50 WordPress Speed Plugins To Optimize Your Site (Warning: 100% Overkill Ahead)

Wordpress speed optimization plugins

Welcome to the most complete list of WordPress optimization plugins on the internet.

These can help you speed up your website’s frontend, backend, reduce CPU usage, and fix specific items in core web vitals.

No, this is not a typical list where WP Rocket is #1 followed by a bunch of mediocre cache plugins. This list was created after writing WordPress speed tutorials for 10 years including extensive tutorials on every major cache plugin, Perfmatters, APO, and I’ll be writing one on FlyingProxy soon. I put a lot of thought into which WordPress speed plugins I listed, or didn’t.

These aren’t necessarily ranked best to worst (besides maybe the top 10 which I think are important ones worth mentioning). Otherwise, they’re mainly grouped by category.

Warning: you don’t need all these plugins and many of their features overlap. Some plugins like FlyingPress, LSC, and Perfmatters include more optimizations and do a better job of staying updated for CWV (which means less plugins). Many optimizations can be done with code (resource hints, disabling Heartbeat, XML-RPC, autosaves, etc). You shouldn’t need a security or image optimization plugin when Cloudflare for those.

Plugin Category Rating Price
FlyingPress Cache N/A Paid
LiteSpeed Cache Cache 4.8/5 Free
Perfmatters Multiple Categories N/A Paid
WP Rocket Cache 4.8/5 Paid
Cloudflare CDN 3.6/5 Paid
Super Page Cache for Cloudflare CDN 4.9/5 Free
WP-Optimize Database 4.8/5 Free
FlyingProxy CDN 5/5 Paid
Flying Pages Resource Hints 5/5 Free
Flying Scripts Delay JavaScript 5/5 Free
Flying Analytics Analytics 5/5 Free
Optimole Image 4.8/5 Freemium
ShortPixel Image 4.5/5 Freemium
ShortPixel Adaptive Images Image 4.9/5 Freemium
WebP Converter for Media Image 4.9/5 Free
WP YouTube Lyte Video 4.8/5 Free
OMGF Font 4.6/5 Free
WP Foft Loader Font N/A Freemium
Swap Google Fonts Display Font 4.4/5 Free
Asset CleanUp CSS/JS 4.9/5 Freemium
Autoptimize CSS/JS 4.7/5 Free
Async JavaScript CSS/JS 4.6/5 Free
Pre* Party Resource Hints Resource Hints 5/5 Free
BunnyCDN CDN 4.7/5 Paid
WP Crontrol Cron Job 4.9/5 Free
Unbloater Bloat Removal 5/5 Free
Debloat Bloat Removal 5/5 Free
Disable WooCommerce Bloat Bloat Removal 5/5 Free
Heartbeat Control Bloat Removal 4.2/5 Free
Disable XML-RPC Bloat Removal 4.7/5 Free
Widget Disable Bloat Removal 5/5 Free
Limit Login Attempts Security 4.9/5 Free
WPS Hide Login Security 4.9/5 Free
Redis Object Cache Cache 4.7/5 Free
Swift Performance Cache 3.7/5 Freemium
Breeze Cache 3.8/5 Free
W3 Total Cache Cache 4.4/5 Freemium
SiteGround Optimizer Cache 4.4/5 Free
Toolkit For Elementor Cache N/A Paid
NitroPack Cache N/A Paid
Blackhole For Bad Bots Block Bots 4.9/5 Free
Simple Local Avatars Comments 4.7/5 Free
Disqus Conditional Load Comments 4.6/5 Free
Preload Featured Images LCP 5/5 Free
AMP For WP AMP 4.4/5 Free
Query Monitor Diagnostic 4.9/5 Free
WP Server Health Stats Diagnostic 4.8/5 Free
WP Hosting Benchmark Diagnostic 5/5 Free
WP Healthcheck Diagnostic 5/5 Free
WP Hosting Performance Check Diagnostic 4.5/5 Free

 

1. FlyingPress

I’m ranking FlyingPress from WP Speed Matters the #1 cache plugin.

I switched from WP Rocket to FlyingPress and saw an immediate difference when clicking through my site. It has many features not found in most cache plugins (listed below) and Gijo is usually first to release new features like delaying JavaScript or lazy rendering HTML elements, then WP Rocket follows. The extra features, Gijo’s support, and constant core web vital updates and improvements he makes from the WP Speed Matters Facebook Group is what makes this plugin great. I also like supporting an independent developer, but results are always first for me.

Check the documentation to learn about different features and how they can better improve core web vitals and browsing speed. There’s a reason I put it ahead of WP Rocket, SiteGround Optimizer, and NitroPack. The most comparable plugin would be LiteSpeed Cache which is #2.

