| Cache Plugin | Key Features | Direct Link |
|---|---|---|
| WP Rocket | ✓ Powerful page and browser caching✓ GZIP compression✓ Lazy loading and eCommerce compatible✓ It’s a premium plugin. (Starts at $59/year) | Download |
| W3 Total Cache | ✓ CDN Integration for faster load times✓ Lazy Loading for improved user experience✓ Browser caching and enhanced website safety✓ It’s a free plugin | Download |
| Hosting Cache | ✓ Hosting company’s in-built caching✓ Don’t require 3rd party plugin✓ Included with the hosting plans (no extra payment) | Learn More |
| WP Super Cache | ✓ Page Caching and Cached Files Preloading✓ Allows integration with CDNs✓ Garbage collection feature to manage the cache✓ It’s a free plugin | Download |
| WP Fastest Cache | ✓ Page Caching and CSS/Javascript files minification✓ Enables Gzip compression for cached files✓ SSL and CDN support✓ It’s a freemium plugin. (Pro starts at $49/lifetime) | Download |
| Hyper Cache | ✓ Supports desktop and mobile caching✓ SSL support and integration with CDNs✓ Autoclean to control the cache used disk space✓ It’s a free plugin | Download |
Are you looking for the best caching plugin to speed up WordPress?
Continue reading…
The most important thing about the Internet today is speed.
The faster your website and pages load, the better it is from both a user and search engine perspective.
There are many ways you can speed up your website, including using one of the fastest WordPress website hosting , compressing images, using a CDN, using caching techniques, and more.
Here, we will discuss some of the best WordPress caching plugins that you can use on your WordPress website and blog to speed up loading times.
Even Google has made it clear that they use page loading time as one of the search engine ranking signals. Knowing this fact, we cannot ignore the importance of faster loading time for websites based on WordPress or any other platform.
How Do WordPress Caching Plugins Help?
Okay, let’s get the hard part out of the way first and explain why you need one of these WordPress caching plugins.
Let me explain it in simple terms:
When a reader opens a page on your WordPress site, WordPress queries the database and loads all content related to that page from the database (sidebars, related posts, custom hooks), which makes multiple calls to your database.
Every time a user opens a page on your WordPress site, a lot of calculations are repeated.
What happens if a large number of visitors come at the same time? Your web hosting has to do a lot of calculations within a second, so your server will crash sometimes.
You must have seen errors like 500 Internal Server Error or Error connecting to database.
These are serious issues and many WordPress users don’t know why they happen. The solution to this problem is to use a caching plugin.
Here’s how caching works in WordPress:
WordPress cache plugins convert your pages into static pages (cached) when a user requests the page for the first time.
Now, when a second user requests the same page, the cache plugin no longer queries the database, but serves the page from the cache, thereby reducing the server load and your website loads faster.
Especially as a beginner, you might be using shared hosting , which provides good resources, but again using a caching plugin helps to reduce the server load significantly, and you might not get unexpected warnings like exceeding CPU limits.
There are many top caching plugins for WordPress in the WordPress repository.
Some of them are well-known: WP super cache, W3 total cache, WP-Rocket and many more.
In this article, I will discuss some of the best WordPress caching plugins and explain their features so that you can compare them and choose the best one for your WordPress environment.
Remember to only choose one because they all pretty much do the same job. Using more than one cache plugin may cause conflicts and your server may behave strangely.
Additionally, it’s a good idea to contact your web hosting provider and ask them which WordPress caching plugins work best with their hosting configuration. Sometimes this can help in choosing the right caching plugin for your platform.
Recommended reading:
Best WordPress Caching Plugins:
Before choosing a plugin from our list of best WordPress caching plugins , be sure to consider your hosting and server configuration.
For example, the W3 total cache plugin is best suited for a VPS or dedicated server, while Super cache is perfect for shared hosting.
I will also explain some of the main benefits of these WordPress caching plugins , and you can choose the one you think is compatible with your server environment.
Before you start using either caching plugin, make sure to run a speed test on your website using Pingdom or GTMetrix and record the loading times.
After installing the cache plugin, rerun the test and notice the difference.
1. WP Rocket (Premium)
WP-Rocket is the only premium caching plugin to make it to this list.
They have been in the industry for 3 years and they are the best choice for premium WordPress websites.
If you use Kinsta hosting , this is the only caching plugin they allow.
