What do you think is the most important thing in today’s world? Time – right!
Time is the only thing that can make or break any business irrelevant to its scalability. And when it comes to running a website, you better have to be more careful with that.
According to website stats, every time a visitor visits your website, he or she is not gonna spend more than 3 seconds on your website. And if your website doesn’t respond properly within that period of time, the chances are they would abandon them which surely you wouldn’t like.
This is the single user at a single time I am talking about. Now, imagine what it would do to your business if it happens repeatedly? Scare enough!
Luckily, there are powerful WordPress Caching Plugins available in the market that helps you in resolving that problem by reducing the overall website loading time and giving you superior performance.
So, let’s dig a little deeper and find out what these plugins are and how they work.
What is Caching?
Caching is the process of storing a website’s data on a temporary location (server) so that it can be accessed later upon request. The cached data includes images, videos, and scripts of your pages and posts.
So, every time a user request is made to your WordPress website, the user can directly see the downloaded data without being awaited due to several processes running in the background. This results in faster speed and improves the overall experience for the first-time visitors and encourages them to stay longer on your website.
Why do you need WordPress Caching Plugin?
There are numerous WordPress websites in the market that come up with different content and different sizes. Some of these sites are heavy, for example; a photography website or a magazine with tons of images and videos.
WordPress Caching Plugins are a great way to cache such heavy websites and decrease the chances of bounce rate. Basically, the cache plugin instructs the server to store the data served in the past to a place like a hard disk or RAM so that it can be remembered.
And results in a faster loading site!
How to Use WordPress Caching Plugin?
Just like every other WordPress plugin, the WP caching plugin is also easy to install and use. Install the plugin, activate the features and your plugin is good to go!
But before installing any caching plugin, proper pre-research is required. There are certain features and settings that you need to look for when selecting the right plugin for your website.
Don’t worry! We have gathered a list of features for you. Let’s take a look at them.
WordPress Caching Plugin Features
- Page Caching – The plugin creates a static HTML version of your webpage and stores it at a location. So, every time a request is made, it instantly displays it to the user without downloading it, resulting in faster access to the content of the page.
- Browser Caching – Browser caching holds all the documents downloaded by the user via HTTP. It is used in the backward or forward navigation, thereby saving the extra time for you.
- Gzip Compression – It compresses the webpages or stylesheets before sending them to your browser via the internet. This reduces the overall transfer time.
- Minification – Minification lets you remove the unnecessary characters from the source code, making it smaller and improves the performance. Re-writing URLs is one such example.
- CDN Integration – CDN support is very important. CDN is a group of geographically distributed servers that together fastens the delivery of web content over the internet.
- Lazy Loading – Lazy loading only caches the data which is necessary. You should always use loading for the content like images.
Almost every good cache plugin carries all of these features. Despite these, some of the plugins provide advanced features too. It varies from plugin to plugin.
So, I suggest you first go through the detailed documentation and get to know about the settings and additional features of the plugin, and then decide which works best for you.
Best WordPress Caching Plugins 2022
Let’s dive into the best WordPress Caching Plugins.
- WP Rocket
- WP Total Cache
- WP Fastest Cache
- WP Super Cache
- Swift Performance
- LiteSpeed Cache
- SG Optimizer
- Comet Cache
- Cache Enabler
- Hyper Cache
WP Rocket – Best for Speed & Performance Optimization
WP Rocket is a powerful web performance premium plugin with more than 1,853,000 active installations. This is by bar the best WordPress Caching Plugin in terms of performance and speed optimization.
It’s beginner-friendly and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to use this plugin. 80% of web performance practices are handled by this plugin automatically.
Yes, this is true! This means you don’t need to manually turn on the recommended cache settings like page caching, browser caching, and gzip compression all by yourself.
Also, the WP Rocket comes with additional features like DNS prefetching, minification, lazy loading images, and CDN support, which no doubt will reduce the bounce rates.
If SEO performance is in your mind, then WP Rocket is the plugin you are looking for!
Plugin Features
- Page caching
- Browser caching
- Minification
- Gzip compression
- DNS prefetching
- Lazy loading images
- CDN support
Pricing
WP Rocket plugin offers three plans:
- Single – $49 annually for one website
- Plus – $99 annually for three websites
- Infinite – $249 annually for unlimited websites
W3 Total Cache – Best for Experienced Developers
W3 Total Cache, no doubt, is one of the best open-source WordPress Caching plugins that has been trusted by web developers, web hosts, and publishers worldwide for over a decade. It has more than 1 million active installations and is packed with powerful features like the CDN (content delivery network) integration or minification that help in improving the overall user experience of your website.
It’s slightly difficult for the users who lack technical skills but for professionals, it’s a blessing. W3TC works well with almost all types of hosting plans including shared, virtual private/ dedicated servers, or dedicated clusters.
