Best Plugins to Assist with WordPress Site Speed Optimization
Top Plug-ins to Help with the Website Performance in 2024
Here is my take on what I have found over the years to be the most popular, best-performing and value-for-money WordPress plugins, which will help with improving website speed and Performance.
WP Rocket
Wp Rocket - Key Features and Pricing
| Single Plan:
|
The WP rocket plug-in is the webmasters tool of choice when it comes to improving size speed and Performance. Popular amongst marketers and website owners the key features you will get are page caching, cache preloading, browser caching and gzip compression.
you can owl also take advantage of lazy loading of images, minification of CSS and JavaScript files, and database optimization. WP rocket is very easy to use and doesn’t require any technical skills for the setting up, will work harmoniously with the majority of themes and plugins.
(WP Rocket) Features (WP Rocket).
W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache - Key Features and Pricing
| Free Version:
|
When you first start out building your WordPress website W3 total cache is likely probably the first caching plug-in that you would have incorporated into your WordPress dashboard.
It’s has solid caching capabilities. It includes page caching, browser caching, database caching, and object caching. W3 Total Cache also supports content delivery network (CDN) integration, minification of CSS, JavaScript, and HTML, and lazy loading.
Considering W3 Total Cache is free, it provides a surprisingly high level of customisation, which is great for advanced users to get their hands on. It can also work well to assist your website in improving performance.
Smush
Smuch - Key Features and Pricing
| Free Version:
Starting at $7.50/month for advanced features like WebP conversion, CDN support, and higher compression levels. |
Smush when used correctly can become quite a powerful image optimisation plug-in. what it does is compress and resizes images which combined to help reduce load times.
Features include bulk image optimization, lazy loading, and automated resizing and compression of new images. Smush supports various file formats and integrates with popular media libraries, ensuring optimized images across your website.
Autoptimize
Autoptimize- Key Features and Pricing
| Free Version:
|
Autoptimize is a completely free plugin that focuses on optimizing CSS, JavaScript, and HTML.
It aggregates (which simply means combining multiple files into a single file) just in case you is wondering 🙂 as well as minifies, and caches scripts and styles, and it’s can also inject CSS in the page head, and defers the loading of scripts to improve site performance. Autoptimize also offerslazy loading of images and integrates with other caching plugins to provide a comprehensive speed optimization solution.
WP Super Cache
Wp Super Cache- Key Features and Pricing
| Free Version: Available with ALL core features. |
Another popular choice amongst WordPress websites, again often because it’s one of the first plugins you may see when you first start up your own website is the, WP Super Cache which is a is a free caching plugin by Automattic, who are actually the team behind WordPress.com.
To keep things simple what it does is generate static HTML files from your dynamic WordPress site, which are served to users, reducing server load and improving load times. The plugin offers multiple caching modes, including simple, expert, and WP-Cache, catering to both beginners and advanced users. It also supports CDN integration and cache preloading.
Often, many new WordPress users, including myself I’ve usually chosen between WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache.
I’m not going to necessarily advise here which at one I found to be the best, I have used both at different times and both have made a positive impact to my website speed and performance.
Perfmatters
Perfmatters - Key Features and Pricing
| Personal License:
|
Perfmatters is a well designed and lightweight performance optimization plugin which goes towards disabling unnecessary features and scripts to speed up your site, Ultimately improving your performance.
It focuses on reducing HTTP requests, disabling emojis, removing query strings, and optimizing Google Analytics.
ShortPixel Image Optimizer
ShortPixel Image Optimizer - Key Features and Pricing
| Free Plan: |
As the name suggests ShortPixel is an image optimization plugin that compresses and resizes images, as mentioned this is often one of the key factors in reducing load time, and this optimizer Focuses on that.
Supporting both lossy and lossless compression, just so you know..:)
Lossy compression reduces file size by permanently eliminating some data, causing a slight loss in quality, while lossless compression reduces file size without any loss of data, preserving the original quality.
it is able to optimise images whilst keeping the quality of the imaging place. ShortPixel can optimize all image types, including WebP, and also compresses PDF files.
Lazy Load by WP Rocket
Lazy Load by WP Rocket - Key Features and Pricing
| Free Plugin: Included with the WP Rocket plugin. |
Lazy Load by WP Rocket is a lightweight plugin that improves site performance by loading images and iframes only when they come into view. This reduces initial page load time and saves bandwidth. an easy addition to any site looking to enhance performance.
Click Here if You need Further Help on Website Optimization