Tutorial: FlyingPress Settings

Key Features

  • Remove unused CSS: as Vikas explains in a Facebook post, FlyingPress’ remove unused CSS is faster than WP Rocket because it loads used CSS in a separate file (while WP Rocket uses the slower inline method). Perfmatters also has this option.
  • Lazy render HTML elements: similar to lazy loading images only with HTML elements like comments/footer sections. Only cache plugin I know that does this.
  • Self-host YouTube placeholders: prevents ytimg.com requests on video embeds.
  • Lazy load background images: can you use their helper lazy-bg class to do this.
  • Preload pages: similar to FlyingPages + smart preloading to prevent CPU spikes.
  • Preload critical images: preloads a set number of images shown above the fold.
  • Host fonts locally: prevent fonts.gstatic.com requests when using Google Fonts.
  • FlyingCDN: uses BunnyCDN, Bunny Optimizer (image optimization), and geo-replication for a lower price compared to similar CDNs while costing just $.03/GB.
  • Fetchpriority: as of writing this, FlyingPress is the only cache plugin I know that supports fetchpriority. This is similar to preload only it can set a priority to images (high, low default) and can improve LCP by setting your LCP image to high priority.

Omm switches to flyingpress

SG Optimizer WP Rocket FlyingPress
Server-side caching x x
Delay JavaScript x
Remove unused CSS x Inline Separate file
Critical CSS x
Preload critical images x x By number
Exclude above the fold images By class By URL By number
Lazy load background images x Inline Helper class
Fetchpriority resource hint x x
Lazy render HTML elements x x
Add missing image dimensions x
YouTube iframe preview image x
Self-host YouTube placeholder x x
Host fonts locally x x
Font-display: swap x
Preload links x
CDN (beyond Cloudflare) SiteGround CDN StackPath BunnyCDN
CDN PoPs 176 60 114
CDN Tbps N/A 65 80
Dynamic caching x x
CDN geo-replication x x
CDN image optimization x
CDN image resizing for mobile x x
Documented APO compatibility x x

 

2. LiteSpeed Cache

LiteSpeed Cache and FlyingPress are my top 2 cache plugins, but I put LSC as #2 because you have to use a LiteSpeed host to use core features, and the settings can be difficult to configure.

This also means it’s more configurable than FlyingPress, WP Rocket, and SG Optimizer. The server-side caching is fast, it optimizes for first time visits via guest mode + guest optimization, and the settings let you control public/private cache. QUIC.cloud is also one of the best CDNs if you use the standard plan which comes with all 70+ PoPs and DDos Protection. LSC is the only free cache plugin worth using IMO and what you should be using if you’re on a LiteSpeed server.

But is it worth switching hosts to use LiteSpeed? Between the LiteSpeed server (faster than Apache/Nginx), LiteSpeed Cache (great cache plugin), and QUIC (one of the top CDNs), this is usually one of the cheapest/fastest setups you can get. In other words, yes… it’s likely worth it.

Tutorial: LiteSpeed Cache Settings

Litespeed cache plugin

Key Features

  • Server-side caching: faster than file-based caching done by most cache plugins.
  • Guest mode + guest optimization: greatly improves load time for first-time visits.
  • Public + private caching: several settings to control the public and private cache.
  • UCSS: removes unused CSS through QUIC (read the documentation beforehand).
  • QUIC.cloud: solid CDN if you use standard plan with HTML caching and 70+ PoPs.
  • HTTP/3: QUIC’s HTTP/3 is true HTTP/3 unlike Cloudflare which pulls from HTTP/2.
  • Redis + memcached: easy integrate object caching in LSC with a connection test.
  • Localize resources: copy third-party resources to the server so it’s hosted locally.
  • HTML Lazy Load Selectors: lazy load any HTML element like comments + footer.
  • TTL settings: several settings to adjust TTL which most cache plugins don’t have.
  • Image optimization + LQIP: more image optimizations than all cache plugins.
  • Gravatar cache: also one of the only cache plugins which can cache Gravatars.
  • Crawler: crawls for pages with expired cache and refreshes them (use carefully).
  • ESI: control how elements on dynamic pages are cached, but usually not needed.
  • Free: hands down the best free cache plugin ahead of SG Optimizer and Breeze.

Litespeed vs nginx vs apache
LiteSpeed vs. Nginx vs. Apache (lower is better, source: LiteSpeed)

 

3. Perfmatters

While Perfmatters is best known for the script manager to remove unused CSS/JS, it also does bloat removal and optimizes for core web vitals.

Take their remove unused CSS feature which uses the faster method of loading used CSS in a separate file. SiteGround Optimizer doesn’t do this while WP Rocket does but uses the slower inline method. Perfmatters can host fonts/analytics locally, includes browser resource hints (preload, prefetch, preconnect), and has more lazy loading settings than most cache plugins.

The worse job your cache plugin does of optimizing for core web vitals and bloat, the better results you should get with Perfmatters. It also has more features compared to Asset CleanUp.

Tutorial: Perfmatters Settings

Key Features

  • Delay JavaScript.
  • Script manager to remove unused CSS/JS.
  • Remove unused CSS (used CSS in separate file).
  • Preload critical images (same thing in FlyingPress).
  • Browser resource hints (preload, prefetch, preconnect).
  • Limit autosave interval, post revisions, disable XML-RPC.
  • Move wp-login to a custom URL to hide it from bad bots.
  • Host fonts locally, font-display: swap, serve fonts from CDN.
  • Lazy load images, iframes, videos, with multiple other settings.
  • Host analytics locally with smaller tracking code + anonymize IPs.
  • Instant page (pages download in background when users hover over a link).

Disable plugins perfmatters
Disable CSS/JS (or entire plugins) where they don’t need to load
Jquery plugin dependencies 1
Enable dependencies in the script manager settings to see which plugins use jQuery

 

4. WP Rocket

WP Rocket got pushed down to #4.

