WordPress Cache Plugins help a user to speed up the WordPress site and boost performance. In this article, we will provide you the information on the best WordPress Cache Plugins. The cache is a collection of stored data that is not permanent for quick access upon request. The data is usually kept on a hard disk in computers. When the request comes for data, a computer needs to run some processes before the data can be presented. Caching can solve this issue by processing the frequently asked information and storing it in temporary storage or memory. It allows computers to access the file quickly. WordPress websites can also use the same caching concept to boost performance and make the website load faster.
WordPress is a dynamic content management system. It means that every time a user visits a website, WordPress fetches information from the database. Then runs some other steps before the web page is sent to the user’s browser. When a lot of users visit the site simultaneously, it will make the website load slower. Caching allows the WordPress site to skip lots of steps. Instead of visit the whole page generation process, after the first load caching plugin will make a similar page copy. And serves that cached version of the page to every subsequent user.
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Importance of Caching
Caching is important because a user can reduce the load on the WordPress hosting servers and make the website run faster. A user needs proper caching set up to improve the WordPress site speed and boost its performance. A faster website will increase user experience and encourages users to visit more pages. It also helps you boost engagement and the time users spend on your website.
A faster website helps to drive even more traffic to your website from organic search. Google gives a significant SEO advantage to faster websites which helps you rank higher in search results. That being said, let’s take a look at the best WordPress caching plugins that you can use to boost your website speed.
How does WordPress Cache Plugins work?
Well, setting plugins on your WordPress site has three standard steps. First, the user needs to find a plugin according to his needs. Install the plugin on your WordPress site and finally activate the plugin on your WordPress site’s dashboard.
Note: You cannot use WordPress plugins on the WordPress.com site. The user can use WordPress plugins only on self-hosted sites like WordPress.org. But according to current policy, WordPress.com Business plan users can install third-party plugins to their sites. But still, average WordPress users cannot install their plugins.
WordPress Cache Plugins
1. WP Rocket
WP Rocket is the best-known WordPress caching plugin in the market. It is the most straightforward and most user-friendly caching plugin, which is a big help. If you don’t know the technical terms used for different caching options. It allows users to cache their website with one click instantly. Its crawler automatically fetches your WordPress pages to build up the cache. The plugin automatically turns on recommended WordPress caching settings like gzip compression, page cache, and cache preloading. WP Rocket also includes optional features that you can turn on to improve performance further. It includes lazy loading images, CDN support, DNS pre-fetching, minification, and more.
WP Rocket Cache plugin has 1+ million active installations currently. The average rating of this plugin is 4.9 out of 5 stars with 3,460 reviews.
Features of WP Rocket Plugin:
- Cache timeout
- Enable/Disable cache option
- SSL support
- CDN support
- Cloudflare support
- Preload cache
- WP-CLI cache clearing
- Minify HTML, and CSS
- Enable Gzip Compression
- Leverage browser caching
- Combine CSS, and JS
- Disable emoji
- Mobile Cache [in premium version]
- Widget Cache [in premium version]
- Minify HTML Plus, CSS Plus, and JavaScript [in premium version]
- Combine JS Plus [in premium version]
- Defer JavaScript [in premium version]
- Optimize Images [in premium version]
- Database Cleanup [in premium version]
- Google Fonts Async [in premium version]
- Lazy load [in premium version]
2. W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache is the most famous WordPress caching plugins. It’s a comprehensive WordPress caching plugin with many options that may make it appear a bit intimidating for beginners. It includes all the features a user will need to set up the WordPress cache properly. It provides page cache, object cache, gzips compression, limited minification support, CDN support, and more. Beginners may find W3 Total Cache a bit difficult to use.
W3 Total Cache plugin has 1+ million active installations currently. The average rating of this plugin is 4.4 out of 5 stars with 4,770 reviews.
Features of W3 Total Cache Plugin:
- Compatible
- CDN support
- Mobile support
- AMP support
- SSL support
- Caching of database objects, objects, and fragments
- Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
- Minification of posts, pages, RSS feeds, and inline
- Defer non-critical CSS and JavaScript
- Defer offscreen images using Lazy Load
- Browser caching using cache-control, future expire headers and entity tags (ETag) with “cache-busting.”
- JavaScript grouping
- Non-blocking JavaScript embedding
- WP-CLI support
- Various security features
- Caching statistics
- Extension framework
- Reverse proxy integration
3. WP Super Cache
WP Super Cache is another famous WordPress caching plugin. It is free and highly recommended by the top WordPress hosting companies. WP Super Cache plugin provides all recommended caching features that a user will need to speed up your website. It has gzipped compression, page cache, cache preloading, CDN support, advanced-cache preload, and more. It includes a comprehensive settings tab section for an easy-to-use setup.
