Do you want to increase the speed of your WordPress website?
Using a caching plugin on your website is one of the best ways to make your website load faster.
It’s no surprising that half of your website’s visitors want your site to load in less than 3 seconds. Google also emphasizes page speed in its search algorithm, and higher page speed gives you better search rankings and helps you drive more organic traffic.
It’s important to properly optimize your WordPress website because search engines will rank it higher in the SERPs. In this article, we’ll share some of the best WordPress cache plugins that you can use to increase your site speed.
But first, let’s learn what caching is and the benefits of using a caching plugin on your site.
Why Do You Need a WordPress Caching Plugin?
Cache is a collection of temporarily stored data to allow computers, browsers and applications to load quickly. Caching, in simpler terms, basically means storing all the information on your server so it loads much quicker.
Caching is a definite must-have for everyone who owns their own website or blog because it speeds up traffic causing less hassle when you’re loading your pages – we all love that feeling, don’t we? A good example of website caching would be a WordPress Cache Plugin .
So, with every user’s visit to your site, WordPress is automatically served with a cache of pre-generated pages rather than compressing the pages on-the-fly with complicated PHP scripts. This greatly improves page load time and overall site performance.
You can use caching plugins to:
- Increase your website speed and reduce page load time
- Improve user experience as everything runs faster and smoother
- Increase SEO rankings because search engines love a fast-loading site
When you install a caching plugin on your site, it will take care of all the technical stuff, while simply clicking a few buttons to make your site incredibly faster.
That said, let’s dive into our list of the best caching plugins for WordPress.
9 Best WordPress Caching Plugins
1. Hummingbird
Hummingbird is another powerful caching plugin for WordPress. It was developed by WPMU DEV, the same people who created the Smush image optimization plugin.
After installing the plugin, it scans your website, finds what slows it down and provides one-click fixes to improve your site performance. This increases your scores in performance testing tools like Google PageSpeed, GTmetrix and Pingdom.
With Hummingbird you have access to top-notch caching features including full page, browser, and Gravatar caching. It offers you a complete set of tools that help you reduce your page load time and provide visitors with a faster browsing experience.
Apart from that, the plugin gives you file compression, minification and lazy loading options for CSS and JS.
Important points:
- Gzip file compression
- Performance report dashboard
- Built-in Cloudflare integration
- Image optimization with the Smush plugin
2. WP Rocket
WP Rocket is the most popular premium caching plugin for WordPress. Ease of configuration is what sets WP Rocket apart from its competitors. When you activate the plugin, page caching will be enabled immediately.
Its browser automatically fetches your WordPress pages to build the cache. It also comes with preset cache settings like Gzip compression, page cache, and cache boot.
Another great thing about WP Rocket is its lazy loading feature. With this, the images and media on your website will only load when the visitor hovers over them. It helps you increase your site speed and performance even more.
This plugin is optimized for eCommerce sites, so it excludes important pages like payment and my account from the cache. This ensures that there is no interference in the purchasing process in your store.
WP Rocket is loaded with features and very simple to use. It is without a doubt the best WordPress caching plugin.
You can check out our full WP Rocket Cache review to find out more !
Important points:
- Easy to set up and use
- WordPress database optimization
- Developer-friendly tools
- Shrink and merge
- Minify HTML, JavaScript and CSS files
- Object caching and preloading
- Compatible with major themes and plugins
3. WP Super Cache
WP Super Cache is another popular WordPress caching plugin loved by over a million active users. WordPress.com is managed by Automattic, the same team behind WooCommerce and more.
The plugin helps you generate static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After WP Super Cache processes heavy WordPress PHP scripts on your site, it serves the static HTML file to the vast majority of your website visitors.
WP Super Cache offers 3 caching modes. The first is called Simple mode and is the most recommended file caching method. With this, you don’t need to edit PHP files and configure your .htaccess file.
You also get Expert mode, which is the fastest caching method to serve super-cached HTML files to users. However, it requires you to modify your .htaccess files.
There is also a WP Super Caching method used to cache pages for known users (logging in to your site, leaving comments, etc.). Although it is the most flexible caching method, it is slightly slower than other methods.
Important points:
- Novice friendly interface
- Cache rebuild feature
- Garbage collection to clean up old files and optimize your site
- Integration with Content Delivery Network (CDN) services
4. W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache is one of the oldest and most popular caching plugins for WordPress. It improves your server performance by caching every aspect of your site and also offers content delivery network integrations.
The plugin has been used and recommended by numerous companies and publications such as AT&T, MattCutts.com, Mashable.com, and others. Whether your site is hosted on a shared hosting network or a dedicated server, you will find W3 Total Cache useful for improving your web server performance and reducing page load time.