With minimal configuration options, WP Rocket has been proven to:
- Improve page loading time
- Improved page indexing
- Provides lazy loading of images (best for image-heavy sites)
- Provides excellent support for non-technical WordPress users.
- Preload Mode
You can read a detailed review about WP-rocket here
Starting at just $39 for a single website
2. W3 Total Cache (Free)
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W3 is one of the most advanced WordPress caching plugins that works out of the box and provides advanced caching mechanisms.
However, perfect W3 Total Cache configuration may require some technical skills.
The latest version of W3 Total Cache provides integration with Cloudflare . You can use this plugin to easily and quickly configure your CDN.
Object caching is another feature you should use in this plugin.
Some of the more noteworthy features of this top WordPress caching plugin include:
- Page Cache
- Database Cache
- Compress CSS and JS
- Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Cloudflare
- Best for VPS and dedicated hosting, but also works well with shared hosting
- Caching of search results pages
Read: How to configure the W3TC plugin
3. Use the host's built-in cache
Most managed WordPress hosting companies have built-in caching and do not require any third-party plugins. The built-in caching system is powerful enough to make your WordPress site load faster.
Kinsta Cache:
Kinsta offers an internal caching system that automatically clears your cache when you update your WordPress site. They are one of the few hosts that offer integration with the WP-Rocket plugin to enhance caching. This is what we use at ShoutMeLoud.
SiteGround Cache:
Some shared web hosting services (such as Bluehost and SiteGround) also offer built-in caching systems.
I particularly like SiteGround’s built-in caching plugin SG Optimizer (only available with SiteGround hosting).
If you use any of these web hosting services, you don’t need an additional caching plugin.
4. WP Super Cache (Free)
WP Super Cache is a very popular plugin and one of the most recommended WordPress cache plugins.
WP Super Cache is easy to install, easy to use, and gives you a good performance boost. It generates static HTML files from your dynamic blog, and this plugin also provides gzip compression .
You can now use subdomains as CDNs in WP Super Cache to serve static files like images, Javascript, and CSS from other sites or CDNs.
If you are a new user and your needs are average, then this plugin is the best choice for you. This is one of the most active and updated plugins and is managed by Automattic.
Depending on your server configuration, you can configure the Super Cache plugin to cache files in one of three ways:
Mod_rewrite, PHP, and legacy caching.
To make your WordPress site load faster, I recommend that you configure Apache mod_rewrite to cache your files.
WP Super Cache has a preload mode, which is useful for sites that don’t update often, where you can preload content and set an expiration time – you probably won’t use this feature.
Once you have configured the Super Cache plugin, make sure to use the Test Cache feature in Easy Mode, which will confirm that the plugin is working properly.
Download WP Super cache plugin
5. WP Fastest Cache
WP Fastest cache is a newcomer in 2016 and it makes the list because it is so good and so simple to configure. It is a plug-and-play WordPress cache plugin that you can download and configure in just a few minutes.
6. Super Cache
Hyper Cache is another great caching plugin for WordPress users who host their blogs on hosting providers with less resources, such as CPU and MySQL. One of the great things about Hyper Cache is that it even works on Windows hosting. Some of the features that Hyper Cache has are:
- Compatible with WP-PDA plugin, making the blog accessible via mobile devices
- Manage plain text and gzip compressed pages
- Automatic cleaning system to reduce disk usage
- 404 Cache
- Redirect Cache
- Last-Modified HTTP header compatibility with 304 responses
- Compress storage to reduce disk space usage
- Configurable proxy, URL and cookie-based rejection
- Easy to integrate with other plugins
Download Hyper Cache WordPress plugin
Conclusion: Which is the Best Caching Plugin for WordPress?
All of these WordPress caching plugins have their own reasons for use and features.
- For Advanced Caching: WP-Rocket
- Free Cache Plugin: WP Super Cache
If you are new to blogging, I recommend you to use WP Super Cache WordPress plugin. If you want a more advanced and best caching system for your blog, use WP-Rocket. This is what I use on ShoutMeLoud.
However, my best advice for faster loading times is to target every aspect of your WordPress site. This includes using a CDN like MaxCDN, compressing images with the Shortpixels plugin, and using a powerful hosting server.
There are many other plugins that could be added to this list of WordPress caching plugins, but I wanted to keep the list short and pick the best plugins on the market.
I would love to know which WordPress caching plugin you are using.
Please reply in the comments section below.
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