WP Super Cache plugin has 2+ million active installations currently. The average rating of this plugin is 4.3 out of 5 stars with 1,267 reviews.
Features of WP Super Cache Plugin:
- CDN support
- Preloading
- Garbage collection
- Scheduler
- OSSDL CDN off-linker
- Rest API
- Custom caching
- Cache timeout
4. Comet Cache
Comet Cache is another well-known WordPress caching plugin that effectively helps you speed up your website by cutting down on processing time. It caches all WordPress components like posts, pages, categories tags. And it does all this intelligently and intuitively. It monitors all files for changes and accordingly clears cache files. We can define the time after which the cache is cleared. Additionally, it also comes with an Ajax-powered ‘clear cache’ plugin you can use at will.
Comet Cache plugin has 50,000+ active installations currently. The average rating of this plugin is 4.5 out of 5 stars with 107 reviews.
Features of Comet Cache Plugin:
- SIMPLE and well-documented configuration
- Options to control an automatic cache clearing behavior
- URI exclusion patterns
- User-Agent exclusion patterns
- HTTP referrer exclusion patterns
- Sets an automatic expiration time for cache files
- Client-Side Caching
- It is caching for 404 requests to reduce the impact of those requests on the server.
- RSS, RDF, and Atom Feed caching.
- It can cache or ignore URLs that contain query strings
- Apache Optimizations to enable GZIP Compression
- WP-CLI Compatibility
- An Advanced Cache Plugin system for theme and plugin developers
- The ability to cache logged-in users too [in premium version]
- A new, improved Clear Cache button in the admin bar [in premium version]
- Options for Automatic and Intelligent Cache Clearing [in premium version]
- Ability to disable Dashboard notifications [in premium version]
- The ability to clear Markdown-related cache files [in premium version]
- Ability to run custom PHP code when the cache is cleared [in premium version]
- Auto-Clear a List of Custom URLs [in premium version]
- Clear Cache User Permissions [in premium version]
- Cache Statistics [in premium version]
- Import/Export functionality [in premium version]
- A Dynamic Version Salt [in premium version]
- Multisite Host Exclusion Patterns [in premium version]
- Mobile Mode [in premium version]
- HTML Compressor [in premium version]
- Auto-Cache Engine [in premium version]
- CDN [in premium version]
- Server Load Monitoring [in premium version]
- Apache Optimizations [in premium version]
- An Automatic Updater [in premium version]
- Compatibility [in premium version]
- Rockstar support [in premium version]
5. Cache Enabler
Cache Enabler is one of the lightweight caching plugins that creates a static HTML file of the site. Serves them to the vast majority of the website visitors upon request. It needs minimum configuration and comes with all the essential features a user ever needs from a caching plugin. Cache Enabler provides extensive documentation that will help a user explore the different plugin features.
Cache Enabler plugin has 90,000+ active installations currently. The average rating of this plugin is 4.4 out of 5 stars with 111 reviews.
Features of Cache Enabler Plugin:
- A fast and efficient cache engine
- Automatic smart cache clearing
- Manual cache clearing
- WP-CLI cache clearing
- Cache expiry
- Cache size display in the WordPress dashboard
- Minification of HTML
- WordPress multisite network support
- WebP support
- Gzip pre-compression support
- Custom post type support
- 304 Not Modified support
- It works perfectly with Autoptimize and the majority of other third-party plugins
6. Hyper Cache
Hyper Cache plugin is written in PHP that a user can use in cheap hosting environments and high-end servers. It is easy to activate Hyper Cache Plugin because it works with a set of default values. This plugin is a mobile-themed switch option that allows the user to enable caching even if a user uses different layouts for mobile users and desktops. It comes in handy if the user uses a responsive theme or needs other ad formats for different devices. Another benefit of Hyper Cache is its ability to serve cached pages to comment on authors. However, the user can also disable serving cached pages to comment on authors if he wants to.
Hyper Cache plugin has 90,000+ active installations currently. The average rating of this plugin is 4.4 out of 5 stars with 111 reviews.
Features of Hyper Cache Plugin:
- Mobile aware
- HTTPS ready
- Mobile theme switch option
- Able to serve expired pages to bots to increase the perceived blog speed by bots
- Manages compression
- Lots of configurable bypasses
- Comments aware
- The cache folder can be moved outside your blog space to exclude it from backups
- Controls over cache cleaning
- Autoclean to controls the cache used disk space
- CDN support
- Other special options
- Response header signature
- bbPress specific integration
Conclusion
In conclusion, we discussed WordPress Cache plugins. Many Cache plugins options are available, but we discussed six of them with advanced features. A user can use the WordPress Cache Plugins to speed up the WordPress site and boost its performance.
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