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Redis and object caching can vastly speed up your WordPress page load times with each subsequent visit. It’s also used by many popular websites like GitHub, Pinterest, StackOverflow and many others.

Remote Dictionary Server (Redis) “is an open source, in-memory data structure store used as a database, cache, and message broker.” It’s a key-value store which is often called a NoSQL database.

It’s best used on dynamic websites such as WordPress sites when it comes to object caching, which caches repeating query results.

Today, I’ll share more detail on object caching, its benefits, and how to install and use Redis for object caching on WordPress websites.

A Quick Refresher: What is Caching?

If a web page is cached, it means that elements of that page such as images, stylesheets, and other content is loaded once, then stored in what’s called a “cache.”

It memorizes what was loaded, creates a static version of it, then can serve that version much faster the next time that page is loaded.

The result is faster page load times and less of your server’s resources being used.

Check out Caching for WordPress, Explained in Plain English for further details.

What is Object Caching?

Object caching is a type of server-side caching. This means the caching is administered at the server level, and isn’t controlled by the end user or a system they use for caching.

Object caching stores database query results that have been loaded. Then, it serves them up faster the next time they’re requested so the database doesn’t have to be queried again.

WordPress also has object caching built-in with the WP_Object_Cache class.

The trouble is, the inherent object caching WordPress has isn’t persistent by default. This means that cached data is only stored for as long as the request to the database lasts, which is ultimately no more than for one page load, and inefficient.

If you were to install and use a persistent object caching solution such as – ehem – Redis, for example, data could be cached for all subsequent page loads, giving your database more of a break..

For details, check out What is Object Caching and How to Use It With WordPress.

Who Needs Object Caching?

If your WordPress site is static and all it needs to load are a stylesheet and some images, for example, you’re not going to see any difference in you use object caching.

Conversely, a dynamic site loads tons of data across pages that are stored in your database such as user details, taxonomies, links, and other similar data.

As previously mentioned, every time a page loads that content, it sends one (or often several!) database queries. If you use object caching, that data is stored in the cache and it’s ready to be displayed on the page in the flashes of flashes.

Your database can be queried much less often and retrieving content from the cache is a lot faster than sending queries to the database.

This results is page loading times that are a lot faster. Your server’s resources are also used more efficiently. This is an especially crucial factor if you’re looking to scale your WordPress website.

So, if your site gets a lot of traffic or you’re expecting it will soon, and it’s dynamic, you should consider using object caching.

Memcached vs Redis: What’s the Difference?

Memcached is another persistent object caching WordPress option that you could use instead of Redis. It’s a popular option and works well, though, it has a smaller set of features when compared to Redis.

This is why Redis is a far more popular option. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should completely write-off Memcached, especially when it’s used by top sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and more.

Weigh your options by considering the features you need to help you decide which one is right for your WordPress site since each case is different.

For details, check out Memcached: What Is It And How To Use It On Your WordPress Site?

Using Redis Object Caching on WordPress

To use Redis for object caching on WordPress sites, it starts with installing and configuring Redis, then installing a PHP extension, followed by the Redis Object Cache plugin.

Many managed WordPress hosting solutions already offer Redis object caching so you can check with your host to see if it’s an option. They may have a quick or one-click installation available.

If you find you need to install it yourself, you can do so manually.

Either way, it’s recommended you install Redis on a Linux server. While there’s no official support for Windows, there’s a Win-64 port of Redis that has been developed by Microsoft.

If you decided you want to manually install Redis for object caching on your Linux server, there are a few other prerequisites:

• Root access to your Linux server
• Ability to install Redis through SSH access
• WordPress installed
• PHP version 7.0 or higher
• Server has both Wget and Sudo installed
• Text editor is installed on your server such as Nano
• Phpize is installed to prepare PHP extension for compiling

Be sure to also back up your entire site in case something goes wrong and you need to restore it. It’s also a good idea to test Redis before deploying it on a production server.

1. Installing Redis for Object Caching

While you could use the package manager of your specific Linux distribution such as apt or yum, it may not always be up-to-date with the latest version so it’s recommended you use wget with a link to the master archive.

