WordPress Caching Importance And Recommendations

WordPress caching is the fastest way to improve performance and in this article, we’ll explain the importance of WordPress caching and the recommendations for its usage. Firstly, let us take a moment to familiarize ourselves with the process of caching in general. In simple terms,  caching refers to the process of creating static versions of your content, and serving that to visitors. Static pages load generally quickly in browsers. This leads to faster performance of your website.

WordPress Caching Importance

In WordPress, rendering or fetching a page (or post or custom post type) requires back and forth queries to be sent to and from the database. Now, more often than not, you will create a post or a page and then you won’t be updating it every day. Caching creates static copies of your post or page and serves that to visitors. This way, the back and forth queries to and from the database can be avoided, thereby reducing the server load.

Browser Caching

Browser caching Importance For WordPress. It can help to reduce the server load by reducing the number of requests per page. For example, by setting the correct file headers on files that don’t change (static files like images, CSS, JavaScript, etc) browsers will then cache these files on your visitor’s computer. This technique allows the browser to check to see if files have changed, instead of simply requesting them. As a result, your web server can answer many more 304 responses, instead of 200 responses, which require the file delivery. Look into HTTP Cache-Control (specifically max-age) and Expires headers, as well as Entity Tags for more information.

Server Caching

Web server caching is more complex but is present in very high traffic sites. A wide range of options is available, beyond the scope of this article. The simplest solutions start with the server caching locally while more complex and involved systems may use multiple caching servers (also known as reverse proxy servers) “in front” of web servers where the WordPress application is actually running. Adding an opcode cache like Opcache, or WinCache on IIS, to your server will improve PHP’s performance by many times.

Plugins For WordPress Caching Importance

Cache Enabler

It offers an extremely simple and easy to use interface. In other words, this plugin does what it is meant to do.  Cache your content and serve static cached pages to visitors. Cache Enabler is probably meant for you if you need a simple cache solution. This plugin does not involve heavy configuration or settings. It simply works out of the box. On the other hand, if you are ready to something that offers granular control over every aspect of caching, Cache Enabler might seem rather unimpressive to you.

Note that since Cache Enabler is a new plugin, it is way less popular than the other entries on this list (currently, it has over 6000 active installs).

W3 Total Cache Plugin For WordPress Caching

W3 Total Cache is another extremely popular caching plugin for WordPress users, with over a million active sites. Unlike other cache plugins, W3 Total Cache does more than just the generation of static pages. It can also help you minify and compress your scripts, and leverage various other tools to further speed up your site. In addition, W3 Total Cache is rather hard to use plugin with a slightly steeper learning curve. If you are relatively newer to WordPress caching plugins, this one might be overkill for you.

WP Super Cache

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WP Super Cache is a free WordPress plugin with over a million active installations. It generates static HTML files for your WordPress site. This way, your website functions faster than a non-cached site. WP Super Cache is a simple plugin, but it offers good scope for customization as well. You can also make it work in sync with your CDN service.

WP Fastest Cache Plugin For WordPress Caching

WP Fastest Cache generates static HTML pages of your content to speed up page load times. In addition to WordPress caching, it also offers various performance optimization options, such as the ability to minify HTML and CSS and speed up JS scripts. WP Fastest Cache also supports GZip compression to reduce the size of files from your server. This plugin is free but offers a premium version that comes with more features, such as the ability to integrate with CDN services.