You’ve heard of cache and how they speed up the websites right? Now you must be wondering about how to use one for your WordPress website. We’ve got you covered.
WordPress Cache plugins are used popularly because they can boost the speed, SEO, efficiency, User experience, and conversions of your website.
Users hate slow websites. If a website takes more than 2 seconds to load, the user starts having doubts about the authenticity of the business. A good caching plugin is a terrific method to solve this issue.
The cache plugin will help you speed up your WordPress site and reduce the strain on your server.
How Does Cache Plugins Work
Before knowing how cache plugins work, you must know about site speed. There are multiple free site speed tools available in the market. Choose one and do a speed test first to figure out where you stand.
Now, you need to know what cache is. A cache is a collection of temporarily stored data that may be accessed quickly when needed. Just like we save a bunch of data in the hard drive of a computer, but a number of operations must be conducted for accessing the data.
Caching addresses this problem by processing repeatedly requested data in one place and putting it in a temporary storage area or memory. This enables computers to easily locate the file.
WordPress Caching plugins usually work in the same way. They use this method to speed up the page load times.
Why Do I Have to Use WordPress Cache Plugin?
Now, there can be questions popping up in your mind that why you would need this. Since you’re using WordPress website you know how dynamic the management system is.
All the information comes directly from the database and runs through a variety of other operations when a single visitor is visiting the website. Page speed gets slower as the number of visitors and users number increases.
The usage of the cache plugin helps you to pace up the process of sliding onto different pages. Once a visitor is visiting a page, the cache plugin usually copies the page info so that the next user can visit that page without too much hassle.
This results in the website being much faster than ever. A faster website doesn’t only help in increasing the website traffic but also drives the traffic from organic search. The SEO ranking boosts up as well.
Now let’s dive into the list that you were eagerly waiting for. Here are our choices for the best and most popular cache plugins for your WordPress website.
WP Super Cache
WP Super Cache is one of the popular plugins recommended by many WordPress users. It has 2+ million active installations as well as regular updates.
On top of that, it’s a free plugin! It is built by a great company who are behind the wheels of wordpress.com and WooCommerce.
The functionalities of WP Super Cache are pretty simple. This plugin converts your dynamic WordPress blog into static HTML files. So, the heavier codes that are to be processed after visiting the site are converted into HTML files. And they are finally shown to the visited users.
Three types of users are usually served the files
- Unlogged users
- Users who haven’t commented on anything
- And the users who haven’t tried to view any secured post
This plugin also has three types of raked cache servings which are Expert Caching (The quickest method), Simple Caching and WP-Cache Catching.
The Benefits of WP Super Cache
- Turning heavy script language codes from the backend to a simpler code by concatenation
- Page Cache functionality
- Preload Mode
- Garbage collection which cleans up old cache files
- GZIP compression
- CDN Support
- Browser Caching
- Custom Caching
Make sure you delete all the previous cache files before installing a plugin.
W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache is a plugin that has 1+ million installations and has over 3k+ five-star reviews. It is not only popular but also very user-friendly.
W3 total cache is dedicated to saving your SEO ranking and boost up your user experience. This plugin reduces the page loading time at a good level and enhances the website speed.
W3 Total Cache is a feature-packed plugin, which might make you overwhelmed. It has all the tools you need to properly set up the perfect cache environment.
The Benefits of W3 Total Cache
- Page speeds up to 10 times if the plugin is fully optimized.
- Browser caching option
- Completely compatible with multiple server types (hosted/private/dedicated)
- Minification of hard script codes
- Clear CDN management
- AMP Support
- Mobile Usage Support
- Secured Socket Layer support
- Database, object, and fragment caching
- Several security mechanisms to help assure the website safety
- Data insights feature for Cache information
W3 Cache plugin has a premium version as well. This version includes more performance options. It might be a little hard for beginners to understand and work through all these features at the same time. Take your time, check out all the features and make your website fully optimized.
WP Rocket
WP Rocket is the only premium cache plugin in our list that you won’t find in wordpress.org. WP Rocket doesn’t provide a free version. If you want a beginner-friendly cache plugin for your website this should be on your list.
WP Rocket is pretty convenient for the users since it’s very easy to understand its functionalities. This User Friendly plugin speeds up your site’s load time, which is critical for improving SEO and increasing conversions.
It offers one-click cache cleaning which can impress the users a lot. When a user visits the website, the info is fetched by the plugin and the tools to speed up the site activate automatically.
The Benefits of WP Rocket
- Very beginner-friendly, anyone can just start learning the cache plugin functionalities and do a good job at setting it up
- Very much compatible with eCommerce websites and can run effortlessly
- WP Rocket’s compatibility doesn’t end with only eCommerce websites. It’s completely compatible with most of the popular plugins and themes there is
- A lazyLoad feature, which modifies the image loading and iframes
- Cache Preloading with two method varieties
- Minification and JS delay execution
- Compatibility with CloudFlare to double up the site speed
- Gzip compression
- Content Preloader
- CDN integration/management
If you’re still confused, don’t look anywhere else. Take your chances with WP Rocket!
Cache Enabler
Cache Enabler is one of the simplest cache plugins for you if you want something elegant but hassle-free. It’s a free plugin by KeyCDN that is very powerful despite its simplicity.
Cache Enabler requires easy configuration and aids with giving you a great speed for your website. It generates static HTML files for front end and saves them to the server. Like most plugins instead of the dynamic pages, the static HTML pages are shown to the users by the plugin.
You’re not getting all the flashy features like paid plugins but you’re definitely getting something for free. This plugin has more than 100,000 active installations which prove my point.
The Benefits of Cache Enabler
- Quick Cache Engine
- This plugin offers a distinctive feature which is serving Webp images. But you don’t need any help from JS. This helps people who run product-based eCommerce platforms or websites whose business basically run on images
- One of the most straightforward and clean set up and user interface
- Mobile Friendly
- Cache Expiry to set up the expiration of caches
- Pre-compression with Brotli and Gzip compression is supported
- HTML Minification
- The WordPress dashboard displays the cache size in real-time
- Works well with most of the third-party plugins
WP Fastest Cache
Just like Cheetahs WP Fastest Cache promises to provide super site speed. It offers many advanced features. But it is very simple to use making it easy to use.
It claims that it has the easiest installation and usage process. WP Fastest Cache has over 1 million installations which pretty much agrees to the fact that they’re popular and user-friendly.
WP Fastest Cache has both free and premium versions. It has an easy navigating menu. You can also switch between tabs to manage things like cache timeouts, image optimization, and the CDN.
The Benefits of WP Fastest Cache
- This plugin’s fastest method is called Mod_Rewrite
- Caches are deleted automatically after publishing a blog or publishing a product
- Admin can selectively remove cache files as well
- Cache Block Option
- Timeout option for Cache
- Mobile Device enable or disable
- SSL & CDN support and management
- Image optimization
- Database Cleanup
- Gzip compression
- WebP conversion
Overall WP Fastest Cache is one of the most comprehensive cache plugins available.
Summing Up
There are many cache plugins available such as Comet cache, Bluehost, SG super cacher, etc. These plugins are also great for your website. We tried to describe the best ones we thought of.
Cache plugins are pretty important for your website since you need the customers to land on your page and feel confident about your business. If your page takes way too long to just load, this lessens the conversion rate. Try out different cache plugins to see which helps your website more.
We hope that our article has provided you with enough information. Drop a comment below if you have any queries about top cache plugins.