It optimizes more for scores than real visitors, RocketCDN isn’t a great choice, and they also stopped offering renewal discounts. There’s no server-side caching and to be honest, it doesn’t have a whole lot of unique features. FlyingPress and LiteSpeed Cache seem to lead the way for innovation while WP Rocket follows their lead. It’s also harder to lazy load background images.

WP Rocket is designed to be “one size fits all” which comes with consequences. There are little to no customization settings for RocketCDN, lazy loading, only fonts can be preloaded, and their documentation recommends using a bad plugin for lazy loading Elementor background images.

WP Rocket was the best option before FlyingPress and LiteSpeed Cache. They need to improve remove unused CSS, RocketCDN, and add unique features. It’s gone pretty stale from 2011-2012.

Tutorial: WP Rocket Settings

Key Features

  • Remove unused CSS: used CSS is inline which is better for scores but not visitors.
  • Delay JavaScript: automatically delays JavaScript, but no option to add JS files.
  • Optimize CSS Delivery: generates critical CSS + loads other CSS asynchronously.
  • RocketCDN: uses StackPath which has a slower Tbps compared to similar CDNs like BunnyCDN, is less reliable (also removed from cdnperf.com), and is strictly a CDN with no additional features. Also not “unlimited bandwidth” like advertised.

Wp rocket

 

5. Cloudflare

Used to set up Cloudflare’s APO which can improve TTFB, LCP, and other metrics via HTML caching. Do a before/after speed test in KeyCDN using APO and you should see a significant difference. Cloudflare’s plugin doesn’t have the best reviews but I found it worked perfectly.

Tutorial: Adding Cloudflare APO To WordPress

Cloudflare plugin automatic platform optimization

Keycdn-performance-test

 

6. Super Page Cache for Cloudflare

Adds the cache everything page rule from Cloudflare.

Brian Li (from Kinsta) and Freelancer Tools (Cloudflare interview) have nice explanations on cache everything vs. APO (the plugin developer also explained his plugin vs. APO). The plugin lets you exclude certain web pages, sessions, ajax requests, and other things from the cache. It was also acquired by Optimole who I think does a great job with their other plugins. The out-of-the-box settings are usually fine, or you can see the documentation on using it with WP Rocket.

Wp cloudflare super page cache plugin

 

7. WP-Optimize

Most cache plugins already clean your database, so why use WP-Optimize?

Because it lets you go through your actual database tables and delete tables left behind by old plugins marked as “not installed.” If you deleted a plugin, chances are it left behind bloat which can be deleted. You may also notice certain plugin features adding lots of overhead, in which case you should consider disabling those plugin features/modules. I saw Rank Math’s modules were adding a fair amount of overhead so I disabled analytics, link checker, and other modules.

Tutorial: Clean Your Database

Wp optimize unused database tables

Rank math database bloat

 

8. FlyingProxy

Get Cloudflare Enterprise features on any host for $10/mo.

This is theoretically better than Cloudflare Pro because in addition to the Pro features it includes (full page caching, image optimization, etc), it also includes Enterprise features like DDoS protection, firewall, premium network, more PoPs, and prioritized routing. Can make a huge difference if you don’t want to pay for Cloudflare Pro or move to a host to take advantage of Cloudflare Enterprise features. Here’s the Facebook Group and I’ll be writing a tutorial soon.

Flyingproxy

 

9. Flying Pages

Preloads pages in the viewport so when users click them, the page loads nearly instantly. Very helpful for real-word browsing speed. It has built-in settings to prevent overloading the server like only preloading 3 requests/second and stops preloading if your server is busy. All “Flying” plugins were built by Gijo Varghese and most features (but not FlyingProxy) are in FlyingPress.

Flying pages by wp speed matters

 

10. Flying Scripts

Delay JavaScript using a timeout period.

Mostly used with third-party code which you can find in your PSI report and even plugins loading below the fold like third-party comments. Some caching plugins like SiteGround Optimizer can’t delay JavaScript in which you’ll want to use one that does (or this plugin).

Tutorial: Common JS Files To Delay

Flying scripts plugin

 

11. Flying Analytics

Hosts Google Analytics locally and choose from multiple tracking codes to reduce its size (i.e. analytics-minimal.js). Enter your Tracking-ID, set the JavaScript method, and it does the rest.

Google analytics pagespeed insights

 

12. Optimole

Optimole has a great solution for lazy loading background images.

Instead of moving background images to inline HTML like some cache plugins require, you can simply copy the selectors and add them to Optimole. So you could disable all other settings in Optimole and just use it to lazy load background images. Follow the instructions shown below.

Step 1: Right click the background image and click “Inspect.”

Inspect background image in chrome dev tools

Step 2: Right click the highlighted area where the image is and go to Copy → Copy selector.

Background image css selector

Step 3: Enable lazyload for background images in Optimole, then paste the CSS selector.

Lazyload background images optimole

 

13. ShortPixel

Image optimization plugins aren’t needed if you use Cloudflare Mirage + Polish or Bunny Optimizer from BunnyCDN. Or you can always manually optimize images before uploading.

Otherwise, most image optimization plugins only give you a limited number of free optimizations per month, then you have to pay (ShortPixel includes 100 free credits/month). It should have everything needed to fix most image optimization recommendations in PageSpeed Insights. Smush is also good, just make sure you take a backup if you’re bulk compressing them.

