The Best WordPress Caching Plugin: Is WP Rocket Really That Good?
In this article, we’ll examine WP Rocket in greater detail, discussing its features, what it can do for your website, and how to best configure it. Let’s begin our review of WP Rocket!
What is WP Rocket again?
WP Rocket is a comprehensive caching plugin designed with WordPress in mind. WP Rocket was a revolution when it was introduced in 2013 to address the issues of slow loading websites and perplexing caching plugins. Its position as a market leader was quickly established thanks to the user-friendly interface, minimal setup, and excellent support. Over 900,000 websites are currently powered by WP Rocket, which is also one of the top WordPress caching plugins.
WP Rocket in Action
We’d rather show you actual outcomes from a test website than go on and on about how great WP Rocket is. An explanation of the test website It is set up with WordPress 5.3 and WP Rocket 3.4.2.2 on a Linode server using PHP 7.3. I’m running these tests with the lightning-quick, lightweight WordPress theme Astra. I’m also using one of our Astra starter site templates, which enables you to create a complete website in a matter of minutes.
Without WP Rocket:
3.1 seconds for the page to fully load, with a page size of just under 1MB and 69 requests. Very good! But I’m confident that if WP Rocket is turned on, we can improve.
With WP Rocket:
a striking improvement! We decreased the number of requests from 69 to 25, which resulted in a load time reduction of 0.6 seconds. Now, this wasn’t with the default WP Rocket settings, no. Actually, there was no time savings right out of the box, which is common with caching plugins. Instead, we took a little time to set the plugin up for maximum effectiveness. We configured WP Rocket to produce these results in less than 15 minutes overall, and the best part is that you can do the same!
How to Use WP Rocket to Speed Up Your WordPress Website in Less Than 15 Minutes
You’ve seen our results above and now want to achieve the same with your website. Well, here’s a step by step guide on how to do just that.
Step 1: Install and Activate the Plugin
You must manually upload the plugin to your WordPress site, as opposed to downloading it from WordPress.org. Click “activate” after adding a new plugin to your website’s wp-admin > plugins section. Your site’s caching will be enabled instantly by WP Rocket, but there’s more to it than that!
Step 2: Configure File Optimization
In your wp-admin > settings > WP Rocket, click on the “File Optimization” tab.
Here you can minify and combine your various types of files (HTML, CSS, JS).
You want to set the following options:
- Minify HTML.
- Combine Google Fonts files.
- Remove query strings from static resources.
- Minify CSS files.
- Combine CSS files.
- Optimize CSS delivery.
- Minify JavaScript files.
- Combine JavaScript files.
- Load JavaScript deferred.
- Safe mode for jQuery.
Click “save changes” after you have enabled each of those. What exactly do combining, minifying, and all of that other fun stuff do to your WordPress website, and what exactly are all of these settings? When files are minified, extra white space is removed, which can save a few KBs per file if they are large. The real magic happens when files are combined, but how does that happen? If you choose to combine your 15 JavaScript files, your website will only load one JavaScript file, reducing the number of page requests.
Step 3: Control Your Heartbeat
A WordPress API called The Heartbeat is used by plugins, themes, and the core of the platform. It periodically sends requests to your server, which may have an effect on how quickly your site loads. You can control how frequently Heartbeat functions in WP Rocket; we advise turning it on and setting each option to “Reduce activity.”
WP Rocket Pricing
WP Rocket differs from the majority of other plugins in that it offers both a free version, typically with a constrained feature set and limited support, and a paid version, called a “pro version,” with more features and exclusive email support. WP Rocket was aware that people require a lot of support and that caching is a complicated beast. You can’t create a great caching plugin without excellent support, and that costs money. WP Rocket is therefore a premium service, and the cost is as follows:
- $49 for one site.
- $99 for 3 websites.
- $249 for unlimited sites.
After the first year from the date of purchase, you can renew your license with a 30% discount. All licenses come with support and updates.
WP Rocket Features
You might be curious as to what WP Rocket provides. There are certainly many features! Although we recognize that some people might find that unsettling and would rather have fewer features overall, we personally see that as a positive.
