The Ideal WP Rocket Settings 2022 + Tips For Core Web Vitals, Cloudflare, CDNs, Fonts, Cumulative Layout Shift — Version 3.10

Ready to setup the best WP Rocket settings?

WP Rocket was rated the #1 cache plugin in several Facebook polls because it has more speed features than most cache plugins (giving you better results in core web vitals). It also means you don’t need to install a bunch of extra plugins to take care of things most free cache plugins don’t.

This guide goes beyond configuring the WP Rocket settings. I explain how disabling “optimize CSS delivery” can fix cumulative layout shift issues, how to prefetch third-party code, preload fonts, and why I recommend Cloudflare/BunnyCDN over RocketCDN (which uses StackPath).

Update: I moved from WP Rocket to FlyingPress and saw a major improvement when clicking through posts. Core web vitals stayed the same but it’s optimized more for real-world browsing. I use it with Cloudways Vultr HF and you can view my GTmetrix report, or click through my site.

 

 

1. Dashboard

Leave both options off unless you want to be a beta tester or let WP Rocket collect your data anonymously which results in a (very small) performance decrease. I recommend BunnyCDN or Cloudflare over RocketCDN/StackPath (covered in the CDN section). You can clear the cache or regenerate critical CSS if you make design/plugin changes but they don’t appear on your site.

 

2. Cache

These are good cache settings as long as you don’t use a plugin for your mobile website and don’t allow multiple users to login to your site (i.e. bbPress). I increased cache lifespan from 10 to 24 so the cache doesn’t have to refresh as often which saves a little bit on server resources.

Mobile Cache – enables caching for mobile devices. Only enable “separate cache files for mobile devices” if you use a plugin for your mobile website (like the free version of WP Touch).

User Cache – leave disabled unless you have multiple users logging into your website (bbPress for example) where there is user-specific content. It gives each user their own cached version.

Cache Lifespan – a lower number means the cache will refresh more frequently, but it consumes more resources. A cache lifespan with a higher number means it won’t refresh as frequently, but saves resources. Do you care more about your cache building frequently or saving server resources? Since I only publish a couple posts a week, I increased it to 24 hours.

 

3. File Optimization

In the WP Rocket file optimization settings, minify CSS/JS should be enabled, but combine CSS/JS should only be enabled for websites with small CSS/JS file sizes. Optimize CSS delivery can cause layout shifts (you will need to test this) and everything else should be enabled including remove unused CSS, load JavaScript deferred, and delay JavaScript execution. You should ideally test each setting individually while measuring results in Lighthouse or GTmetrix.

Minify CSS/JS Files – enables minification which removes whitespace from the code. If you’re using a CDN that supports minification, it’s faster to minify with it and disable it in WP Rocket.

Combine CSS/JS Files – according to WP Johnny, websites with a smaller CSS/JS (under 10KB) should combine while sites with larger CSS/JS sizes should not. Check your GTmetrix Waterfall chart. If your CSS/JS is under 10KB, you should usually combine. If it’s over 10KB, you shouldn’t. Combining CSS + JavaScript files can also cause issues when using HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 servers.

Exclude CSS/JS Files – if a minification breaks your website layout, view your source code, locate the problematic file, and add it. See WP Rocket’s post on resolving minification issues.

Optimize CSS Delivery – your page will start loading without CSS styles. Sometimes, this doesn’t work properly and can cause layout shifts (a worse CLS score in web vitals) and FOUC. To prevent this, try setting a fallback critical CSS using a critical CSS generator, then make sure Optimize CSS Delivery is working. If this is still causing layout shift, I would disable completely.

• Search “rocket-critical-css” in your source code to make sure it’s working.
• If it doesn’t appear, regenerate critical CSS in WP Rocket and page builders (if applicable).
• Run your site through a critical CSS generator.
• Paste CSS code in the “fallback critical CSS” field (image below).
• Disable optimize CSS delivery on individual pages/posts if needed.
• Exclude problematic files from CSS delivery using WP Rocket’s helper plugin.