Key Features

  • WebP
  • Remove EXIF data
  • Resize to smaller dimensions
  • Convert PNG images to JPEG

Shortpixel image optimizer plugin settings

 

14. ShortPixel Adaptive Images

Serves smaller images to mobile devices which can improve mobile scores and load times. Images can be served from ShortPixel’s CDN in next-gen WebP format if browsers support it. Very similar to Cloudflare Mirage where devices with smaller screens receive smaller images.

Shortpixel adaptive images

 

15. WebP Converter For Media

Creates WebP images which are faster than JPEG, PNG and GIFs. Most CDNs and image optimization plugins already do this, so you should just use those. But if they don’t, WebP is faster than JPEG/PNG and fixes the serve images in next-gen format recommendation in PSI.

Webp converter for media plugin

 

16. WP YouTube Lyte

Lazy loads videos by inserting responsive “lite YouTube embeds” which only calls the fat YouTube player when the play button is clicked. However, I prefer the lazy loading done by FlyingPress since it eliminates requests from ytimg.com by hosting placeholders locally. Other cache/speed plugins can lazy load videos, otherwise you can use the WP YouTube Lyte plugin.

 

17. OMGF

Host fonts locally to prevent third-party requests from fonts.gstatic.com.

Your GTmetrix Waterfall chart + PageSpeed Insights report tells you whether fonts are hosted locally or not. Elementor and several themes/plugins also have an option to host fonts locally. The plugin has settings to serve fonts from your CDN, preload fonts, and use font-display: swap.

Local vs third party fonts

Omgf plugin settings

 

18. WP Foft Loader

Uses font-display: optional which is recommended by Google for fastest performance and to avoid layout shifts, FOIT, and FOUT. Most plugins use “swap.” While the plugin has 0 reviews as of writing this, it’s based on Zach Leatherman’s work who is basically king of font performance.

Tutorial: Ensure Text Remains Visible During Webfont Load

Wp foft loader settings

 

19. Swap Google Fonts Display

Add font-display: swap to ensure text remains visible during webfont load in PageSpeed Insights. This sets a fallback font while fonts are loading which can fix FOIT (flash of invisible text) but may also cause FOUC (flash of unstyled content). Many speed plugins and Elementor already let you use font-display: swap though, so the plugin might cause duplicate functionality.

Ensure text remains visible during webfont load

 

20. Asset CleanUp

Remove unused CSS/JS like Perfmatters with less features and the UI/UX is worse IMO.

It doesn’t have remove unused CSS, delay JavaScript, lazy loading, or hosting fonts/analytics locally. It also doesn’t have as many exception rules or bloat removal + browse resource hint settings. But it does the trick if you want a free plugin to unload assets. Asset CleanUp Pro can unload custom CSS with more features than the free plugin, but still not as many as Perfmatters.

Asset cleanup css js manager

 

21. Autoptimize

Minifies, combines, defers, and inlines CSS/JS files.

It can help fix render-blocking resources and you can set a CDN URL to serve files from. Some cache plugins don’t give you control over how CSS/JS files are optimized, but Autoptimize does.

Tutorial: Autoptimize Settings

Autoptimize settings

 

22. Async JavaScript

Often does a better job at deferring JavaScript than WP Rocket and other cache plugins which can fix render-blocking resource errors in PSI. Simply install the plugin then click “apply defer.”

Async javascript

 

23. Pre* Party Resource Hints

Add preload, prefetch, and preconnect resource hints.

You don’t need this when using Perfmatters since it already does these, but some cache plugins only let you preload fonts and not images or other files. Some add preconnect automatically to fonts.gstatic.com and CDN URLs while others don’t. Check your cache plugin’s documentation and settings to see if you need Pre* Party. You can always add the hints manually with code too.

  • Preload – preload above the fold resources (i.e. images/fonts).
  • Preconnect – usually only done with CDN URLs + fonts.gstatic.com.
  • Prefetch – prefetch third-party domains if they’re not hosted locally or delayed.

Pre* party resource hints plugin

 

24. BunnyCDN

Add BunnyCDN which is what I use on top of Cloudflare.

It’s faster than RocketCDN/StackPath with 80 Tbps+ compared to 65 Tbps+ and is consistently performant/reliable on cdnperf.com (unlike StackPath). Also highly recommended in FB Groups.

  • Sign up for BunnyCDN and use code OMM5 to credit $5 in credits.
  • Create a pull zone, select your regions, and they’ll give you a CDN URL.
  • Install the BunnyCDN plugin and add your pull zone name.
  • Add your CDN to your cache plugin which can help serve more assets.
  • View BunnyCDN’s setup instructions and take advantage of their other features.

Tutorial: BunnyCDN Review + Setup Instructions

Bunnycdn plugin

Cloudflare with bunnycdn
Gijo explains why Cloudflare + BunnyCDN is a great combination

 

25. WP Crontrol

View and edit cron jobs (scheduled tasks) running on your website. A popular method is to disable wp-cron and add a real cron job, usually in your hosting account of Cloudflare Workers.

Wp crontrol events

 

26. Unbloater

This basically has all the bloat removal settings from Perfmatters including settings for Heartbeat, disabling XML-RPC, jQuery migrate, autoupdates, and limiting post revisions.