The developers claim that the plugin can save up to 80% bandwidth through shrinking HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the process of reducing the size of your posts without adverse effects.
W3 Total Cache also offers support for Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and Secure Socket Layer (SSL).
Important points:
- 10x improvement in overall site performance
- Content delivery network (CDN) integration
- Improved web server performance
- Maintain high traffic periods
5. WP Fastest Cache
WP Fastest Cache comes with fewer configuration settings for WordPress caching, making it one of the easiest WordPress caching plugins available in the official WordPress plugins repository.
Like any other caching plugin, it creates static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress site. It offers a cached version of web pages that load faster every time users visit your website.
The plugin shrinks HTML and CSS files to reduce the size of the files. It also allows you to disable emojis on your site. It effectively implements WordPress browser caching to reduce page load time for repeat visitors and combines many CSS files into a single file to reduce the number of HTTP round trips.
The premium version of the plugin comes with many unique features to boost your page speed such as image optimization, database cleaning, mobile caching and much more.
After installing the free WP Fastest Cache plugin, you can purchase the premium version directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Important points:
- Admin control to delete cached files
- Enable/disable cache option for mobile devices
- SSL and CDN support
- Boot cache and WP-CLI cache clearing
6. Comet Cache
Comet Cache is another popular caching plugin with over 50,000 active installs. Unlike other caching plugins, Comet Cache comes with the ability to cache logged in users as well. This means that if you run a membership site, e-commerce site, or any other site that requires users to sign up, Comet Cache is a must-have plugin for you.
The plugin uses the caching feature of the WordPress browser with the Apache server; this means you can increase page speed by avoiding multiple round trips between server and browser.
You can also serve all cached files on your site from the content delivery network (CDN) of your choice. It supports popular CDN networks like CloudFront, MaxCDN and more.
To prevent a new version of the cache from being created while your server is busy, the plugin monitors server load and temporarily disables cache expiration.
The plugin also displays cache statistics to help you get an idea of the status of your site cache.
Important points:
- Check automatic cache clearing behavior
- Developer friendly
- WP-CLI Compatibility
- Simple and well documented configuration
7. Cache Enabler
Cache Enabler is a lightweight caching plugin that creates a static HTML file of your site and serves them on demand to the vast majority of your website visitors. It needs minimal configuration and comes with all the important features you would ever need from a caching plugin.
Unlike most free WordPress caching plugins, Cache Enabler provides extensive documentation and tutorials that help you explore different plugin features. Documentation with beautiful screenshots and videos will walk you through the different aspects of WordPress caching.
It’s in your best interest not to use any mobile-specific themes or plugins that show different layouts for mobile and desktop users, along with Cache Enabler, as this will bypass the cache and render it useless.
Important points:
- Fast and efficient caching engine
- Automatic smart cache clearing
- Manual cache clearing
- WP-CLI cache clearing
- Works perfectly with other third-party plugins
8. Hyper Cache
Hyper Cache is a PHP-only caching plugin that can be used in both inexpensive hosting environments and high-end servers. Enabling Hyper Cache is easy because it works with a set of default values.
The plugin comes with a mobile theme switching option that lets you enable caching even if you are using different layouts for mobile users and desktops. This comes in handy if you use a responsive theme on your site or need different ad formats for different devices.
Another unique advantage of Hyper Cache is that it can serve cached pages for authors to comment on. However, you can also disable serving cached pages to comment authors if you want.
Important points:
- Dual cache for desktop and mobile site versions
- CDN Support and HTTPS ready
- Compatibility with forum plugins like bbPress
- Serve expired pages to bots to increase perceived speed score
9. LiteSpeed Cache
LiteSpeed Cache is a free plugin for WordPress sites with a dedicated server-level cache. It has many site optimization features to reduce page load time.
You can also import/export your settings from other caching plugins so it’s super easy to switch to LiteSpeed Caching.
Besides caching, the plugin offers built-in image optimization and lazy loading features. This allows you to optimize images on your site for better site speed and performance.
Important points:
- Multiple CDN support
- WebP image format support
- Page Speed score optimization
- Cloudflare API
- Single Site and Multi-Site (Network) support
Choosing the Best WordPress Caching Plugin for Your Needs
There is no exact “one size fits all solution” when it comes to choosing a caching plugin for your site. There are a number of plugins based around the W3 cache that work well, with some using alternatives such as Redis and Memcached to speed up your website even further.
If you need the best WordPress caching plugin that offers tremendous support and requires minimal configuration, choose WP Rocket . It’s also part of our top WordPress plugins.
If you want to choose the best free WordPress caching plugin that does the job, choose W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache . Both are constantly updated and used by over a million websites.
We hope this guide helped you choose the best caching plugin for your website. Good luck speeding up your site!
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