Swap Google Fonts Display / manual code

 

19. Disable Data Sharing In Plugins

Sorry plugin developers, but if any plugins ever ask you to share your data, disabling it will slightly reduce CPU usage since your server won’t need to send the data to plugin developers.

 

20. Limit Post Revisions + Autosaves

By default, WordPress doesn’t limit post revisions and the autosave interval is frequent (1 minute). Decreasing post revisions (backups of your old posts) and increasing the autosave interval (i.e. 5 minutes) can slightly reduce CPU usage and prevent a boated database. You can do both of these using Perfmatters or by adding the following code to your wp-config.php file.

define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 5);

define('AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 300); // seconds

 

21. Replace WordPress Cron With Real Cron Jobs

The WordPress cron is executed every time a page is loaded and is often a target of DOS attacks. By replacing it with a real cron job, you can also schedule intervals and save resources.

In most cases, you’ll open the wp-config.php file and add a line of code to disable WordPress cron. Then you will add the second line of code to the cron job section in your hosting account.

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

cd /path/to/your/wordpress; wp cron event run --due-now >/dev/null 2>&1

 

Retest Your Server Response Time (TTFB)

Once you’ve made all the changes from this guide, retest your TTFB and hopefully it’s faster.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good TTFB?

Google recommends a TTFB of 200ms or less. However, Lighthouse only flags this if your TTFB is 600ms or more.

How do I reduce server response times in WordPress?

Hosting is by far the #1 factor. Using a powerful server is the most effective way to improve TTFB. You can also remove high CPU plugins, WordPress bloat, disable Heartbeat, and clean your database.

How do I improve TTFB on WooCommerce?

Remove unnecessary WooCommerce bloat such as scripts, styles, meta box, and marketplace suggestions. Most can be disabled using the Disable WooCommerce Bloat plugin. Avoid running WooCommerce on shared hosting and using heavy page builders.

Are there WordPress plugins that reduce TTFB?

LiteSpeed cache uses server-side caching which can reduce TTFB, otherwise you should generally avoid adding more plugins as it will likely increase TTFB instead of reducing it.

How do you measure server response times?

Server response times can be measured in Lighthouse, GTmetrix, Pingdom, Chrome DevTools, and KeyCDN.

Conclusion: join the WordPress Hosting Facebook Group to get real, unbiased opinions. Look at the Facebook polls that were taken and people who migrated to different hosts and posted their results. Finally, stay clear of low quality hosting affiliates who only want the commissions.

Cheers,
Tom