On the command line, enter the following to install the latest stable release:

Next, type the line below:

Then, follow it with this:

Finally, enter the following:

2. Configuring Redis as a Cache

It’s necessary to edit the configuration file now that Redis is installed to, well, configure it to use it specifically for object caching.

To get to the configuration file, use the line below:

Note that “nano” is the command to access the file using the Nano editor. Replace this with the applicable command if you have a different editor installed.

Find where it says the following:

Then, replace it with this:

Keep in mind that you can change “128” to suit your needs.

For example, 50 MB is suitable for many WordPress installations, but if you run a high-traffic site, 128 MB or 256 MB may be a better fit. Use what works best for your site.

3. Edit the wp-config.php File

By default, Redis is now set up to have any stored data accessible to all apps on the server. Since this is a security risk, it’s important to edit the wp-config.php WordPress core file to include a cache key salt.

Even if you only plan on having WordPress on your server, it’s still crucial not to skip this step in case you decide to install Multisite or include other apps on your server in the future.

Open the wp-config.php file and above the “happy blogging” line, add the following, then save the file to your server:

Don’t forget to replace “example.com” with whatever you want. It doesn’t have to be your site’s domain, but be sure it’s unique.

You can randomly generate a key value by using a free tool like Random Key Gen, or KeyGen.io. Be sure to safeguard it like you would your passwords.

4. Installing a PHP Extension

It’s also essential to let WordPress contact the Redis key-value store so you can enable object caching. To do this, you need to install a PHP extension such as PHP Redis.

Go back to the command line and enter the following:

Follow it with the line below:

Then, this command:

You now have the source code downloaded and extracted.

To install it, enter this:

Then, type the line below:

Follow it with the word below:

Also, enter the command below:

Now that PHP Redis is installed, you need to create a new INI file. You can do this with the line below:

Be sure to replace the “x” in “7.x” to reflect the version of PHP 7 you have installed.

Keep in mind that if you’re not using Apache, the file path will need to be updated to reflect the file hierarchy you have on your server.

5. Restart Redis and PHP

It’s critical you restart PHP and Redis to apply the changes you made above.

You can restart Redis by entering the command below:

Then, restart PHP with this:

Note that if you’re not using an Apache server, use the PHP restart command that applies to you.

6. Verify Redis is Working

Now that Redis is installed, it’s time to check that it’s working properly by running the following command:

If you see the “PONG” response, Redis is set up and working.

7. Install and Activate the Redis Object Caching Plugin

Next, install the Redis Object Caching plugin. Now that you have finished the ground work, it installs like most other plugins.

For details, check out Installing Plugins in the WordPress Codex.

WP Rocket and Redis

While WP Rocket doesn’t have Redis object caching built-in since its focus is on page caching, it’s still compatible. You can certainly use WP Rocket at the same time as you use Redis.

Boost the performance of your site with Redis + WP Rocket: Get WP Rocket today!

Wrapping Up

Object caching can increase your WordPress site’s page load speed drastically, and you can make it happen with Redis. It takes some configuration, but if you follow the steps above, you’ll be set up and ready to go.

When it comes to caching, there are a lot of different types. There’s browser caching and page caching, not to mention mobile and user caching. If you’re using WP Rocket, you are no doubt already benefiting from these types of caching. But another one you’ll want to add to the mix is object caching.

Object caching involves storing database queries and, when enabled on your WordPress site, it can help speed up PHP execution times, reduce the load on your database, and deliver content to your visitors faster.

In this post, we’ll cover what object caching is and how it works with WordPress (including the built-in object caching that WordPress provides). We’ll also look at a few different ways you can implement this type of caching on your site to improve its performance.

What is Caching?

But first, let’s look at what caching is generally to put object caching into context.

Caching is the process of storing frequently-accessed data temporarily in a cache so you can reuse it for subsequent requests.

When someone lands on your site, and you don’t have caching enabled, their browser sends a request for the page to your server. Your server then processes the request, compiles the page, and then sends it back to the browser.

If you have a low traffic site, your server can sit back and relax, so to speak, since it only has to process and compile pages every now and again. But servers hosting large sites have their work cut out for them—they have to work much harder to process and compile multiple pages per second as requests come in.

