Are you ready to boost the speed of your WordPress website with minimal effort?
If so, you need to choose from one of the best caching plugins in the market. Using a WordPress cache plugin is one of the most effective ways to ensure your website loads blazing fast and your visitors enjoy exploring your site.
Today we’re going to share with you the best WordPress cache plugins around so you can speed things up instantly.
After all, site visitors expect websites to load in 2 seconds or less. And 40% of people will abandon your site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
With such as easy solution like adding a caching plugin to your website, there is no excuse to give your site’s loading time a bump.
To help you out, here’s a convenient table of contents so
you can quickly jump to the section (or
solution) you want:
Contents:
What is Cache?
When a site visitor clicks on your website, your site sends
a request to your server. This request asks the server to deliver your site’s
content to the site visitor’s browser so they can see it.
The problem is, your web server has to process these requests every single time someone clicks on your website.
And this takes time.
If your website is popular and has a lot of traffic, your server has to work extra hard to continue processing requests and delivering your site’s content to browsers all over the world. This means your website has the potential to slow down.
When you use a WordPress caching plugin, it tells your
server to store a copy of some of your site’s files to disk or RAM (depending on how it’s configured). This
is called the cache. When a site visitor that has accessed your site in the
past returns, the content is served up from the cache immediately. This equates
to faster loading times and a better user experience.
Why Use a WordPress Cache Plugin
There are plenty of benefits for using a WordPress caching plugin
on your website:
- Faster loading times. When you use one of the WordPress caching plugins on our list, your site’s content is delivered instantly to return visitors. Because of this, you’ll boost conversions, a lower bounce rate, and better search rankings too.
- Improve the user experience. When you increase your site’s loading times, people have a more enjoyable experience while exploring your site.
- Less server strain. Instead of making multiple requests to your server every time a repeat visitor comes to your website, a caching plugin saves the site data and files in the cache. This means you use less server resources and decrease the server strain. This is important if you run a dynamic website such as a membership or eCommerce shop.
01. W3 Total Cache
Note: BoldGrid recently acquired the plugin, so you can expect more regular updates & support.
W3 Total Cache aims to improve your SEO, the user experience, and site performance. It does this by caching everything on your website and integrating with your content delivery network. Better yet, it accommodates all hosting environments, from shared hosting to dedicated hosting environments.
This WordPress cache plugin offers support for Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and Secure Socket Layer (SSL). This makes it an ideal solution for those with eCommerce sites and other websites with dynamic content that not only needs caching, but increased security too.
In addition, it comes with GZIP compression to optimize web browser rendering, which is just another way to speed things up.
Pros:
- Allows CDN integrations
- Works well on both desktops and mobile devices
- Reduces HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files without
negatively affecting anything else
Cons:
- Backend can be tough to learn because of complex settings
- Has been known to have some theme and plugin incompatibilities
Price: FREE
02. WP Super Cache
WP Super Cache is another one of the best WordPress caching plugins in the repository that serves static HTML files from your dynamic (ever-changing) WordPress blog.
This is done instead of processing PHP scripts, which strain your server, use up more resources, and slow your website down. The static files that are generated and stored in the cache will deliver to users that are not logged in, users that have not left a comment on your site, and even those that have not viewed a password protected post.
This caching plugin is great for compressing pages, cache rebuilding, and supporting your existing CDN.
Plus, it comes with intelligent caching so those who need cached content delivered get it, and those that don’t – don’t.
Lastly, this caching plugin comes with a neat feature called garbage collecting. As you cache your site’s content, the cache gets full.
However, WP Super Cache automatically cleans out the cache on a regular basis so your site continues to load fast.
Pros:
- It was created by Automattic, so you know it’s updated regularly and won’t disappear
- Most backend settings are pre-populated
- Cache rebuilding feature means your cache isn’t cleared when someone leaves a comment
Cons:
- There are 3 caching modes, which can be
confusing for beginners - No official documentation for troubleshooting
- Lacks browser caching
Price: FREE
03. WP Rocket
WP Rocket is a premium WordPress caching plugin that comes full of features, but also a simple and intuitive interface and quick setup.
Of course, you might be wondering why you’d need to shell out money on a paid caching plugin when there are so many free WordPress caching plugins available.