Unbloater plugin

 

27. Debloat

Advanced plugin for removing unused CSS, optimizing CSS delivery, and deferring/delaying JavaScript. I believe it’s the only free plugin that can remove unused CSS. It has a perfect 5 star review and a few extra optimizations for Elementor and adding resource hints to Google Fonts.

Debloat remove unused css

 

28. Disable WooCommerce Bloat

Disables several WooCommerce features introduced in WooCommerce 4.0 and later.

  • WooCommerce admin, analytics tab, notification bar.
  • Marketing hub, home screen, password strength meter.
  • WooCommerce scripts, styles, cart fragments, widgets.
  • SkyVerge dashboard, Jetpack promotions, Elementor overview widget.

Disable woocommerce bloat plugin

 

29. Heartbeat Control

Disable or limit WordPress heartbeat which consumes resources by sending you real-time plugin notifications, when other users are editing a post, etc. I recommend disabling heartbeat in the WordPress dashboard/frontend then setting post editor to 120s. However, many speed plugins already do this (LiteSpeed Cache, WP Rocket, Perfmatters, and SiteGround Optimizer).

Tutorial: Disable WordPress Heartbeat

Heartbeat control plugin settings

Or add this code to functions.php.

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

 

30. Disable XML-RPC

Disables XML-RPC which protects your site from brute-force and DDoS attacks. Hits to XML-RPC may also be consuming resources, so it’s a good idea to disable this. Make sure disabling it doesn’t conflict with page builders or plugins. XML-RPC was designed to publish content from external services and can be usually disabled if you don’t do this (it can also be done with code).

Disable xml-rpc-api plugin

 

31. Widget Disable

Disable unused widgets in the admin.

Widget disable plugin

 

32. Limit Login Attempts

Limit login attempts from bad bots/hackers to prevent them from consuming resources. It lets you set lockout periods, safelist/blocklist certain IP addresses, and supports email notifications.

Limit login attempts reloaded plugin

 

33. WPS Hide Login

Move your wp-login page to a custom URL (Perfmatters already does this).

Stops bots/hackers from finding the original wp-login URL to stop bad bots/hackers. If you’re using QUIC, that already has features to optimize the wp-login so you may not want to move it.

Wps hide login plugin

 

34. Redis Object Cache

Add Redis to your site which is known to use memory more efficiently then memcached. Make sure your host supports this and read their instructions since some of them require different Redis plugins. For example, Rocket.net uses WP Redis and Cloudways uses Redis Object Cache Pro which automatically installs a drop-in plugin. In cPanel, you can activate Redis in the “PHP Extensions” section. SiteGround uses memcached which is found in Site Tools + SG Optimizer.

Redis object cache plugin settings

 

35. Swift Performance

I wouldn’t ever use this plugin due to the huge amount of scam complaints in the reviews. However, some people still swear by it. I believe because the caching is much more aggressive than WP Rocket and similar plugins. Just based on so many poor reviews, I don’t recommend it.

Tutorial: Swift Performance Settings

Swift performance lite plugin

 

36. Breeze

I love Cloudways for hosting, but Breeze still needs work.

It’s lacking several important features found in other cache plugins and I actually sent Cloudways an entire list of things that could use improvement in the plugin. If they make those updates, it should be comparable to top cache plugins. But for now, I would use something else.

Tutorial: Breeze Settings

Lacking Features

  • Remove unused CSS
  • Host fonts/analytics locally
  • Automatic database cleanups
  • Add missing image dimensions
  • Preload critical images (i.e. LCP image)
  • Exclude above the fold images from lazy load
  • Bloat removal (jQuery Migrate, XML-RPC, etc)
  • Disable WordPress embeds/hotlink protection
  • Control post revisions (limit or keep during database cleanup)
  • Defer JavaScript automatically instead of making users add JS files.

Breeze – wordpress cache plugin

 

37. W3 Total Cache

It’s made big updates since you may have seen it last, but still lacks many CWV features.

Plus, the settings can be difficult to configure especially for beginners. Most people stopped using this plugin especially since it was almost abandoned by the developer for a long time.

Tutorial: W3 Total Cache Settings

W3 total cache plugin

 

38. SiteGround Optimizer

I don’t recommend SiteGround and definitely don’t recommend this plugin.

My advice: use it only for caching, disable everything else, and use a better cache plugin that actually stays on top of core web vitals. There’s also a long history of compatibility issues which SiteGround’s team constantly blames on third-party themes/plugins if you check the reviews. This includes Elementor, WooCommerce/dynamic sites, and many plugins. SiteGround over glorifies it – but don’t fall for their hype. While you can use Perfmatters to fill in lacking features in SG Optimizer, you’re better off using another caching plugin (or another host for that matter).

Tutorial: SiteGround Optimizer Settings

Siteground optimizer review

 

39. ToolKit For Elementor

ToolKit has a script manager now to remove unused CSS/JS.

It also does a little bit of everything (minification, combination, font optimization, lazy load, bloat removal, gzip, browser caching, expires headers), but it doesn’t do everything. I would rather use the FlyingPress + Perfmatters combo. One thing I like about Elementor ToolKit is the option to disable unused widgets in Elementor, WordPress, and in your WordPress dashboard.