This is where caching can help ease the load on your server. It stores a copy of each request and then the next time the same request comes it, it checks the cache and serves it from there. If there’s no copy, the request is sent on to the server to be processed and compiled, and on its way back to the browser a copy is stored in cache.

The beauty of caching is that it saves your server from having to do more work than it has to, allowing it to handle more traffic than it other would. It also has the added benefit of delivering your content faster to users.

If you’re interested to learn more about how caching works, check out Why a Caching Plugin is Critical to Your WordPress Site.

Different Types of Caching

There are two main types of caching: client-side caching and server-side caching.

There are many types of client-side caching, but the one you’re probably most familiar with is browser caching. This is where the browser stores static web page content so the next time someone visits your site, the page is pulled from the cache on their computer instead of being downloaded again.

Object caching is a type of server-side caching. There are lots of types of server-side caching, but the important ones to know about include:

1. Object caching. We’ll go into this in more detail below, but object caching involves storing database queries so that the next time a piece of data is needed, it is delivered from cache without having to query the database.

2. Page caching. Page caching involves storing the entire HTML of a page so that on subsequent views, the content—including files and database queries—can be generated and displayed without WordPress having to do it each time.

3. Opcode caching. Opcode caching involves compiling PHP code between every request. For PHP code to execute, the PHP compiler has to compile the code first and then generate executable code for the server to execute. Opcode caches the already compiled code.

4. CDN caching. Content delivery networks (CDNs) using edge servers around the world to store static website files (i.e., CSS, JavaScript, and media files) for faster delivery to users who are geographically distant from the host server.

So What is Object Caching?

Object caching involves storing database query results so that the next time a result is needed, it can be served from the cache without having to repeatedly query the database.

As a content management system, WordPress is naturally—and heavily—dependent on the database. As such, database efficiency is crucial to scaling WordPress.

If you run a high-traffic site and requests to your pages generate a large number of database queries, your server can quickly become overwhelmed, in turn negatively affecting your site’s performance.

So when object caching is enabled on your site, it can help ease the load on your database and server and deliver queries faster.

What is WP_Object_Cache?

WordPress has a built-in object cache called WP_Object_Cache. Introduced in 2005, it provides a way of automatically storing any data from the database in PHP memory to prevent repeated queries.

However, this object cache only stores objects for a single page load—it discards objects in cache at the end of the request, so they have to be rebuilt from scratch the next time the page is requested.

While this is a useful feature of WordPress, ensuring the database isn’t queried multiple times during a single page load for similar query requests, it’s not exactly efficient.

This is where persistent caching solutions can help. Object caching is more powerful when it can be used to cache objects between multiple page loads.

External persistent object caching solutions like Redis and Memcached make it possible to persist the object cache between requests. This helps speed up the delivery of database queries while further easing the workload of your server.

What are Redis and Memcached?

Persistent object caching is a must if you’re looking to scale. Without it, your site’s performance will slow down as its complexity and traffic increase. The same goes for logged in users and dynamic pages—object caching can help deliver a better and faster user experience.

There are two popular persistent object caching tools worth checking out: Redis and Memcached.

Both of these tools are fast and powerful in-memory data stores that can reduce the load on your site’s MySQL database, while also decreasing the response time of your site and bolstering your site’s ability to scale and handle increased traffic.

Memcached has long been a popular cache choice, but Redis can do everything Memcached can, and with a much larger feature set. Plus, it’s more popular and better supported.

For an in-depth look at the features, pros and cons of Redis and Memcached, this Stack Overflow thread has some great general information about both tools.

How to Use Object Caching with WordPress

The object caching built-in to WordPress is already working on your site by default, so you don’t need to do anything to enable it.

But if you want to take your object caching to the next level so your database queries are cached persistently between page loads, there are a few options available that are straightforward to implement.

1. Use Redis

For Redis-powered object caching, you can’t go past the free plugins available at WordPress.org.

With more than 30,000 active installs, the most popular option is Redis Object Cache. It supports Predis, PhpRedis (PECL), HHVM, replication, clustering and WP-CLI.