 
Remove Unused CSS – this isn’t a magical feature. Heavy CSS and JavaScript is usually caused by page builders (specifically Elementor and Divi) and plugins. While this can help you solve reduce unused CSS in Lighthouse, you should really optimize it at the source. One thing you can do is code your header, menu, footer, and sidebar in CSS so they don’t rely on page builder code. You should also be using a plugin like Asset CleanUp or Perfmatters to remove unused CSS + JS.

Load JavaScript Deferred – loads JavaScript after the page has finished parsing. It’s one of the best ways to eliminate render-blocking resources (in PSI), but I found WP Rocket doesn’t always do a great job. If you still see render-blocking issues, try installing Autoptimize and Async JavaScript on top of WP Rocket which do a better job optimizing CSS and JavaScript. If you optimize CSS and JS in Autoptimize, it will turn off minify/combine CSS + JS in WP Rocket and lets Autoptimize handle it. This is how I went from 7 render-blocking resources to only 1.

Using Autoptimize With WP Rocket – I also recommend testing Autoptimize on top of WP Rocket which gives you better control of how CSS/JS files are optimized. Below are the settings I use. If you use it, some WP Rocket settings will be grayed out since Autoptimize will handle it.

Delay JavaScript Execution – delays loading JavaScript until user interaction (i.e. scrolling or touching the screen on mobile). This feature alone reduced my blog’s load time by about 3s by delaying wpDiscuz comments and Gravatars. Here is the list of scripts automatically excluded by WP Rocket, but you may be able to delay other files (i.e. third-party code in your Lighthouse report). If you do this with ads or tracking scripts, make sure revenue/analytics aren’t affected. Note that WP Rocket removed Facebook Pixel from the “add-ons” tab and added here instead. If you want to add additional JavaScript files to delay, you would need to use a separate plugin like Flying Scripts or Perfmatters since WP Rocket no longer lets you add JavaScript manually.

addtoany
cookie-law-info
apps.elfsight.com/p/platform.js
xfbml.customerchat.js
fbevents.js 
fbq(
/busting/facebook-tracking/
/sdk.js#xfbml
feedbackcompany.com/includes/widgets/feedback-company-widget.min.js
ft.sdk.min.js
getbutton.io
adsbygoogle.js
google-analytics.com/analytics.js
ga( ' 
ga('
/gtag/js 
gtag(
/gtm.js
/gtm-
translate.google.com/translate_a/element.js
static.hotjar.com/c/hotjar-
static.leadpages.net/leadbars/current/embed.js
snap.licdn.com/li.lms-analytics/insight.min.js
livechatinc.com/tracking.js
LiveChatWidget
widget.manychat.com
olark
//a.omappapi.com/app/js/api.min.js
pinit.js
pixel-caffeine/build/frontend.js
shareaholic
ShopifyBuy
sharethis
simple-share-buttons-adder
smartsuppchat.com/loader.js
Tawk_API
widget.trustpilot.com/bootstrap
static.ads-twitter.com/uwt.js
twq(
platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
wpdiscuz

 

4. Media

Enable everything except for WebP caching. If you’re using a WebP plugin, it will generally serve WebP images already. If you embed YouTube videos, replacing YouTube iframes with a preview image can often cut your video’s load times in half since they’re a very large element.

Lazy Load – delays loading of images, iframes, and videos until you scroll down the page and they become visible. This significantly reduces initial load times and HTTP requests, but constantly loading images as you scroll can be annoying (test it out for yourself). Always lazy load videos and replace iframes with a preview image since embedded videos are very heavy.

Add Missing Image Dimensions – WP Rocket will add missing width + height attributes to HTML images which should fix use explicit width and height on image elements in Lighthouse.

Disable WordPress Embeds – similar to Cloudflare’s hotlink prevention, it prevents other sites from embedding your content on their site which sucks up bandwidth and stresses your server.

WebP Caching – leave disabled. WP Rocket does not create WebP images (it can only serve them) in which case your WebP plugin would already do this. Using WebP images will fix the serve images in next-gen format item in Lighthouse. They can be created using plugins like ShortPixel or WebP Converter For Media. You can convert JPEG/PNGs to WebP manually using tools such as CloudConvert, but you may run into issues on Safari. Using a plugin is safer.

 

5. Preload

Activate preloading, then preload links which loads a page in the background when users hover over a link. Prefetch DNS requests and preloading fonts are types of browser resource hints. Prefetching is done with items found in your reduce impact of third-party code Lighthouse report. Preloading can be done with fonts which you can find in your GTmetrix Waterfall chart.

Preloading – tells browsers to start fetching resources that will be needed soon.

Preload Links – according to WP Rocket’s documentation, this feature makes it so if a user hovers over, or touches, a link for 100ms or more, the HTML of that page will be fetched in the background, so that when they actually click the link, the page appears to load nearly instantly.

Prefetch DNS Requests – view your third-party code report in Lighthouse or in Chrome Dev Tools → Sources → Coverage. These can be Google Fonts, Tag Manager, AdSense, Analytics, YouTube, Maps, or even Facebook/Twitter from social sharing buttons or embedded widgets.

Grab all those URLs from your report and paste them into the Prefetch DNS Requests section of WP Rocket. This will help browsers anticipate those external requests and load them faster.

//maps.googleapis.com
//maps.gstatic.com
//fonts.googleapis.com
//fonts.gstatic.com
//use.fontawesome.com
//ajax.googleapis.com
//apis.google.com
//google-analytics.com
//www.google-analytics.com
//ssl.google-analytics.com
//www.googletagmanager.com
//www.googletagservices.com
//googleads.g.doubleclick.net
//adservice.google.com
//pagead2.googlesyndication.com
//tpc.googlesyndication.com
//youtube.com
//i.ytimg.com
//player.vimeo.com
//api.pinterest.com
//assets.pinterest.com
//connect.facebook.net
//platform.twitter.com
//syndication.twitter.com
//platform.instagram.com
//referrer.disqus.com
//c.disquscdn.com
//cdnjs.cloudflare.com
//cdn.ampproject.org
//pixel.wp.com
//disqus.com
//s.gravatar.com
//0.gravatar.com
//2.gravatar.com
//1.gravatar.com
//sitename.disqus.com
//s7.addthis.com
//platform.linkedin.com
//w.sharethis.com
//s0.wp.com
//s1.wp.com
//s2.wp.com
//stats.wp.com
//ajax.microsoft.com
//ajax.aspnetcdn.com
//s3.amazonaws.com
//code.jquery.com
//stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com
//github.githubassets.com
//ad.doubleclick.net
//stats.g.doubleclick.net
//cm.g.doubleclick.net
//stats.buysellads.com
//s3.buysellads.com

Preload Fonts – copy your font files from GTmetrix Waterfall (they have a tab for font files) and paste them in WP Rocket’s preload fonts field. Retest your website and they should load faster.

Preload your largest contentful paint image – WP Rocket doesn’t let you preload other files (you may see a recommendation in PSI to preload your first contentful paint image). To do this, you can add the following code to your header or use Pre* Party Resource Hints or Perfmatters.

<link rel='preload' href='https://onlinemediamasters.com/wp-content/
uploads/2020/03/about-banner.png' as='image'>

What about preconnect? – WP Rocket automatically preconnects your CDN URL (in the CNAME field of your CDN settings) and fonts.gstatic.com if you’re using a CDN URL and Google Fonts. WP Rocket does not let you add other domains to preconnect (these should be used sparingly anyway), but if you want use preconnect to establish early connections to other third-party sites, use Pre* Party Resource Hints, Perfmatters, or add this code to your header.

<link rel="preconnect," href="https://cdn.domain.com">
<link rel="preconnect," href="https://fonts.gstatic.com">

 

6. Advanced Rules

Advanced Rules are mainly for eCommerce sites, however WP Rocket is already compatible with most solutions like WooCommerce and BigCommerce. But if you’re having issues with cart widgets, caching, or something related to eCommerce, WP Rocket has documentation for that.

Otherwise, leave this blank.

Never Cache URLs – if you’re using an eCommerce shopping cart that is not supported by WP Rocket, add your cart and checkout pages here which will exclude these pages from the cache.