Developers are more likely to choose this plugin as it can save up to 80% bandwidth by minifying the HTML, CSS, and JS files without comprising the other aspects of your website.
The plugin gives the assurance of 10× improvement in site performance and ranks Grade A in Google page speed.
What else, the plugin is compatible with both mobile and desktop versions making it an even more suitable choice for developers.
Plugin Features
- CDN integration
- AMP (accelerated mobile pages) support
- SSL support
- Minification
- Browser cache
- Database cache
- Object cache
- Fragment cache
Pricing
W3TC is an open-source plugin and thus is free to use.
WP Fastest Cache – Best for Access Wide Range of Tools
WP Fastest Cache is one of the best freemium and premium WordPress Cache Plugins with more than 1 million active installations.
It optimizes the page loading time by creating and storing a static HTML version of the original data, reducing the execution time for each database query and giving users a seamless experience. Additionally, it minifies the CSS, HTML, and JS files that further reducing the file size and hence the time.
Also, the plugin is easy to install and set up. You don’t need to manually modify the .htaccess file. It will be done automatically.
Remember, the freemium version of this plugin is limited to very few features. However, the premium services unlock unlimited features and stand out. You can upgrade to the WP Fastest Premium from the WP dashboard once you install the free version.
Whatmore, it can also combine several CSS files in order to minimize the HTTP round-trips. You can even disable the wp-emojis if needed.
Plugin Features
- Auto-creation of cache files whenever a post or page is published
- CDN integration support
- Leverage browser caching
- Combine CSS, JS files
- Enable/Disable cache option for mobile devices and logged-in users
- Block cache for specific page or post
- Code minification
- Gzip compression
WP Fastest Cache plugin offers four plans:
- Free
- Bronze – $49.99 annually for one website
- Silver – $125 annually for three websites
- Gold – $175 annually for five websites
WP Super Cache – Best for Website Optimization
With more than 2 million active installations, WP Super Cache has become one of the popular open-source WordPress Cache Plugins.
The plugin helps in saving a lot of page loading time by generating static HTML files of the dynamic WP pages/posts. Thus, instead of serving the heavy PHP scripts, it displays those HTML files and makes the web server lighter and faster.
The majority of the time, users visit the website without being logged in. Considering the situation, the plugin displays different cached data to unknown and known users.
Moreover, ranking by speed, the WP Super Cache plugin serves 3 caching modes – Expert, WP Caching, and Simple.
Out of all methods, expert mode is by far the fastest one. But to use this mode, you need to modify the .ht-access file and re-write the Apache module which surely requires web experience. So, if you are a techie and know how to do it, you can customize the settings to make the plugin more functional.
To cache content for known users or who leave comments on your site, WP Caching is the option you should go for. It is very flexible and slightly slower as compared to the Expert mode.
If you don’t have the technical knowledge or any kind of web experience, then you should opt for Simple mode. The configuration settings are much easier and simple to understand.
Plugin Features
- Page caching
- CDN integration support
- Custom Caching
- Browser caching
- Gzip compression
- Schedule or Automatically delete old files in cache directory
Pricing
WP Super Cache provides all of its services free of cost.
Swift Performance – Best for Multi-Site Compatibility
Looking for a plugin that can give you excellent speed, cache, and performance in a single package, then Swift Performance is the perfect WordPress Caching Plugin for you. Within such a short span of time, it has more than 20,000 active installations.
The plugin is packed with powerful features and database optimization in one of them. It has an in-built database optimizer that cleans the duplicated metadata, expired transients, and spam comments. The pro version allows you to schedule the deletion of unnecessary files from the database and helps in maintaining the WP database.
Also, your website’s performance depends a lot on the functionality of the plugins. Using the Swift Performance plugin organizer, you can enable/disable plugins on certain pages and let them run where they are necessary.
Talking about compatibility – the plugin is compatible with Cloudflare, WooCommerce, Varnish, and bbPress as well.
Moreover, you can optimize the delivery of web content by minification and combination of several CSS, JS, and HTML files.
Lastly, make the most out of this plugin by using the image optimizer feature that will definitely help in boosting your site’s performance.
Plugin Features
- Page caching
- Image optimization
- Code optimization – minification and combination.of CSS, JS, HTML
- Browser caching
- Database optimization
- Plugin organizer to enable/disable plugins on certain pages
Swift Performance offers three subscription plans:
- Single – $39.99 per year for one site
- Multi – $99.99 per year for four sites
- Developer – $199.99 per year for unlimited sites
LiteSpeed Cache – All-in-one Acceleration Plugin
LiteSpeed Cache is an open-source WordPress Caching Plugin with more than 2 million active installations. It provides you an all-in-one site acceleration, featuring the server-level cache and a bundle of optimized features to reduce the page loading time.
Ready for an exceptional user experience?
With the LiteSpeed Cache plugin, your site can implement certain practices that can lead to high page scores and more importantly – a seamless user experience.
