Today, people want websites to be fast. If a website takes too long to load, visitors often leave. That’s where caching comes in. Caching means storing a fast version of your website. It helps your website load quickly, making users happy because they don’t have to wait. Also, search engines like fast websites so that caching can improve your website’s visibility online. In this article, we’ll discuss how caching improves websites. I’ll also share some of the best Caching Plugins for WordPress to speed up your website and make it easier to use.
Let’s begin!
What is Caching in WordPress?
Caching in WordPress means saving commonly used data in a particular storage area (cache). It helps to make your website load faster and use fewer server resources when people revisit it.
To understand caching, you need to know how a WordPress website works. Most WordPress sites are dynamic, which means they create web pages for users when they visit. When someone opens a WordPress site, the browser asks the server to load all the parts (like images, JavaScript, CSS files, and text). It also involves getting information from the WordPress database based on what the user wants.
So, the database receives many requests whenever someone visits the website. This uses up resources and slows down the loading time. However, caching solves this problem by saving a copy of web pages after the first visit. Then, it shows these saved pages quickly whenever someone wants to see them again without returning to the database.
Why Do You Need Caching for Your WordPress Sites?
Using top Caching Plugins for WordPress can make your WordPress website faster and work better. Here are some reasons why caching is essential for your WordPress site:
- Caching makes your site load faster.
- It lowers the strain on your server.
- Your website will load quicker, making users happier.
- Your site might show up higher in search results because it’s faster.
- Caching helps increase the number of visitors who do what you want on your site.
So, remember to clear your WordPress cache often to keep your website running well and up-to-date.
Best Caching Plugins for WordPress
The best caching plugins for WordPress help you store your posts and pages quickly and easily. Below, you’ll find a list of both free and paid plugins that boost your website’s performance:
WP Rocket
WP Rocket is the simplest and most effective premium caching plugin for speeding up your website. WordPress experts highly recommend it, and it is suitable for beginners and tech-savvy users.
WP Rocket automatically implements 80% of the best practices for web performance, such as page caching, cache preloading, and GZIP compression. It also lets you minimize CSS and JS files, delay loading images and videos, remove unnecessary CSS, and schedule automatic database cleanups. This plugin is perfect for improving your Core Web Vitals scores and making your site faster with just a few clicks, saving you time and effort.
Moreover, WP Rocket is tailored for ecommerce sites, excluding pages like “Cart,” “Checkout,” and “My Account” from caching to avoid any disruptions during the purchasing process.
WP Rocket stands out from other speed optimization plugins because its default features enhance your website’s loading time immediately after activation.
Comet Cache
Comet Cache is a tool you can add to your WordPress website. It helps your site load faster by storing copies of your pages, posts, and other content so they don’t have to be created from scratch every time someone visits your site. It’s suitable for beginners because it explains everything clearly.
Some advanced features, like compressing HTML and caching users who are logged in, are only available if you buy Comet Cache Pro.
Unlike some other cache plugins, Comet Cache doesn’t directly reduce the size of your files with GZIP compression. If your site uses the Apache web server, you can quickly turn on GZIP compression in your settings. But you’ll need to do technical stuff with your site’s files to start using Apache. If GZIP compression is really important, there might be a better plugin for you.
Cache Enabler
Cache Enabler is a small, easy-to-use tool that makes WordPress websites run faster. It saves copies of website pages and allows them to load quicker the next time someone visits. It also compresses these pages to save space and can make them smaller to load faster. You can adjust how long these saved pages stay before they’re updated and delete old ones if needed. It’s suitable for websites with many users because it works well on big network sites.
However, compared to some other tools, Cache Enabler does less. For example, you can only delete saved pages if something specific on your website changes, like a new post or comment. And if you want certain pages not to be saved, it’s a bit complicated—you have to type in specific details instead of just clicking a button.