Never Cache Cookies – same principle as previous option only based on cookies.

Never Cache User Agents – prevent Googlebot or other user agents from caching pages.

Always Purge URLs – let’s say you have a blogroll on your homepage. If you create a new post, you want that homepage blogroll updated immediately by emptying the homepage cache. That’s what this setting does, however WP Rocket automatically clears the cache for your homepage, categories and tags once new content is created… so there is usually no need for this. But if there are other page’s cache you want cleared when new content is posted, add it.

Cache Query Strings – mainly used to cache search result pages + price filters on eCommerce.

 

7. Database

Scheduling database cleanups keeps your site and admin fast, just know what you’re deleting!

• Revisions – old versions of your posts saved when you hit “Publish.”
• Auto Drafts – automatically saved versions of your post if you don’t hit “Publish.”
• Trashed Posts – posts and drafts you deleted.
• Spam Comments – comments marked as spam.
• Trashed Comments – comments marked as trash.
• Expired Transients – transients that have expired and are still in your database.
• All Transients – stores data that takes a long time to retrieve (i.e. social counts on blogs).
• Optimize Tables – optimizes database tables to run more efficiently.
• Automatic Cleanup – how often you want WP Rocket to clean your database.

Delete Unused Plugin Tables (Not With WP Rocket) – one thing WP Rocket doesn’t do is let you go through your individual database tables and delete tables left behind by old plugins that aren’t installed anymore. I recommend installing WP-Optimize and going through your tables every so often, especially if you deleted plugins (plus it shows you the actual size of the tables). The tables that say “not installed” are the ones that were left behind by old, uninstalled plugins.

 

8. CDN

CDNs are great if you have visitors far away from your origin server. They mirror your site on multiple data centers which reduces the geographic distance between your server and visitors.

Which CDN Is Best?

• BunnyCDN – higher performance CDN highly recommended in multiple Facebook Groups (see this thread, this thread, and this thread). Instructions require creating a pull zone then copy/paste your CDN URL into WP Rocket. Or just use the BunnyCDN plugin.
• Cloudflare – free, but not a true CDN since Cloudflare doesn’t serve assets from a CDN URL. Great for small sites, however there are higher performant CDNs out there. As of writing this, their APO doesn’t work with WP Rocket. Be sure to add a cache everything page rule, enable WAF, hotlink protection, and set the browser cache expiration to 1 year.
• RocketCDN – paid CDN, easiest to setup through WP Rocket, uses StackPath’s data centers, but RocketCDN doesn’t always perform well and can actually increase TTFBs.
• Check Their Data Centers – CDNs have data centers all over the world. If one has data centers heavily concentrated in the area you want, that is something worth considering.

Step 1: Sign up for a CDN (BunnyCDN is fast/cheap/reliable shown on cdnperf.com).

Step 2: Create a pull zone and choose the locations you want.

Step 3: Copy your CDN URL.

Step 4: Paste the CDN URL in WP Rocket’s CDN CNAME(s) field.

Step 5: BunnyCDN’s support recommended to also install and setup their BunnyCDN plugin, then adding your BunnyCDN pull zone name. This can serve even more assets from your CDN.

Testing CDNs – since Cloudflare is set up differently and requires changing nameservers, the “content delivery network” in GTmetrix will still be red (but it will be green for other CDNs).  That doesn’t mean Cloudflare isn’t working; use the Claire Chrome Extension to make sure it is.

Exclude Files From CDN – lets you serve files locally instead of the CDN. Usually, these files come from plugins designed to disregard cross domain load. In most cases, there is no need.

Example:

• {uploads_dir}/wpcf7_captcha/*
• {uploads_dir}/imagerotator.swf
• {plugins_dir}/wp-fb-autoconnect/facebook-platform/channel.html

 

9. Heartbeat

The WordPress Heartbeat API tells you when other users are editing a page/post and shows you real-time plugin notifications. You usually want to disable this completely, or at least limit it’s frequency to prevent it from consuming server resources and contributing to CPU overages.

 

10. Add-Ons

Google Tracking and Facebook Pixel are now integrated into “delay JavaScript execution.” Otherwise, if you use Varnish (not recommended), Cloudflare, or Suruci, activate it’s add-on.