- Page Caching
- Cache Preloading
- Sitemap Preloading
- GZip Compression
- Browser Caching
- Database Optimization
- Google Font Optimization
- Remove Query Strings from Static Resources
- Lazy Loading
- Minification and Concatenation
- Defer JS Loading
- CloudFlare Compatibility
- CDN
- DNS Prefetching
- Mobile Detection
- Multisite Compatibility
- eCommerce (WooCommerce)
- Multilingual Compatibility
- Import/Export
- Developer Friendly
Here’s a quick look at some of our favorite aspects of WP Rocket.
Cache Exclusion
WP Rocket comes with an easy to use interface for setting up advanced caching rules.
This makes it simple to exclude plugins and scripts from your cache that you don’t want to use. While everything can function flawlessly without custom rules, you must keep in mind that sometimes you’ll configure your caching plugin and your site won’t function properly. The advanced caching rules can be used in those circumstances to prevent a specific plugin or script from being cached.
Extensive Documentation
WP Rocket has not only class-leading support but also an extensive amount of documentation, all of which is available directly within the plugin and ready to be searched.
Making it quick and easy to find the answers you need without ever leaving the WordPress admin
Cache Preloading
Cache preloading: What is it? When using caching, you typically have to wait for a page to be visited before the cache is “built.” Here, we go into more detail about this. Cache preloading, on the other hand, creates a cache even if a page hasn’t been visited, allowing your website to continue operating at breakneck speed. What’s best? You can complete all of this with just one click.
Database Optimization
Your database can be easily cleaned up using WP Rocket. Your database fills up over time with information that you don’t need, updated versions of old posts, and a ton of other things.
Checking the appropriate boxes, navigating to the bottom of the page, and selecting “Optimize” are all it takes to optimize your database in WP Rocket. Although optimizing your database is simple, you should always exercise caution, which includes backing up your database before using plugins for database optimization.
Instead of a free caching plugin, why use WP Rocket?
The support is without a doubt the primary factor. The overall experience is excellent and always has been in our interactions with WP Rocket’s support team, despite the fact that there may be some unfavorable reviews of support experiences with them. In actuality, more than 92% of their clients thought their support was great. Additionally, you must be skeptical of any negative comments made about caching plugin support. It can be difficult to set up caching correctly and may involve some trial and error, but with WP Rocket, it’s now simpler than ever. Additionally, unlike many other free caching plugins, WP Rocket is updated frequently, and its developers are constantly working to fix bugs and enhance its feature set.
What benefits does WP Rocket offer?
Support is truly unique, even though we have talked about it a lot. User Interface: The centerpiece of the plugin is a stunningly beautiful user interface. Take a quick look at this:
It unquestionably has one of the most attractive plugin interfaces ever created for WordPress. Purists in the WordPress community who think that all plugins should adhere more to the typical WordPress design pattern have criticized it. Although we can understand their position, we think the plugin is absolutely gorgeous. Even when comparing like-for-like Pro versions, WP Rocket has one of the most complete feature sets of any caching plugin on the market. You can build a powerful WordPress site by including their Imagify image compression plugin. Usefulness — WP Rocket is without a doubt one of the most user-friendly caching plugins for WordPress. It immediately sets up a number of improvements.
Any negatives about WP Rocket?
We haven’t found any drawbacks to WP Rocket from our personal experience. If there was anything bad to say, it would be about the premium-only pricing. Poorer nations cannot negotiate lower prices, which raises the bar for everyone to access fast websites. If you’re concerned about the cost, WP Fastest Cache is one of our favorite free alternatives. Apart from this, we don’t think there are any drawbacks to WP Rocket.
WP Rocket Rating
We’d give WP Rocket the following:
Feature set: 5/5
User Interface: 5/5
Ease of use: 5/5
Support: 4.5/5
Pricing: 3/5
Overall: 4.5/5
A Conclusion
Without a doubt, one of the best WordPress caching plugins is WP Rocket. We thoroughly contrasted the WP Rocket and W3 Total Cache plugins. Check that out too! You might also be debating which caching plugin to use for your upcoming website. Tell us in the comments section below.