Hummingbird
Hummingbird is a tool that helps speed up websites by storing information in your web browser, making files smaller, and delaying specific tasks until they’re needed. It also helps fix things that slow your site down. It can do this by suggesting changes and sometimes fixing them with just one click.
Hummingbird is unique because it checks your website for things that make it slow and advises how to fix them. Sometimes, it can even automatically improve your site by storing information more efficiently and making files smaller.
There’s a fancier version of Hummingbird that offers even more helpful features, like checking your site regularly for problems, making files even smaller, and using a network of computers to speed up your site even more.
WP Super Cache
WP Super Cache is a tool you can use for free on WordPress websites. It’s made by a company called Automatics and lots of people use it – over two million!
One thing people like about this tool is that it has three different ways of saving web pages so they load faster when someone visits your site. One way is called “Expert” mode, which is quick but tricky because you have to change a particular file on your website. This mode is best for people who know a lot about websites.
But if you’re not a tech whiz, there’s a simpler option called “Simple” mode. With this mode, the tool makes basic versions of your web pages that load quickly for most people.
There’s also another mode called WP-Cache. This one saves unique versions of your pages for people who are logged in, have a password, or have left comments on your site.
W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache (W3TC) is a popular tool for WordPress websites. Many people like it because it works well with different types of hosting, like shared, VPS, and dedicated server hosting.
With W3 Total Cache, you can make your website faster in various ways. It can reduce your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files, and it can do the same for your posts, pages, and RSS feeds. It can also make your images load only when needed, make your CSS and JavaScript files load later, and remove things that slow down your website. Plus, you can schedule it to clean up your website’s database automatically.
If you use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) to make your website faster, W3 Total Cache can work with it, too. Before you make any changes, you can test them to see if they work well for your website.
WP-Optimize
WP-Optimize is an excellent plugin for WordPress websites. Lots of people use it – more than a million! It helps make your site faster by doing a few things. First, it tells web browsers to save parts of your site so they don’t have to load everything again each time someone visits. It also makes your website files smaller by squishing down the code. This means your site takes up less space and loads faster.
With WP-Optimize, you can make unique versions of your site for mobile phones. These versions are made to work well on smaller screens.
But WP-Optimize continues beyond there. It also helps tidy up your website behind the scenes. It removes unnecessary stuff from your website’s database and makes your images smaller without losing quality. All of this helps your website load quicker and run smoother.
LiteSpeed Cache
LiteSpeed Cache is a really good WordPress plugin. It helps make your website faster by making your CSS and JavaScript files smaller, loading images only when needed, and optimizing images automatically.
What makes LiteSpeed Cache special is that it works directly on the server faster than other plugins that work through PHP. However, to use all its features, you need to have LiteSpeed Web Server, which is not free.
With LiteSpeed Cache, your website can store copies of its pages in a special place called a cache. This means that when someone visits your site, it can show them a saved version instead of loading everything again, which is much quicker. You should pay a bit monthly for a license to use this server.
NitroPack
NitroPack helps make your website faster and better, even if you’re not a tech expert. It uses many smart tools to speed up your website’s load time and performance, helping over 200,000 businesses online. Setting up NitroPack is easy, and it ensures your website works smoothly without any problems.
The features offered in the free version of this service aim to enhance website performance by targeting various elements such as code, images, and fonts. It achieves this by optimizing images for quicker loading, storing cached copies of web pages for faster subsequent visits, and reducing the size of code, CSS, and JavaScript files to expedite loading times.
On the other hand, the premium version introduces additional optimizations to accelerate website loading further. It first prioritizes loading crucial website components, employs a specialized network for swift content delivery worldwide, and compresses font files for improved loading speeds. Moreover, it includes tailored functionalities for online stores utilizing WooCommerce, streamlining customers’ browsing and purchasing experience.
Make your website faster
A cache plugin is a really important plugin for WordPress that makes your website work quicker and makes visitors happier. You can pick any of these plugins to make your website speedy and excellent for your visitors, without changing any code in your theme or .htaccess files.