Varnish – leave disabled unless you use Varnish. I don’t use it even though it’s available with my hosting (Cloudways). Many people say you’ll get faster speeds without Varnish which I also find true. If you decide to use Varnish, activate it in your hosting account and enable it in WP Rocket.

Cloudflare – enable if using Cloudflare.

Synchronize Sucuri Cache – enable if using Sucuri. This automatically clears Sucuri’s cache whenever you clear WP Rocket’s cache which helps keep your content synchronized. For the Sucuri Firewall API Key (For Plugin), login to Sucuri here, select your website, go to the API tab, then copy your API Key (For Plugin) and paste in WP Rocket when you expand the Sucuri field.

 

11. Cloudflare

This section is only if you’re using Cloudflare instead of another CDN.

Sign up for Cloudflare and you will come to a page where they assign you 2 nameservers.

Change nameservers in your domain registrar to the one’s Cloudflare gave you.

In Cloudflare’s DNS settings, change your website from DNS Only to Proxied to use the CDN.

Add your Cloudflare information to WP Rocket.

Global API Key and Zone ID are found in your Cloudflare dashboard.

• Global API Key – found in your Cloudflare dashboard.
• Account Email – same email you used to sign up for Cloudflare.
• Zone ID – found in your Cloudflare dashboard.
• Domain – your website’s domain name.
• Development Mode – use when making a lot of code changes to your site.
• Optimal Settings – activates WP Rocket’s recommended Cloudflare settings: minify, aggressive caching, and deactivates Rocket Loader for better compatibility. It also turns on email decoding which may hurt your Lighthouse report since it loads an extra request. If you know what you’re doing, turn this off and configure the Cloudflare settings yourself.
• Relative Protocol – sometimes if people download files from your site, there are no contents in them. Leaving relative protocol OFF will prevent this from happening.
• Clear All Cloudflare Cache Files – do this after you’re done configuring WP Rocket.

Configure Cloudflare Settings In The Dashboard – a lot of people have been asking about Cloudflare’s dashboard and how to configure it. Here are the things I recommend you do.

• Enable Brotli (speed settings)
• Enable early hints (speed settings)
• Enable and test Railgun (speed settings)
• Test Rocket Loader (speed settings) but it can break sites
• Enable hotlink protection (scrape shield settings)
• Setup page rules for WordPress (below are 3 I recommend)

https://*yourwebsite.com/*

yourwebsite.com/wp-admin*

yourwebsite.com/wp-content/uploads*

 

12. Image Optimization

WP Rocket recommends Imagify because it’s their plugin.

But even when you select lossless compression, it’s definitely not lossless and neither is ShortPixel. I used both for many months and switched to TinyPNG which I’m very happy with. The only thing about TinyPNG is it doesn’t support WebP in which case you will need a plugin like WebP Converter For Media. But I find the quality is better than Imagify or ShortPixel. Test them yourself and remember, Lighthouse uses an 85% compression level to test your images.

 

13. Tools

Import or export your WP Rocket settings, or rollback to the previous version.

Export Settings – export your settings to use on multiple sites.

Import Settings – import your pre-configured WP Rocket settings.

Rollback – if you updated WP Rocket and it caused issues, fall back to the previous version.

Enable Google Font Optimization – combines fonts into 1 single file, ensures text remains visible while loading fonts, and preconnects fonts (tells browsers you intend to load Google Fonts). Remember to prefetch and preload fonts in the Preload tab and be minimal with the number of fonts, weights, and font icons. All these have an impact on your font’s load times.

 

Tip For “Serving Static Assets With An Efficient Cache Policy”

If you’re using WP Rocket and see “serve static assets with an efficient cache policy” in PageSpeed Insights, this means you need to set your browser cache expiration to 180 days.

If you view the code WP Rocket adds to your .htaccess, the cache expiration for images and fonts is only 4 months (about 2 months short of Google’s 180 day requirement). If you see this recommendation in PSI, you simply need to change the expiration to 180 days (about 6 months).