Toolkit for elementor script ninja

 

40. NitroPack

NitroPack is the last cache plugin in this list because it cheats scores in PageSpeed Insights by moving things off the main-thread, but it doesn’t improve actual load times nearly as much as other cache plugins. So go ahead and install it if you’re looking for those 100% scores, just don’t expect your website to load much faster at all. The price is also too expensive for what you get.

Nitropack

 

41. Blackhole For Bad Bots

Cloudflare bot fight mode is what I would use, you can use this.

There are many ways to block bad bots and some do a better job than others (Cloudflare bot fight mode, firewall rules, Wordfence, Cloudways bot protection, etc). Check your logs and make sure whatever method you’re using actually blocks them. When using this plugin, you’ll need to add the Robots Rules to your site’s robots.txt file (explained on the installation page).

Tutorial: Block Bad Bots

Blackhole for bad bots plugin

 

42. Simple Local Avatars

Upload local Avatars to prevent third-party requests from Gravatar (mainly used for blogs with lots of comments). WP User Avatar pulled a bait-and-switch, so you can install this one instead.

Simple local avatars plugin

 

43. Disqus Conditional Load

Speeds up Disqus comments by lazy loading them, but I definitely recommend using native comments and not using a third-party comment plugin. I was using wpDiscuz and even though I delayed/optimized it, native comments were always faster than plugins. Use native comments!

Disqus conditional load plugin

 

If you show featured images above the fold, preloading them will improve LCP.

Preload featured images plugin

 

45. AMP For WP

I was using AMP, but I ultimately disabled it and now I don’t. If you want to add AMP (accelerated mobile pages), this is one of the most highly rated AMP plugins since it has lots of customization options. One of the frustrating parts about AMP is that it strips many of your design elements, so you want to make sure your mobile pages are designed to still look nice.

AMP can decrease mobile conversions. Read Kinsta’s study on how their conversions dropped 59% when using AMP. I removed it years ago and plan on keeping it that way.

Amp for wp plugin settings

 

46. Query Monitor

Find your slow loading plugins, queries, scripts, and other elements that take longest to load. Make sure you delete it when you’re done since it runs ongoing scans and increases CPU usage. To use it, install the plugin, view any page on your site, and you’ll find Query Monitor in the top menu. Go to “Queries by component” to see your slowest plugins. WP Hive is another great tool for browsing the WordPress repo to see whether a plugin is slow, but that’s a Chrome Extension.

Tutorial: Find Slow Plugins

Slow wordpress plugins query monitor

 

47. WP Server Health Stats

The amount of information about your server this plugin gives you is insane including PHP memory, memory/RAM usage, and CPU usage. For everything about your server, use this plugin.

Wp server stats cpu memory usage

 

48. WP Hosting Benchmark

While the previous plugin shows you server stats, this one actually tests the speed of CPU, memory bandwidth, disk speed, persistent object cache, and the network download speed.

Wp hosting benchmark tool

 

49. WP Healthcheck

Shows where the most autoloads are coming from which can negatively affect performance. Also shows your WordPress version, PHP version, MySQL/MariaDB version, and the server type.

Wp healthcheck

 

50. WP Hosting Performance Check

Monitor your server response times and whether your technology (PHP, MySQL, WordPress versions) is running slow, in which case it should be updated. It also shows your slowest pages. It’s a great plugin to have in your toolbox if you’re running a WordPress hosting benchmark test.

Wp hosting performance check plugin

Bot analysis wp hosting performance check

 

The Same Setup I Use

Here’s the setup I use:

For most LiteSpeed users this is what I suggest:

What are the best WordPress speed plugins?

FlyingPress, LiteSpeed Cache, Perfmatters, WP Rocket, and Cloudflare are arguably the top 5 optimization plugins right now. Each one helps with core web vitals and browsing speed.

What are the best FREE WordPress speed plugins?

LiteSpeed Cache, Super Page Cache for Cloudflare, Flying Pages, Autoptimize, and Asset CleanUp are some of the highest rated free optimization plugins.

Cheers,
Tom

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135 Comments...

  1. Hi Tom,

    I only just discovered your website but it has been really helpful to me already. I’m figuring out what combination would work great for my situation. It’ll be a website with a lot of dynamic content due to LMS and there will be likely 750-1000 users/day so I’m looking for an LMS with good speed performance but also torn between the following:

    Hosting: [rocket.net+flyingpress] or [runcloud + vultr OLS + Litespeed cache + bunnyCDN]
    Performance plugins: perfmatters and pluginorganizer (how do you feel about plugin organiser?)

    Also, is flyingpress needed with rocket.net? I already have bunny.net for my videos but not sure if I’d need bunny for anything else on Rocket.net.

    Anyways, any suggestions are welcome!

    André

    Reply
    • Sorry for the late reply André.

      Both are great setups. Rocket.net would cost more but Cloudflare Enterprise would definitely benefitial for LMS compared to BunnyCDN.

      Yes, I recommend FlyingPress with Rocket.net or at least an optimization plugin like Perfmatters.

      I’ve used Plugin Organizer… it’s good if you only need Perfmatters for the script manager (i.e. you’re using FlyingPress but need to unload CSS/JS). But if you’re already using Perfmatters, just use that.

