List of 8 Best Plugins for WordPress Speed Optimization in 2021

Oct 25, 2021

Are you looking for the right speed optimization plugins for your WordPress site?

Having a website means you need to maintain its best performance on the internet. Hence, you absolutely need speed optimization plugins to help you with that. There are dozens of plugins for website speed optimization. However, which one is right for you?

No need to be confused. We have reviewed some of them and made a list of the Best 8 Plugins for WordPress Speed Optimization in 2021.

Lists of The Best 8 Speed Optimization Plugins

Why Do I Need Speed Optimization Plugins?

Website speed is highly related to the success of your website. A fast website means a better user experience, higher engagements, and better search ranking. On the other hand, a slow-loading website makes people abandon it. Especially on mobile, the slower your site, the more likely it increases the bounce rates. Read more

Speed optimization plugins will help you to monitor your website performance and single-handedly speed it up. You can save up your precious time and efforts and let the plugins work. As a result, your website loads fast as it should be.

First of all, you need to check how your website speed performance on the internet. You can check them for free with speed site testing tools, like Pingdom, GTmetrix, Google Page Speed Insights, and more.

How Does Plugin Optimize My WordPress Site?

Speed optimization plugins are able to improve website speed performance through several features such as:

Caching

Caching is one of the most frequent methods of getting your website to load faster. Cache speeds the loading process up by storing the most commonly accessed data in temporary storage. Hence, when someone visits your website again, the stored data shows up without loading anymore.

Deferring Scripts

Deferring scripts is downloading your CSS or JavaScript files in the background. Therefore, they will become accessible to your visitors faster.

CDN

A CDN (content delivery network or content distribution network) is a network of servers spread out across a particular geographic location. The purpose is to deliver your content faster based on which server is closest to you. As a result, the visitors can enjoy a fast-loading website.

Lazy Loading

With lazy loading, the website can load only the parts being viewed by the visitor at the moment, instead of an entire page. This means the loading will not take too long for the visitors for waiting.

Minification

Minification eliminates redundancies and superfluous content in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files. Hence, reducing website load time too.

Image Optimization

One of the reasons why your website speed slows down is the heavy image files inside your website. By optimizing images, you can reduce the weight of the files and make them faster to load. Some speed optimization plugins are including a built-in image optimization in their feature. So, make sure to check it.

Then, without further ado, let’s get to the best lists!

8 Best Speed Optimization Plugins in 2021

Autoptimize – Powerful free speed optimization plugin

Autoptimize is a free WordPress optimization plugin. It provides you with many optimization features to improve the performance and page speed of your WordPress site. You can use this plugin 100% for free. Hence, it’s probably one of the best free plugins for website optimization out there.

Some of the Autoptimize features are minification, lazy loading, async/ defer script, browser caching, and more.

Docket Cache – An object caching specialist plugin

Docket Cache is a speed optimization plugin that focuses on object caching. It stores the object into plain PHP code, resulting in faster data retrieval and higher performance when Zend OPcache is enabled. For individuals who can’t utilize Redis or Memcached, this project aims to give an alternative.

Some of the Docket Cache features are object caching, advanced post caching, object cache pre-caching, WordPress core query caching, term count queries caching, WooCommerce optimization, and more.

Fast Velocity Minify – Speed optimization plugin for advanced users

Fast Velocity Minify is a speed optimization plugin for developers and advanced users. This plugin reduces HTTP requests by merging CSS & Javascript files into groups of files while attempting to use the least amount of files possible. It minifies CSS and JS files with PHP Minify.

The features of Fast Velocity Minify are mainly about HTML, CSS, and JS optimization. However, you can request a custom-made optimization feature, and more.

LiteSpeed Cache – Powerful free caching plugin

LiteSpeed Cache plugin is an all-in-one website acceleration plugin that you can use for free. This plugin is intended to be a server-level caching plugin and is meant to work seamlessly with the LiteSpeed webserver. Besides its powerful cache-management tools, LiteSpeed Cache also features several optimization features, hence, allows it dramatically reduce page load times.

Some of the LiteSpeed Cache features are server-level caching, page optimization, database optimization, CDN, crawler, and more.

NitroPack – Great speed optimization in cloud plugin

NitroPack is a cloud-based website performance optimization plugin that optimizes your website performance. This means that NitroPack performs all optimizations in the cloud. So, it is a very lightweight solution with a lower CPU overhead compared to standard caching plugins. This plugin is suitable for both beginners and advanced users with any range of websites.

Some of the NitroPack features are code optimization, image optimization, CDN, smart caching, minification, DNS prefetching, and more.

W3 Total Cache – Great caching plugin suitable for developers

W3 Total Cache (W3TC) is a powerful freemium caching plugin for advanced users or developers. It improves the SEO and user experience of your site by increasing website performance and reducing load times by leveraging features like content delivery network (CDN) integration and the latest best practices.

Some of the W3 Total Cache features are page caching, browser caching, database caching, object caching, fragment caching, CDN, minification, AMP support, and more.

WP Rocket – Best premium speed optimization plugin

WP Rocket is a premium web performance acceleration plugin for WordPress. The plugin uses caching to accelerate website loading times. It is one of the most powerful caching tools on the internet. Thanks to its wide range of options and automatic optimization features, it is a very useful plugin that can be easily used by experienced WordPress users as well as beginners.

Some of the WP Rocket features are page caching, cache preloading, browser caching, CSS & JavaScript optimization, lazy loading, CDN, database optimization, and more.

WP Super Cache – Free speed caching plugin suitable for beginners

WP Super Cache is one of the most popular free caching plugins on WordPress. It comes from Automattic, the same company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and Jetpack. The best thing about this plugin is its simplicity. Therefore, this plugin is most suitable for non-technical users who are on a budget.

Some of the WP Super Cache features are simple caching, page compression, CDN, browser caching, cache preload, and more.

Conclusion

A speed optimization plugin can simplify your way to improve your website speed performance on the internet. There are many plugins with different features for speed optimization. Therefore, you need to know which plugin will work best for you. You can decide whether you want the all-in-one speed optimization plugins like Autoptimize, NitroPack, and WP Rocket. Or caching plugins such as Docket Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, W3 Total Cache, and WP Super Cache.

From technical knowledge aspects, if you are a beginner and want an easy-to-use plugin then plugins like WP Rocket and WP Super Cache are right for you. On the other hand, if you are a developer or advanced user, it’s better to use Docket Cache, Fast Velocity Minify, W3 Total Cache, and LiteSpeed Cache.

Additionally, considering your budget, do you want a fully free plugin, freemium plugin, or fully premium plugin for speed optimization. Some of the 100% free plugins are Autoptimize, Docket Cache, Fast Velocity Minify, W3 Total Cache, and WP Super Cache. Freemium speed optimization plugins are LiteSpeed Cache and NitroPack. Also, the premium plugins like WP Rocket.

List of 8 Best Plugins for WordPress Speed Optimization in 2021

Why Do I Need Speed Optimization Plugins?