# Expires headers (for better cache control)

ExpiresActive on
    ExpiresDefault                              "access plus 1 month"
    # cache.appcache needs re-requests in FF 3.6 (~Introducing HTML5)
    ExpiresByType text/cache-manifest           "access plus 0 seconds"
    # Your document html
    ExpiresByType text/html                     "access plus 0 seconds"
    # Data
    ExpiresByType text/xml                      "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType application/xml               "access plus 0 seconds"
    ExpiresByType application/json              "access plus 0 seconds"
    # Feed
    ExpiresByType application/rss+xml           "access plus 1 hour"
    ExpiresByType application/atom+xml          "access plus 1 hour"
    # Favicon (cannot be renamed)
    ExpiresByType image/x-icon                  "access plus 1 week"
    # Media: images, video, audio
    ExpiresByType image/gif                     "access plus 4 months"
    ExpiresByType image/png                     "access plus 4 months"
    ExpiresByType image/jpeg                    "access plus 4 months"
    ExpiresByType image/webp                    "access plus 4 months"
    ExpiresByType video/ogg                     "access plus 4 months"
    ExpiresByType audio/ogg                     "access plus 4 months"
    ExpiresByType video/mp4                     "access plus 4 months"
    ExpiresByType video/webm                    "access plus 4 months"
    # HTC files  (css3pie)
    ExpiresByType text/x-component              "access plus 1 month"
    # Webfonts
    ExpiresByType font/ttf    "access plus 4 months"
    ExpiresByType font/otf    "access plus 4 months"
    ExpiresByType font/woff   "access plus 4 months"
    ExpiresByType font/woff2  "access plus 4 months"
    ExpiresByType image/svg+xml                 "access plus 1 month"
    ExpiresByType application/vnd.ms-fontobject "access plus 1 month"
    # CSS and JavaScript
    ExpiresByType text/css                      "access plus 1 year"
    ExpiresByType application/javascript        "access plus 1 year"

Edit your .htaccess (you can use Htaccess File Editor if you don’t know how). Change the expiration from 4 months to 180 days. You may only want to do this for file types being flagged.

Remember, you can only set a browser cache expiration for resources hosted on your site (images, fonts, etc). You cannot control the browser cache expiration for third-party code.

 

WP Rocket vs. Flyingpress. vs. LiteSpeed Cache vs. SG Optimizer

From best to worst:

FlyingPress – emphasizes not only web vitals/scores, but real world browsing speed. Handles CSS/JS differently with option to lazy render CSS classes. Similar price/settings as WP Rocket but browsing speed is faster. Gijo spends lots of time on support and it’s way more personalized.

LiteSpeed Cache – free on LiteSpeed and arguably one of the fastest cache plugins, but there are lots of settings and it’s difficult to configure everything properly. Also integrates with QUIC.

WP Rocket – emphasizes web vitals/scores but many complaints in the WP Rocket Users Facebook Group of it not improving browsing speed like other cache plugins or breaking sites.

SiteGround Optimizer – not the best cache plugin no matter how many times SiteGround says it is. Even though it’s made big improvements, it still lacks several features and usually doesn’t give you as good of results as other cache plugins. Updates don’t seem to be tested thoroughly.

Free Cache Plugins – I would avoid W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, WP Fastest Cache, and most free plugins because they haven’t been actively updated/maintained for core web vitals.

Facebook Polls – these Facebook polls are a little outdated. WP Rocket and LiteSpeed Cache used to be the most popular but there haven’t been many polls since FlyingPress’ big updates.

 

Cloudways Vultr HF + NameHero (Who I Recommend For Hosting)

TTFB is controlled by hosting, not so much WP Rocket and cache plugins.