      Reply
  2. Hi Tom – Ran into your blog whilst searching for info on WP Super Cache. I’m brand spanking new in the WP world with several decades of s/w dev experience behind me, some before “Al invented the internet….” My philosophy has been to learn the pitfalls before getting into trouble, and all of your posts have been immensely helpful. Truly appreciate the unvarnished truth.

    Am building a brand-new site for our church which will be fully featured. Of course, we’re on a budget and “free is always better” (Not in my view); this post disrupts that theory and will save countless hours. It also disrupts the axiom of “you can have it fast, good, and cheap – pick any two…”

    The guides here for optimizing Elementor will be very helpful, and I have a handle on the basic stuff, I’m conscientious about page structure and image preparation.

    Currently testing Dreamhost – it’s been a decent experience and their knowledge base is pretty deep. However, will be moving to NameHero shortly and will utilize your affiliate link. Clearly a significantly better value proposition. Their knowledge base is pretty light, so count on me hunting down info on your site. I’ll always try to leave a kind comment when I’m here. You, Sir, are a God send to us and very sincerely appreciated.

    Reply
    • Hey, I really appreciate that David! With all the competition there is now, it’s hard to stand out and outrank affiliates sites who recommend garbage.

      And yes, you can still have a fast site on a budget with a LiteSpeed server LiteSpeed Cache. Same with QUIC.cloud’s CDN if you need it. Fast, good, and cheap! Dreamhost to NameHero should be an upgrade – lmk how it goes, want to make sure you’re happy with it.

      Feel free to lmk if you have questions and I’ll always do my best to answer them truthfully, especially knowing it’s for a good cause. Thanks for your comment :)

      Reply
      • G’Morning Tom – Spent some time reading more….and I’m enticed. For our project, we’re building the site from ground up. Initial lean was Elementor due to the ease of use understanding there may be sacrifices for the feature. Digesting more, I’m taking a different perspective and would appreciate your thoughts.

        Allow me to set some goal posts. Clearly, I’m not afraid of code – CSS, HTML and scripting are pretty straightforward and there’s a ton of reference material. We selected WP due to the overall framework and support it provides over .Net. I’m not afraid of making personal investments in my software cost and want to minimize the ongoing cost of plugin subscriptions. Same with my time – learning is fun.

        We’re not on any kind of crazy “let’s go live tomorrow” schedule and we’ve planned out an incremental approach with agile methodologies.

        We will be hosting various purposes – info delivery, blogging, significant video (live-stream and on-demand), interactive sessions video/chat and a commerce gateway. Feature implementations can be handled in subdomains permitting solid design to support the feature. Frankly, I think that’s a downfall I’ve seen on many sites…not enough design consideration for the specific url purpose.

        I compared GenPress and Oxygen and I’m liking GenPress a LOT. Much rather spend the time with solid design and implementation rather than fixing, patching etc. Part of phase I is rehosting in WP and basic design to replace a static site that has a host of issues. I do not like the idea of a lot of plugins that have to be minimized to be fast. And I absolutely do not care for the subscription basis for a lot of the paid stuff – a one-time purchase is just fine with me.

        We are definitely moving to NameHero. BTW, I like their entrepreneur hosting approach – I may burgeon into a third career helping out local small businesses.

        So, all that said – looking at GenPress, LiteSpeed, QUIC.cloud, BunnyCDN, and Perfmatters for the architectural foundation. Cloudflare may be in play depending on their pricing model for non-profits. I really feel QUIC & BunnyCDN will do the ticket though. It’s still on a budget – but I feel these will all be good investments.

        Will be delving into WP YouTube Lyte. Most of our video will be hosted on YouTube – it’s a good storage/handling platform. Accomplished an initial review of the 50 plugins – and I can see some good uses with some of these. Greenshift appears to have some nice features but will look at that more later. Speed is critical, but we need to temper highly attractive content features also.

        You could help me out by educating me on the utilization of aff links. I will be making purchases described above – and they are all because I found your blog. So please treat me with tenderness and lmk what I need to do to ensure you get the commissions… Thank you Tom.

        Reply
        • Well I REALLY do appreciate you doing that David.

          Regarding the setup (GenPress, LiteSpeed Cache, QUIC.cloud, BunnyCDN, Perfmatters, Cloudflare)… QUIC.cloud is already a CDN that integrates with LiteSpeed Cache, so I don’t think you would need BunnyCDN or Cloudflare’s CDN (when setting up QUIC in LiteSpeed Cache, you have the option to set it up via Cloudflare or QUIC’s DNS).

          Maybe WP Youtube Lyte isn’t needed since LiteSpeed Cache already lazy loads iframes.

          Most aff links have something like ?=123 at the end of the URL when you hover over the link. For example, in this review, you can see the first link to GeneratePress has ?ref=5208 at the end. That’s how you know. Other sites might cloak them with something like /go/ or /get/ in the URL, but I usually don’t. Ps. I like checking this to see if websites are making commissions because many of them just put the highest commission products first.

          With your coding background, I think GeneratePress should be more than manageable and there’s also GenerateBlocks which I use on top of GeneratePress for more templates.

          Thank YOU.

          Reply
  3. WP-Rocket, Perfmatters, Nitropack, these are the top three I’d rank. Your Nitropack comment about cheating is not correct, this turned out to be false long ago. Even in the link you refer to, it says it is not. Besides that, good job!