Before using this plugin, you’ll need to check that your site is using a PHP environment with the required PHP Redis extension and a working Redis server.

If you’re good to go, this plugin is super simple to install—just activate the plugin, go to Settings > Redis and click “Enable Object Cache.”

If you run into any problems, again, you’ll need to check with your web host whether the server your site is hosted on is set up for Redis. Since Cloudways hosts my test site, I had to log-in to the dashboard for my site and enabled Redis as a package before enabling object using in the Redis Object Cache plugin.

Alternatively, another option you might want to try is WP Redis, which is a little more involved to set up. Brought to you by the folks at web host Pantheon, this plugin requires that you create a file called object-cache.php and add it to your wp-content folder, and also edit your wp-config.php folder (but only if you’re not a Pantheon user).

If WP-CLI is a big part of your development workflow, you might find it more convenient to use WP Redis since it comes with a variety of commands.

2. Ask Your Host

If you’re on managed WordPress hosting, your host probably offers object caching via Redis. So check out your host’s documentation for information on how to enable object caching, or get in touch to check if it’s available.

Many hosts offer Redis as a feature or add-on—Pantheon, Kinsta and Cloudways, just to name a few.

If you’re on shared hosting, it’s less likely that it will be available for free. In this case, if object caching isn’t available to you, you might want to consider upgrading your hosting package or switching hosts.

Wrapping Up

Object caching provides a relatively simple solution for improving the performance of your database, especially given the fact that WordPress performance is heavily dependent on the speed of your database.

With solutions like Redis, you can quickly enable persistent object caching on your site, whether it’s via a plugin or simply asking your host to activate it.

Are you looking for the best WordPress cache plugin to boost the performance of your website? Caching is one of the most powerful ways to improve page speed and gain a few extra positions on Google. 

In this guide, you’ll learn what a caching plugin is and why you need it to make your site faster. We also compare the top caching plugins available on the market to make you choose the best one for your needs. 

What’s a Caching Plugin and How it Works

A caching plugin creates an HTML (static) version of your web page to deliver it faster to your future visitors. Usually, a page request implies PHP processing, fetching data from the database, and much more time- and resource-consuming tasks on the server side. But thanks to a caching plugin, you can get rid of unnecessary data roundtrips and improve your page loading speed.

What’s Caching and What Happens When it’s Enabled

Web caching means storing data such as images or a web page for future reuse. The first time a user visits the page, this data is cached (or stored). The second time a user requests the content, the cache will serve the copy, preventing the data from being downloaded from the origin server again. 

When a visitor attempts to access a web page, it first checks the cache. If the data is found there, that is referred to as a cache hit, and the content will be displayed much faster. 

What a Caching Plugin Does

A cache plugin makes it easy for returning visitors to access your website content faster by eliminating the many steps a browser takes to generate pages dynamically. It stores data so future requests can be served faster and prevent the origin server from overloading. As a result, it makes your site faster by removing unnecessary requests to the database and saving the content to HTML files. The ultimate goal is to save some loading time for the next user thanks to that stored content. 

Each cached page on your site has the cache files in a dedicated folder. Most of the time, you can find them by following the path: /cache/name-of-the-plugin/your-domain.com/.

What Happens When You Update a Page

Say you update the image in the header of your homepage but don’t make any other changes on your site. A caching plugin will delete the cached version of your homepage and save a new version. The updated page will be served to visitors, but the rest of the pages on your site remain unchanged in the cache.

Pro tip: When you update your page by adding an image or more text, set up your plugin’s expiry time properly. You need a smart tool that updates the cached files as often as you post updates.

Why You Need a Caching Plugin to Make Your WordPress Website Faster

A caching plugin is one of the best ways to boost performance, make your site load faster, improve conversion and enhance the whole user experience. Let’s go over each benefit, and you’ll understand why you need one.

Benefit #1 – Optimize Performance and SEO

When someone visits your website, many processes start automatically in the background: reading the CSS files, loading and executing JavaScript, pinging the database, etc. All of these background tasks are necessary to display the website correctly, but they also require a certain amount of waiting time for the user. 

Thankfully there is a solution recommended by Google PageSpeed Insights to reduce this loading time: caching plugins.

If this loading time is too long, it will have a negative impact on the Core Web Vitals (user experience) and the ranking of your page by Google (SEO). For example, when SmartFurniture decided to speed up its website, the company saw 3 main benefits: 

• A 20% increase in organic traffic 
• 14% more page views
• Gained 2 positions in the search engine rankings.

Benefit #2 – Improve Conversions

Caching makes your page load faster and leads to increased sales and conversions. An interesting case study about mPulse mobile shows the impact of load time on the conversion rate. As you can see below, the faster the site loads, the better the conversion rate is (around 2% for a page that loads in 2.4s). On the contrary, a slow page that loads in 5.7s brings down the conversion rate to 0,6%.

Benefit #3 – Enhance the User Experience (Especially on Mobile)

Caching is one of the most effective performance techniques for having fast pages and improving loading speeds on mobile. The infographic shows that 64% of smartphone users expect pages to load in less than 4 seconds. 

A caching plugin also reduces the load on the server and bandwidth consumption by minimizing the database queries. This saves some server memory, making caching suitable for WordPress site owners with limited web hosting plans.

Caching Plugins vs. Hosting Caching Option

You may also have heard of “hosting caching” which is another way of caching your content. Some hosting providers like Kinsta have their own caching options – they implement and manage full-page caching for all sites server-side. 

While the hosting cache comes before the plugin cache, they are complementary – in other words, you can use both. For instance, the plugin implementation should be able to clear the server cache.

A caching plugin also differs from a hosting caching option because the hosting cache might not be configured to accommodate specific use cases that a plugin cache can address — separate mobile cache, cookie-based cache, and query-strings-based cache. Exceptions like these arise more often than you expect, so addressing them is important.

We suggest checking with your host what their cache options are and their compatibility with the caching plugin you want to use. 

Before we compare the best caching plugins to speed up WordPress, let’s go quickly over the best features you should look for when picking a cache plugin. 

What’s Important When Choosing a Caching Plugin?

When choosing a caching plugin, there are 9 important criteria to consider. We share our checklist below: 

1. Speed – you should measure your page load before and after activating the plugin. When caching is enabled, you should see an improvement in your performance score measured by Lighthouse.
2. Ease of use – choose a plugin with a lean interface that’s easy to understand and configure. 
3. Exclude pages from being cached – stay in control of the pages you want to see cached or not (e.g., dynamic pages).
4. Compatibility – pick-up a tool compatible with your web hosts and the rest of your WordPress theme and plugins. 
5. CDN support – the plugin should support the Content Delivery Network you are using and not create any issues. 
6. Minification – ​​this option is important to compress your static files and save valuable space on your server (and lower bandwidth costs). 
7. Support – it’s always crucial to have some technical help and efficient support if things get complicated. 
8. Updates – stay away from plugins that have not been updated for 2 years. Instead, opt for a plugin with more frequent updates, meaning that a team is actively working on it. 
9. Price – you have free options and more premium ones. If you are working on a complex site for a client, you may want access to fast support and advanced performance features. 

Choosing the best caching plugin comes down to understanding your performance needs. Do you need more speed for desktop or mobile users? How often are you updating your website? Are you also looking to optimize your code and your images? Are you an advanced developer, or are you looking into a one-click installation solution? 

In our next section, we have put together a list of 7 caching plugins you can use to speed up WordPress. Let’s go over them. 

Best Free and Premium Caching Plugins for WordPress 

1. WP Rocket

WP Rocket is a powerful plugin that applies caching in one click. It comes with many features, such as CSS/JS optimization and lazy-loading, which further boost the performance of your WordPress site. 

It’s perfect for beginners because WP Rocket does the heavy lifting for you. The installation requires no coding skills, and no configuration is needed to start seeing results. Upon its activation, the cache feature is automatically activated.
It’s also compatible with most tools, from hosting to other plugins

Key features

• Caching of all the pages, for mobile visitors and for logged-in users (apply optimal browser caching headers)
• Preloading the cache of pages
• Decreasing bandwidth usage with GZIP compression
• Minification and combination of JavaScript and CSS files
• Remove unused CSS
• Deferred loading of images (LazyLoad script on images)
• WebP compatibility (next-gen format created by Google to serve smaller images)
• Deferred loading of JS files and Delay JavaScript Execution
• Database optimization
• DNS prefetch
• CDN integration with RocketCDN and Cloudflare

Pricing

WP Rocket starts at $59/year, including support, updates, and a license for one WordPress site. 

2. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache enhances your site’s user experience by improving server performance, caching every aspect of your site, and reducing load times. 

It’s one of the most popular free cache plugins for WordPress.

While being an excellent choice for your site, you’ll need to have some technical expertise and go through 16 pages of settings to configure the plugin.

Key features (free – no support included) 

• Mobile support: respective caching of pages by referrer or groups of user agents and accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) support
• Caching of (minified and compressed) pages and posts, CSS and JS
• Caching of feeds (site, categories, tags, comments, search results) in memory or on disk or on CDN
• Caching of search results pages (i.e., URIs with query string variables) in memory or on disk
• Caching methods include local Disk, Redis, Memcached, APC, APCu, eAccelerator, XCache, and WinCache
• Minify CSS, Minify JavaScript, and Minify HTML with granular control
• Defer non-critical CSS and Javascript 
• Defer offscreen images using Lazy Load
• Browser caching using cache-control, future expire headers, and entity tags (ETag) with “cache-busting”
• Leverage our multiple CDN integrations to optimize images
• Caching statistics for performance insights of any enabled feature
• Image Service API extension provides WebP image format conversion from common image formats (on upload and on demand)

Key features (premium – support included)

• Full Site Delivery via CDN
• Lazy Loading for Google Maps
• Fragment Caching
• WordPress Rest API Caching
• Eliminate Render Blocking CSS

Pricing 

To access more optimization features and customer support, you have to upgrade to Premium and pay $99/year for one website. W3 Total Cache premium is only available from within the admin interface of the plugin (not the WordPress one).

3. WP Super Cache

Owned by Automattic (the creator of WooCommerce and WordPress.com), it’s also one of the most popular cache plugins, with more than 2 million installs. It’s a performance plugin that helps customers manage caching directly inside the WordPress Dashboard.  

It’s a free and powerful plugin, but its installation takes some time; you will have to review 20 different options manually.

It doesn’t have a premium version, and it doesn’t provide a dedicated support team. 

Key Features

• Dynamic caching
• Expiry time & garbage collection
• Possibility to exclude pages that you don’t want to cache
• The plugin serves cached files in 3 ways (ranked by speed):
  • Expert -using Apache mod_rewrite (or whatever similar module your web server supports) to serve “super cached” static HTML files.
  • Simple – PHP can serve super cached static files.
  • WP-Cache caching – mainly used to cache pages for known users, URLs with parameters, and feeds.
• Serves static HTML files to the vast majority of your users: users who are not logged in, have not left a comment on your blog, and have not viewed a password-protected post.

4. WP Fastest Cache

WP Fastest Cache is a freemium WordPress caching plugin that is easy to install, but the interface is not that user-friendly. Each setting can be tweaked by checking a box, as shown in the image below: 

There is a free version that offers basic features. For additional options, you’ll need to upgrade to Pro:

Key Features (free) 

• GZIP compression
• Browser caching
• Clean-up – all cache files are deleted when a post or page is published
• Preload Cache – create the cache of all the site automatically
• Exclude pages 
• Admin can delete all cached files from the options page
• Block cache for specific pages or posts with a shortcode
• Cache Timeout: All cached files are deleted at the determined time (and for specific page)
• Enable/Disable the cache option for mobile devices and logged-in users
• CDN + Cloudflare support
• Minify HTML and CSS
• Combine CSS/JS

Key Features (premium)

• Image optimization
• Convert WebP conversion
• Cache statistics
• Widget cache
• Mobile cache
• Delete cache logs
• Google fonts async
• Lazy load script
• Database Cleanup

Pricing

WP Fastest Cache is based on a one-time fee package. The price varies according to the number of licenses you need and goes from $49.99 (1 license) to $300.00 (10 licenses). Important: neither the free nor the premium version offers customer support.

5. Hummingbird

Hummingbird was created by WPMUDEV developers who are well-known in the WordPress ecosystem. The plugin is now active on more than +1 million sites. It’s easy to install and makes your website faster with fine-tuned performance controls. 

It offers good overall speed optimization but doesn’t address some PageSpeed recommendations that significantly affect the score.

Key Features 

• Scan and fix capability. in one click, the plugin scans your site to detect any performance issues and then tries to fix them automatically
• Full caching suite: including full-page, browser, and Gravatar cache.
• Gzip compression
• Uptime monitor
• CDN – 45 worldwide locations and Cloudflare integration
• Database cleanup
• Lazy load script on images
• Performance reports (integrated with PageSpeed Insights)
• Combine and minify files 
• Defer/inline assets
• Critical CSS 
• Google fonts optimization

Pricing

It’s a freemium plugin, and the Pro version starts at $7.50/month, giving you access to all the pro plugins of WPMUDEV (SEO and image optimizations, etc.), plus ticket support.

6. LiteSpeed

LiteSpeed is an all-in-one performance plugin featuring a collection of optimization features. This plugin is intended to be a server-level caching plugin. As a result, its caching benefits are only available to LiteSpeed server users. 

Key Features

• Built-in page cache (LSCache)
• Free QUIC.cloud CDN Cache
• Image Optimization (Lossless/Lossy)
• Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
• Minify inline & external CSS/JS
• Combine CSS/JS
• Automatically generate Critical CSS
• Lazy-load images/iframes
• Load CSS Asynchronously
• Defer/delay JS loading
• Database Cleaner and Optimizer
• DNS Prefetch
• Cloudflare API integration
• Single Site and Multisite (Network) support
• Lean interface
• WebP image format support

Pricing 

It’s a free plugin, but a LiteSpeed server is required for the cache features, and fees are associated. 

7. NitroPack

With NitroPack, you get many performance features in one place: caching, image optimization, and a CDN that is ready to go out of the box. You’ll need technical knowledge to ensure some features aren’t faulty on your website.

Key Features 

• GZIP and Brotli compression
• Smart cache invalidation
• Automatic cache warmup
• Device and cookie-aware caching
• Browser and session-aware caching
• Built-in global CDN
• Advanced image optimization (WebP support, Lossy, and lossless image compression, preemptive image sizing)
• Lazy loading (including background images defined in the CSS)
• HTML, CSS, and JS minification & compression
• Deferred JS  Loading
• Critical CSS, DNS prefetching, and preloading
• Deferred loading of fonts 

Pricing

The plugin itself is free, and you can also create a free account for one website, 5,000 page views, and 1.00GB CDN bandwidth per month.

A monthly subscription starts at $17,50 per month for one website, 50,000 pageviews, and 25GB CDN bandwidth and includes customer support.

Now that we’ve been over WordPress’s most popular caching plugins, let’s see how to install and set them up. We’ll take WP Rocket as an example. 

How to Install a Caching Plugin

Follow our easy tutorial below to understand how to install a caching plugin like WP Rocket. The installation process is pretty much similar for each plugin. For some of them, you may need to generate an API key and manually register your site from your account. 

Step 1 – After buying WP Rocket, go to your account and download the plugin.

Step 2 – From your WordPress dashboard, install the WP Rocket plugin from Plugins > Add New. Remember to activate the plugin.

Step 3 – Your site is automatically added to your account:

🚀And that’s it! WP Rocket automatically applies more than 80% of web performance good practices upon its activation. Page caching, browser caching, and GZIP compression are completely automated and work out of the box! 

Wrapping Up

Using a caching plugin will help improve the performance of your website, your ranking on Google, and your sales. 

Without caching, visitors would have to download web pages whenever they visit your website. This is time-consuming and very inefficient for serving a fast WordPress site. 

With a top cache plugin such as WP Rocket, you can enjoy additional features like CDN integration, GZIP compression, and CSS/JavaScript optimization – which further boost your WordPress site performance. If you try WP Rocket today, you take zero risks:  we’ll gladly provide a refund if you request it within 14 days of your purchase.