I use Cloudways Vultr HF which is a popular choice in FB Groups. You can check my GTmetrix report, TTFB, or click through my site to see how responsive it is. I moved from SiteGround to Cloudways which cut load times in half and fixed CPU issues. They use Object Cache Pro/Redis with NVMe storage and 22 Vultr data centers (it’s also monthly pricing with no high renewals). There’s no email hosting and their Breeze plugin + CloudwaysCDN aren’t great, so you can use Cloudflare for most of this (I use FlyingPress, Cloudflare/BunnyCDN, and Google Workspace). Cloudways does free 3-day trials, a free migration, and has a 30% off promo code. Some people are afraid they’re “too techie” since you have to launch a Vultr HF server, but it’s really not hard:

Most hosting recommendations are garbage and I suggest joining the WP Speed Matters Facebook Group to get unbiased feedback on hosting and site speed. SiteGround has a slow TTFB, GoDaddy is a big NO, Bluehost is also very slow, and I would stay away from Hostinger.

Spend 5 minutes looking at recent Facebook polls on “the best hosting,” migration results of people who switched, and unbiased feedback in Facebook groups (click thumbnails to enlarge).

 
LiteSpeed hosting on NameHero is another solid choice (if you haven’t heard of LiteSpeed, go read about it). It’s cheaper than Cloudways because it’s shared hosting – but faster than most.

I’m not sure why people use other LiteSpeed hosts like Hostinger/A2 when you get more CPU cores + RAM with NVMe on NameHero. You can use the LiteSpeed Cache plugin with server-side caching, QUIC.cloud, HTTP/3, and Redis. This is arguably the fastest setup you’ll find on a budget. I don’t know anywhere else you get 3 CPU cores, 3GB RAM, and NVMe on LiteSpeed for $8/mo. WP Johnny and I both have solid guides on configuring LiteSpeed Cache with QUIC. The main con is they only have data centers in US + Netherlands. Otherwise they have higher uptimes with less ‘frequent maintenance’ compared to Hostinger/A2’s uptime status page with US-based support. Ryan (the founder) is a down to earth guy if you watch his YouTube channel.

Affiliate Disclaimer: I use affiliate links to Cloudways + NameHero and appreciate your support. But what do I know? I’m just a biased affiliate. Do your own research in FB groups.

 

FAQs / Documentation

I spent many hours digging through their documentation to make sure this tutorial uses the best WP Rocket settings, but they are still extremely helpful if you haven’t checked them out.

There are also video tutorials in the Tutorials tab to help configure your WP Rocket settings.

Tutorials I found the most helpful:

• Getting Started
• My Site Is Broken
• Hosting Compatibility
• Using WP Rocket With A CDN
• Using WP Rocket With Cloudflare
• Resolve 500 Internal Server Error
• Resolving Issues With Minification
• Using WordFence With WP Rocket
• NGINX Configuration For WP Rocket
• Using iThemes Security With WP Rocket
• How To Check If WP Rocket Is Caching Your Pages

How do I set up WP Rocket's settings?

The most important WP Rocket settings are found in the file optimization section. In general, many sites should minify CSS/JS (but not combine) and defer/delay JavaScript. The Optimize CSS Delivery settings should be tested thoroughly as it can cause layout shifts.

Which CDN is best with WP Rocket?

Cloudflare and BunnyCDN have better performance/reliability than RocketCDN which uses StackPath.

How do I eliminate render-blocking resources in WP Rocket?

Enable Optimize CSS Delivery and Load JavaScript Deferred in WP Rocket's file optimization settings. If that doesn't work, try the Autoptimize or Async JavaScript plugin.

How do I fix CLS issues in WP Rocket?

Disabling Optimize CSS Delivery or setting a fallback critical CSS can fix CLS (cumulative layout shift) issues when using WP Rocket.

Which speed plugins go well with WP Rocket?

ShortPixel, Autoptimize, Async JavaScript, OMGF, and Asset CleanUp or Perfmatters are plugins you should consider on top of WP Rocket.

What's the best free alternative to WP Rocket?

LiteSpeed Cache is the best free WP Rocket alternative but requires a LiteSpeed server. Otherwise, W3 Total Cache is free but difficult to setup and you may not see great results.

What is WP Rocket's pricing?

$49/year for 1 site, $99/year for 3 sites, and $249 for unlimited sites. You can get a 10% discount by signing up for their email list on their coupons page.

Still need help? Drop me a comment.

See Also: My full WordPress speed guide (it’s good, I promise).

Cheers,
Tom