    Reply
  4. Hello. I would like to ask something, since I am a new user of wordpress and had my site created like 3 months ago. I have seen a lot of videos and read lots of threads about speading up your wordprss website and stuff, but when i install plug-ins which are similar to each other (for example, i have W3-Cache – i think that’s how it was called – and I also had WP-Optimize and I was getting a message that I shouldn’t be having more than 1 Cache plug-in active. So my question is, do I really have to own just 1 plug-in installed for cache for example or can i have multiple? Because WP-Optimize looks like it can do most of the things other plug-ins are for, like minify, cache, table optimization, image compression etc. Is it ok if I have activate other plug-ins as well doing the same things?

    Reply
    • You can use both but if they overlap in features, you should only enable the setting in 1 plugin. I probably wouldn’t use WP-Optimize for anything else other than cleaning your database then use FlyingPress or LiteSpeed Cache for everything else. W3 Total Cache has made improvements but still lacks several optimizations.

      Reply
  5. Hey Tom,

    God bless you again for another informative, in-depth post. Your continuous, mountainous help has brought my page score from a D to a B on a heavy, intensive woocommerce site. I have more than 40 plugins installed and I’m very much happy with a B score. :)

    So thank you again brother. You saved my website life tremendously. God bless you 1,000 folds. I mean that with all my heart! You’re one of the most down to earth, humble, and generous person I have met, especially on the Internet. You offer your heart and soul in your blogs. I never met you in person, but I can humbly say you’re a good friend! :)

    Might I add, going forward, a better way to test for web performance using advanced functions, settings, and the whole nine yards is https://www.webpagetest.org/?

    Look into webpagetest Tom. It’s much better than gtmetrix and pingdom. It’s free and will do you more justice down the road.

    I only use gtmetrix to compare and contrast between the two as a secondary, temporary tool.

    Hope you enjoy it and cheers brother!

    Reply
    • Hey Joe,

      Thanks! That means a lot and congrats on those amazing results. Yes I know about WebPageTest, need to use it more especially since it got revamped and the design is so much better. I’ll be sure to look to find more ways to use it, and maybe refer readers to it instead of GTmetrix. I won’t be using Pingdom anymore unless they do a serious update. Cheers :)

      Reply
    • Thanks brother. One other thing. I was testing Guest Mode and Guest Mode optimization on Litespeed cache. My hosting is with wpxhosting and they have Litespeed servers in place. 
      You really need to look into Litespeed cache if your hosts supports it. Guest mode is God mode Tom. It will create a cache version of your site before your visitor hits the page. It is a new feature they rolled out two weeks ago. So when new visitors land on your site for the first time, the page will load lightning (I am talking about the speed of light) fast since it’s serving them a cache version.
      Mind you, pagespeed insights are more critical than gtmetrix and webpagetest. I got all As on webpagetest and an 85% score on gtmetrix but only a 45 and 76 score on mobile and desktop, respectively on pagespeed insights. All these scores are independent of Guest Mode and Guest Optimization. As soon as I enabled both guest mode options on Litespeed, my score on pagespeed insights jumped to 98 and 99 on mobile and desktop, respectively.
      Mobile score: https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/9765820?key=5bf35140e583f73b5ddc46174fb20db5
      Desktop score: https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/9765877?key=d2efd3ee00f354d2ab686c94e3bdd0a4
      It’s so funny because both screenshots prove how effective Guest mode is even when other items aren’t optimized. Looking at the above screenshots, you’ll see I am not even using next gen or Webp/optimized images, I have unused CSS and excessive DOM size due to Brizy page builder, and other red flags.
      Mind you, getting such a high score on a very voluminous woocommerce site with 40 plus plugins in more than impressive.
      If this isn’t enough to get your attention Tom, I don’t know what is. LOL.
      For your own good, this is the least I can offer for all the free stuff you provide. Read more about Guest mode here: https://blog.litespeedtech.com/2021/06/01/guest-mode-for-wordpress-in-lscwp-v4-0/
      And if that wasn’t enough to convince you about the power behind Litespeed, hopefully this feature is. I am not sure if you’re aware, but Litespeed offers unlimited FREE Webp image optimizations under Standard Queue. Take a look here: https://quic.cloud/online-services-costs/
      Plus, their support team are very active on slack. I am talking to two individuals right now. I have received more out of them than a full blown team. No long queues. Very active community.
      I can go on and on Tom as they have more features than any other cache plugin I have come across. As much as I love WP Rocket, they are incomparable to Litespeed. It’s like comparing David (Litespeed) with Goliath (WP Rocket). We all know what happens to Goliath. LOL
      Anyways. Sorry for the long post. I hope you got some value out of it. Take care and always be safe! 
      God bless
      Joe

      Reply
      • I read everything and I will 100% be looking into LiteSpeed more. I probably should have sooner, at least to get to know it and write some tutorials if not use it too. Thanks for all the tips you provided! Really means a lot and you can be in the near future I will be testing it. I have been focusing on YouTube more but will put this as high priority on my list. Thanks for all your feedback :)

        Reply
  6. Hello there, great post. recommend cloudways? Have you had problems with wordpress or with the loading performance of the website? I have seen some negative reviews of cloudways preventing me from using it.

    Reply

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