Well, here are some of WP Rocket’s best features:
- Both page and browser caching
- Lazy load of media for faster loading
- Database optimization for removing the number of resources used
- Integration with multilingual plugins
- WordPress multisite compatibility
- Optimization of Google Fonts (not found in any other WordPress cache plugin)
In addition, WP Rocket takes cares of the basics like minifying HTML, JS, and CSS, integration with Cloudflare CDN, mobile device detection, and intelligent caching of eCommerce site content.
Pros:
- Developer-friendly (lots of hooks) plus a user-friendly dashboard for beginners (simple to set up)
- Extensive documentation and priority support via
support tickets - GDPR compliant – doesn’t store or access
personal data or add cookies
Cons:
- Is a premium solution that can become costly as
the number of websites increase - No free trial (though there is a 14-day money back guarantee)
Price: $49 for a
single site license
04. Comet Cache
Comet Cache is a caching plugin that takes a real-time snapshot of every page, post, category, link, and more and stores them in the cache. From there, the plugin decides which site visitors to deliver cached content to, and which ones to deliver fresh new content to.
By default, Comet Cache does not serve cached pages to users who are logged in or users who have recently left comments on your site. It also excludes admin and login pages.
This intuitive plugin allows you to control the automatic clearing behavior on homepages, posts, author pages, categories, tags, and even XML sitemaps.
Plus, it caches RSS feeds and 404 requests.
It also serves cached files on your site from a content delivery network (CDN). Lastly, to avoid generating a new version of the cache while your server is busy, the plugin will monitor the server load and disable the cache expiration temporarily.
Pros:
- Easy to install WordPress plugin
- Detailed documentation and FAQs
- Double caching – on the server and the user’s
browser - Cache stats available for monitoring status
Cons:
- Incompatible with other caching plugins and
Google AMP
Price: FREE
(premium version is available starting at $39 for a single site license)
05. Cache Enabler
Cache Enabler is an open-source WordPress caching plugin that comes with a fast and reliable disk caching engine. It works with WordPress multisite, serves WebP images without the need of JavaScript, and has an easy set up with very little configurations, making it a great solution for those of all skill levels.
In fact, Cache Enabler is one of the easiest to use WordPress caching plugins around.
Additionally, Cache Enabler displays your cache size in the dashboard of your site so you can see exactly how much space your cache is taking up. There’s also an automated cache clearing feature, a customizable cache expiration, and compatibility with Autoptimize, a WordPress plugin that makes optimizing your website a cinch.
Pros:
- Automatic purging of cache to clear up space
- Displays cache size in WordPress dashboard (unique to WordPress caching plugins)
- Supports WebP
Cons:
- Can be incompatible with some eCommerce sites
- Requires htaccess
editing
Price: FREE
06. WP Fastest Cache
WP Fastest Cache is not just another WordPress caching plugin
to install and activate on your site. In fact, it comes with unique features
such as desktop caching, minification of HTML, and combination options for CSS
and JS to speed things up. Plus, you get browser caching, GZIP tools, and one
of the best track records when it comes to speeding up WordPress sites.
The settings are easy to understand in WP Fastest Cache since they consist of simple checkboxes you select or deselect.
You can integrate your CDN, optimize images separately from your caching, and even specify a specific type of caching for your mobile theme if you want. It even allows you to disable emojis on your site if you want.
Pros:
- Desktop and mobile theme caching
- Separate image optimization
- One of the fastest solutions around
Cons:
- Not WordPress multisite compatible
Price: FREE
Which of the WordPress Caching Plugins Is Best for You?
And there you have it! The top WordPress caching plugins around.
If you’re looking for the best free WordPress cache plugin, you’ll definitely want to check out WP Fastest Cache. It has an amazing reputation and will surely speed up your website with very little configuration.
If you need a little more punch, and have some wiggle room in your budget, your best bet is going to be the premium WP Rocket cache plugin. It comes with unique features like image lazy load, multisite compatibility, and both browser and page caching.
Lastly, for those of varying skill levels, from beginner to advanced developer, WP Super Cache is the best WordPress caching plugin. This reliable plugin isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and comes with cache rebuilding, which is a feature not seen in most WordPress caching plugins.
If you’re looking for more ways to speed up WordPress, in addition to using a cache plugin, check out this guide on PHP versions and why it matter to WordPress users.
Which WordPress caching plugin do you use on your website? Why is it your favorite? We’d love to hear all about it in the comments below!
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