You can import/export your settings from other caching plugins so moving to LiteSpeed Cache is a breeze.
Plugin Features
- Server-level full-page cache
- Image optimization and lazyload
- Database optimization
- CDN support
- Browser cache support
- HTTP/2 push
- CSS/JS/HTML minification
- Edge side includes
- Single Site and Multisite (Network) support
Pricing Plan
The LiteSpeed Cache plugin is free to use.
SG Optimizer – Best Optimization with SG Hosting Services
SG Optimizer is an open-source WordPress Cache plugin that is specially designed to build an association between WordPress installations and SiteGround caching services – the SuperCacher. This means you can’t use this plugin with any other hosting provider.
Since the time of its release in 2012, the plugin keeps updating itself with the latest caching features including HTTPS switch, PHP updater, and many more, and now has more than 1 million active users.
The plugin allows you to configure the dynamic content of your website in the server’s memory and Memcached which speeds up the performance of dynamic web applications. You can even enable the Automatic purge cache that reduces the load of manual cleaning of junk files and maintains the database.
Additionally, SiteGround Optimizer lets you effortlessly enable HTTPS with a single click for your WordPress site. Also, there is an additional HTTP2 that comes by default with the SG hosting services. Don’t worry! You can easily switch between these two.
Needless to say, what a PHP updater can bring to your site. The updated feature of the plugin comes with PHP 7.0 that can instantly boost your site’s performance.
Plugin Features
- Full page caching on CloudFlare
- Browser caching
- Minification of code
- Gzip Compression
- Enable/Disable emojis on certain pages
- Image optimization
Pricing plans Optimizer in an open-source plugin. You can avail of all of its services free of cost but only with SiteGround hosting services that you can upgrade from WordPress hosting services by SiteGround.
Comet Cache – Best for Speed Optimization
Comet Cache is a simple and well-configured WordPress Caching Plugin with more than 50,000 active installations. The plugin allows you to take real-time snapshots of your posts, pages, links, categories, etc. so that they can be used later ensuring the minimum page loading speed of your website.
If you are looking for a plugin that can boost the speed of your site, then this plugin is the most suitable option for you. You can use the saved time in experimenting with themes, plugins, or configurations.
Also, the Comet Cache plugin uses advanced techniques to decide which cached data should be served or not. Moreover, it doesn’t display cached pages to logged-in users or those who have left comments recently.
With the pro version, you can get so much more than the freemium features including an automatic and intelligent system for clearing cache of pages, posts, links, themes, categories, or tags to minimize the server load.
Multisite host exclusion is another interesting feature that lets you exclude specific blogs from being cached in a multi-network system.
Lastly, you can gain insights into your cached files using this plugin.
Plugin Features
- Auto-clear a list of custom URLs
- Cache statistics and charts
- CDN integration
- Apache optimization to enable Gzip compression
- Compatible with ManageWp and InfiniteWP
- Customize the caching engine
Pricing Plan
The plugin is available in free and premium versions and the plan starts from $39.
Cache Enabler – Simple and Easy To Use
Cache Enabler is a simple, easy-to-use, and lightweight WordPress Caching Plugin that creates a static HTML version of your frontend pages and stores them on the server.
The plugin requires a minimal configuration and is packed with the essential features that are necessary to fasten up your website. This is the reason why it has more than 1,00,000 active users.
It is very well documented with scripts, images, and videos, thus making it very easy to understand for beginners.
Plugin Features
- Fast and efficient cache engine
- Automatic smart cache clearing
- WP-CLI cache clearing
- WebP support
- Gzip pre-compression support
- Minification of HTML, CSS or JS files
- Works perfectly with other third party plugins
Pricing Plan
You can avail all of its features free of cost.
Hyper Cache – Best for Beginners
Hyper Cache WordPress Caching Plugin is designed specially to get the maximum speed with minimal configuration, making it a suitable choice for beginners. The plugin is written in PHP and works perfectly for every blog. Moreover, it can be used in both low resources hosting environments and on high-end servers.
With the Hyper Cache plugin, you can have both mobile and desktop versions of cache. Also, it allows you to switch between mobile themes and desktop themes which I think is very much needed for responsive themes.
Another unique feature is that it is able to serve cached pages to the users who left comments on your blogs. However, you can disable this option anytime.
Plugin Features
- bbPress specific integration
- Autoclean cache used disk space
- Exclude backup of cached files
- Manage compression for cached and non-cached files
- CDN Support and HTTPs ready
Pricing Plan
The Hyper Cache plugin is available for free.
Conclusion
I have listed my best WordPress Caching Plugins for you that are packed with super features and additional settings. However, caching is a bit technical term, which means you will require technical expertise.
Also, it is not mandatory to pick any of the above plugins. You can do your research and choose the one that works best for you and can deliver the optimal results.
If you do implement any of the above plugins, just let us know how it worked for you.
We will be happy to hear your response!
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