What are the best caching plugins?

Among the cache plugins , the best known will be shown below. It is important to highlight that plugins in this category need to be well recognized in the community, because if done in a poorly optimized way, they can generate errors and other problems.

Fortunately, the ones below have been tested and approved by hundreds of WordPress users. The choice between them tends to be personal, although there are some better than others, depending on the way your theme was built or previously installed plugins.

1. WP Rocket

WP Rocket is the plugin known to be the best among them all . There are those who disagree with this statement, but the performance given to websites after activation tends to be much higher. However, it is paid and does not have a free version, limiting many people from learning about its optimization capabilities, despite there being a 14-day guarantee to request your investment back.

A license for one website costs $59 per year. If you want to use it on 3 websites, the license fee is $119 per year. Finally, if you want to use it on infinite websites, it costs $299 per year.

A real concern of the WP Rocket development team was to create it with more complex sites in mind, such as online stores , something that may leave something to be desired in other plugins in the segment, since stores tend to be more complex and end up demanding too much from the device. and user network.

Now, why pay for a plugin when there are several other free solutions? Simple: because WP Rocket offers a multitude of features that are not always available in other plugins. This way, you can be sure that the site will be completely optimized.

Among its resources, there are:

Simple setup, ideal for first-time users.
Dashboard for developers.
Database optimization.
Lazyload, a feature that loads images only when necessary.
CloudFlare compatibility.
Preloading the cache.
Google Fonts Optimization.
Support for object caching.
Compatible with servers that already have cache.

2. W3 Total Cache

Probably the most popular caching plugin in the free WordPress plugin repository, W3 Total Cache delivers on its mission when it comes to speeding up your site and making your users’ experience more positive.

However, although it is a valid and equally powerful option, we need to highlight that its interface and options can be confusing and difficult to use for beginners. This is due to there being so many back-end functions (which from one angle can be considered a positive thing) that they end up leaving the user confused .

Fortunately, it can integrate with CDNs and works well for regular websites, as well as being a great fit for websites with SSL certificates installed .

Its features include:

Be free.
Well rated on the platform.
SSL support made easy.
Compresses HTML and CSS files, which makes page loading even faster.
Support for object caching.

3. WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache, the main competitor of W3 Total Cache, the plugin we talked about previously, appears to be a slightly more organized option and with the seal of plugins made by Automattic, a company that deals with WordPress versioning.

It is free, open source and works perfectly with the creation of static HTML files, to speed up page loading, instead of having to process complex scripts for each user request.

One of the biggest advantages of WP Super Cache is the 3 cache modes option. The simple mode, ideal for those who do not understand these settings and just want to speed up their pages; and two more complex ones for experienced users who want to work on each cache optimization configuration.

The advantages of the plugin are:

Different cache modes.
Simple and easy to use interface.
Cache rebuild feature.
Use of a garbage collection process, in which old files are cleaned from the cache.
Product from Automattic, a mega recognized company in the WordPress community.

4. WP Fastest Cache

WP Fastest Cache is a plugin that has a wonderful free version (with surprising quality and optimization power), but opens up more settings for premium users. The main advantage, without a shadow of a doubt, of the plugin is its interface, which is the simplest of all.

Aimed at beginners, just check the boxes you want to activate and the plugin will do all the work for you . Normally, when we know that someone has never installed a caching plugin, we recommend it, since in addition to being fast, it is simple and functional.

WP Fastest Cache also allows you to:

Very powerful premium version for just $49 (lifetime license, one-time payment) .
Combine and minify scripts in JavaScript and CSS.
CDN integrations without unnecessary configuration.
Image optimization.
Create cache specifically for the mobile version of the theme.

5. LiteSpeed Cache

LightSpeed Cache is an “all-in-one” plugin, which bundles several features into one. With an interesting set of optimization features, it tends to be one of the top choices when it comes to caching plugins and due to the massive amount of updates, it is always at the top of the category extensions .

It supports WordPress Multisite and guarantees compatibility with the main plugins in the WordPress community. Additionally, it has features such as: