Best WordPress Cache Plugins for Increased Website Speed

In computing, data is stored in devices such as pen drives, compact disks, memory cards, or even hard disks.

When retrieving the information from these tools, a computer has to run through various processes. These processes may grow exponentially, making the service delivery slow. The invention of temporary memory locations came to resolve this problem. These memory locations are what’s known as a cache.

Caching speeds up your website and decreases the load on your server. We would highly recommend installing caching on your WordPress website.

The following is a list of the best WordPress cache plugins that enhance speed and website service delivery for your site.

 1. W3 Total Cache

In the world of most popular cache plugins for WordPress, W3 Total Cache tops the list. The plugin boasts of over a million active usages. It has gained ratings of 4.3 out of the five stars in the Directory of WordPress plugins. This plugin enjoys an active support community that updates it monthly.

W3 Total Cache plugin is an open-source tool designed and distributed for free. A one-time free install gives you access to all the features. However, it is necessary to note that this plugin does not require upgrading or premium purchases to access some special features.

This plugin integrates into your Content Delivery Network (CDN) for both the mobile and desktop versions to give you the best experience. The cache provides modifications that save your bandwidth, does HTTP compression, and optimizes feed fetching and delivery to ensure the speed gets served. Sites that need certificates are major subscribers to the services of this cache.

Due to the security considerations of this cache, it would be a great choice for eCommerce and other transactional websites.

 2. WP Super Cache

WP super-cache has a vast subscription with the number of installs exceeding the million mark.

It is also a free and open-source solution. With an excellent user rating of 4.2 out of the possible five stars, the cache is well preferred for its abilities to protect your servers from slowing into crawling speeds. Server overloading can occur when the traffic to your website takes an upward trend. This happens when requests made to your server are in large numbers.

The cache creates static HTML files that it sends for a display to the end-user to increase efficiency. These files are way lighter than the original PHP scripts delivered by the server if you were to choose no caching.

Most websites will find this tool a welcome relief, especially when faced with heavy traffic and lagging server speeds. Apart from social sites, you can install it as a solution to your slow website service delivery.

3. WP Rocket

If simplicity and user-friendliness were your hallmarks in making a WordPress cache plugins installation, WP Rocket fits that description. Getting started with this plugin is as easy as installing it, setting it up, and being ready to roll.

The plugin is a premium package with a tag of $49 annually and a $249 tag price. It is a great choice for beginners and comes bundled with settings that advanced users or developers can customize. This plugin also provides indexing for your website to improve your general SEO. Your JavaScript, HTML, and CSS files get minified. This gives your website the best browsing speed experience.

This plugin offers extra features that include google font’s optimization. WP rocket plugin would thus, be an excellent choice for any website.

 4. WP Fastest Cache

This plugin is similar to almost all the other caching plugins for WordPress but presents fewer customization options.

For the average user, WP Fastest Cache provides the easiest route to getting started and ready to run. It enjoys a rating of 4.8 out of the possible five stars in the directory of WordPress plugins. With upwards of 100,000 active users, support and updates are regular.

According to GTmetrix, this cache decreases the time a server takes to load by a mere half a second. This is a translation of a 15.6% increase in speed.

WP Fastest Cache is not the fastest. The speed increase of 15.3% on GTmetrix and 15.74% on Pingdom places it near the bottom of WP Plugins.

 5. Hyper Cache

Ford WordPress blog plugins, Hyper Cache, would be among the top in the list of the best plugins. It is an easy to install solution that works on any blog, with little need for very complex configurations.

Hyper cache works by the concept of bandwidth optimization. This makes page loading speeds for your blog to improve significantly, thereby ensuring the best website service delivery. For beginners who have little patience for tons of settings, this would also be a great choice. The ‘set it and forget it’ characteristic of the plugin makes it a preferable option since the configuration is one-time. Hyper Cache is also a free tool.

Apart from bandwidth optimization, this cache offers CDN and mobile-friendly support. It completes the website backup by not including the cache data in the website backups.

This may be the best plugin for blogs that generate a lot of comments. However, this plugin is not recommended for transactional and ecommerce sites.

 6. Comet Cache

Comet cache is the successor of Zen Cache that was a plugin developed by the same developers. It is a plug and plays cache that enjoys huge following and subscription. After installation and activation, the plugin does most of the heavy lifting, leaving you to go around your other businesses.

About speed, this is the fastest free option in this list and enjoys a rating of 5 out of 5 stars. It is the second-fastest plugin in the WP plugin ratings. Comet Cache is a free tool, but a premium version of the same is available at a tag markup of $39.

Comet cache reduces the load time by a whopping 0.92% on a GTmetrix measure. This reduction is even more dramatic on Pingdom measurements that show speed improvements by 35.07%.

This cache offers a free solution. You will find that many websites prefer this cache due to its speed.

7. Cachify

Cachify plugin features most of the different types of caching available. It has a rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars and more than 20,000 installations.

Cachify is another super-fast caching solution that lifts 0.78 seconds off the normal load time, giving a speed improvement of 27.89% on GTmetrix. Pingdom tests placed the cache at a speed improvement of 21.14%. This cache is, however, not a free distribution and works with WordPress Multisite projects.

It is a hybrid cache that employs different methods. These methods are integrated to offer you the best website speed solution.

The cache is an excellent choice for WP multisite installations and provides very robust caching abilities.

 8. Simple Cache

Simple Cache is another caching plugin for WordPress that has simplicity built in its core. With over 1000 active installations, it has a rating of 4.7.

Despite the simple build and settings, the cache whips 0.75s off the normal loading time in the GTmetrix measures, which is a speed increase of an approximate of 27%. The same Pingdom test gives a clean second off the load time with a speed shot of 26.62%.

This simple cache requires you to choose between the two settings provided: on and off. When turned on, it does the rest of the heavy lifting.

The speed results offered by simple cache make it an ideal candidate for your WordPress caching needs.

 9. Cache Enabler

Cache enabler is another one from caching plugins for WordPress. It has no price tag and offers capabilities to handle WordPress multisite delivery speed.

The plugin uses a disk caching engine that provides fast and reliable speed boosts. It has very few settings to juggle with and also provides a friendly interface. Other beautiful features include the capability to serve Web images, which is not in other caching solutions.

This incredible tool minifies inline JavaScript and HTML, injects CSS into page headers, and converts images to Web format for speedy performance.

For sites that use a lot of galleries, you may find this tool quite useful for best image delivery. The image conversion capabilities allow the plugin to render your pages more seamlessly and instantly.

 Final Words

When choosing the WordPress cache plugin, consider the cost, the effectiveness in reducing response load time, and its capabilities.

Whatever plugin you choose, ensure that setting it up is not a difficult task and works to solve your problems. Just check the above list and select the one that suits your needs.

Tyler Horvath

Tyler Horvath is an SEO Expert with over 15 years of experience in search engine optimization, popular blog author and WordPress SEO expert.