In this article, I will review plugins for speeding up WordPress. There are a great many of them, but not all are useful, and some can even be harmful if used incorrectly. Therefore, it’s worth paying enough attention to them. In this article, I will review plugins for caching, speeding up the loading of JS and CSS, and compressing images. Let’s break it down step by step.
Plugins for Speeding Up WordPress: An Overview
Now I will review each plugin, its functionality, potential dangers, and so on. But first, let me list the problems that can arise regardless of the plugin used:
- Display issues. “Optimizers” can simply break the site’s structure by incorrectly loading JavaScript or CSS. The most common issue is that everything looks fine in one browser but not in another. However, this problem is more relevant to outdated browsers. It’s very easy to break a site with incorrect minification.
- Caching issues. Sometimes the cache remains even after the plugin is deleted. It will have to be cleaned manually. You will also need to delete the .htaccess file in the wp-content folder.
- Other issues can be quite individual. For example, improper display of images in a slider due to lazy loading of images or a malfunction in the operation of a specific plugin.
Autoptimize
This plugin offers quite extensive settings. It positions itself as simple and capable of operating in automatic mode. Let’s look at the “JS Options” section. For the current year, I consider it one of the best plugins for speeding up WP, and it is very stable and generally does not break the site, especially when used with WP Super Cache.
The first option is responsible for optimizing JS: it adds deferred loading and distributes loading priorities. The second checkbox is for combining and minifying.
The same goes for CSS: you can set up minification and merging of styles, as well as embedding them into HTML. You can even defer the execution of CSS using another plugin, but for the first few seconds, the user will see a mess. So I’d better not explain how to do that.
You can also minify HTML markup and enable lazy loading for images.
As you can see, the plugin is quite simple to use, which is why it is very popular. But simplicity has another side. Since you can minimally influence the options and settings, in case of conflicts with other plugins or other problems, like site failures, you will most likely have to completely disable Autoptimize.
Unfortunately, it is not suitable for all sites. But you can try it. If it doesn’t work and you have to delete it, deactivation alone is not enough. You need to manually clear the cache in the wp-content/cache folder.
PageSpeed Ninja
A fantastic plugin with a huge number of settings. It deserves a separate review, so click on the title to see the review and detailed instructions for setting up this plugin.
It is clearly not for beginners, as understanding this “zoo” of functions is quite difficult without specific knowledge. Previously, I often used this plugin, but recent experiments have shown that the free version of Autoptimize suits me better.
For a while, the plugin was not updated, and I abandoned it, but the author has taken it up again and even made a Pro version with very rich and incredible functionality, but this version is more suitable for professionals, as beginners will find it difficult to figure it out even with manuals.
Fast Velocity Minify
This plugin also allows you to noticeably speed up the site, but it is highly likely to break it completely. The first thing you should do is turn off the function shown in the screenshot below. It is responsible for saving settings even when the plugin is deleted, which leads to serious problems.
It has quite a large functionality, allowing you to set up HTML minification, asynchronous font loading, minification and deferred loading of scripts and CSS, and also speed up page rendering.
In Pro mode, you can exclude scripts and styles from the “combiner” in case of serious loading issues. But, to be honest, without this function, it is almost useless. Sometimes, without it, breaking the site is too easy.
The plugin has the same problems as the previous one but with much less configurability.
Moreover, it updates with serious delays, sometimes lagging behind by a couple of stable releases.
Webcraftic Clearfy
This plugin should not be confused with the regular Clearfy, whose name Webcraftic has successfully used in its creation. With this plugin, you get a comprehensive approach. First, you can optimize images.
Second, there is the possibility to disable unnecessary functionality. Approach this task very carefully. For example, if you disable Rest API, plugins like Contact Form 7 or JetPack will malfunction; if you disable gravatars, users will not be able to use them. In general, use with caution.
You can also enable optimization and compression of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, as well as caching. But in this regard, it is significantly worse than PageSpeed Ninja or Autoptimize, and even regular Clearfy surpasses this creation in this respect.
There is also a script manager, but you need to use it with extreme caution because you can bury the site, and restoring functionality with improper use of the tool will be very labor-intensive.
Besides the listed features, the plugin has many other useful functions, such as managing comments, hiding the admin page, using SEO tools, and so on.
WP Super Cache
An advanced caching plugin with flexible settings that allows you to cache pages as static content. If the site rarely changes, you can even create a pre-generated static cache that will be served to users.
For caching, I prefer to use this plugin. It works especially well in conjunction with Autoptimize.
It can conflict with other caching plugins and does not always provide a noticeable speed increase. So, it’s up to you.
WP Fastest Cache
Similar in properties to the previous one, it has almost identical settings. Sometimes it works better, sometimes the previous one does. Try them out; it’s hard to say in advance which will work better.
However, it also has built-in functions for minifying JS and CSS and various features for speeding up the site. But for these purposes, I preferred Autoptimize in conjunction with WP Super Cache.
The premium version of the plugin includes image optimization, but there are free alternatives that can do the same.
WP Super Minify
All its functionality is shown in the picture below.
Not much, right? In fact, on all the sites where I installed it, the plugin caused a number of serious problems, and I couldn’t influence it in any way. That is, you can use it, but at your own risk.
The only advantage is that it is very easy to set up.
WP-Optimize
This plugin has a couple of useful features. Actually, very useful ones. Firstly, database cleanup. You can delete all unnecessary post revisions, which can accumulate a lot, optimize tables, and clear comment metadata from the database.
I do not recommend clearing post metadata and deleting trackbacks if they exist. Otherwise, it’s up to you. But before using it, I recommend backing up the database. There have been no problems, but just in case.
Also, many plugins leave garbage in the database, like sections and records. For example, WooCommerce does this, and unfortunately, you will have to clean it manually.
Secondly, WP-Optimize can optimize images. The quality is decent, but the level of optimization is lower than that of Smush, so I don’t use it.
Smush
A plugin for image optimization. It allows you to bulk optimize images without losing quality by reducing the weight through minification, cleaning image metadata, and reducing the size of full-size images. You can activate compression when uploading media files.
It also has a “lazy” loading feature, which means images are not loaded until the user scrolls down to them, thus improving load speed.
You can use it if there are a lot of heavy images on the site, but don’t overdo the compression.
Speeding Up!
As you can see, there are plenty of options to choose from. I recommend trying them out, seeing which plugins for speeding up WordPress work best for you, and keeping the most suitable ones. I’m sure you can achieve a significant speed boost with them
You can read about other methods for speeding up WordPress here.
