🖐 What Cache & Optimization Plugin do you use with Bricks? __ O_O

Everyone :raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed: What Cache & Optimization Plugin do you use with Bricks?

I am usually using w3 total but not sure if I need it it has lots of feature that I don’t need.

Considering alternatives.

please share your stack.

Thank you…

In practice, WP Super Cache works best. It performs well with a large number of entries. But you need to set it up correctly.

I have tested almost all caching plugins. WP Super Cache is the best workable option.

thank you

what features do you enable mainly and why?

It’s a long story. I don’t remember everything anymore :slightly_smiling_face: I work on the principle, I set it up 1 time and forgot.

In order to deal with caching plugins, this article helped me a lot

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I use NGINX or Apache server (switching to a custom NGINX configuration able to serve AVIF files too) and in WordPress WP Rocket that also works with NGINX.

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This works well for me:

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Litespeed cache, and also Seraphinite Accelerator (which is a beast).

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@DomOsborne It looks interesting but with that pricing vs WP Rocket (or Flying Press) and only 25 sites they are way over their head…A lot of the things they do can also be achieved through the server, through free plugins or even Perfmatters + Rocket/FlyingPress which are a lot cheaper and offer unlimited sites in their yearly pricing.

The Free version, although functional, sucks because they add a banner at the bottom of your page…a banner? Seriously? On a client’s site…

I will test it because it is interesting but no way I am adding yet another sub of that price to the many I already have.
Maybe, I say maybe for a few select use cases if they really outshine my current solutions. However, for professional use the free version is useless with the banner nor is “hacking” it a serious approach.

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I totally agree. It seems that the developers of the plugin live in a parallel reality :neutral_face:

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I’ve not personally seen great results with WP Rocket…

Try one site for 1 month. No need to commit beyond that. Yes, I agree about the free version with the banner - which is why I never bothered with it. My clients seem happy to pay to use this though. I have found their support team super responsive too, and they happily login to your site to help diagnose any issues or set up. I mean within hours or less of contacting them. That counts for a lot in my book. Yearly pricing is only a little over FlyingPress’ first year.

It’s gotten me the best results of any I’ve tried (I haven’t tried Flying Press yet - don’t want to pay for a whole year upfront if it’s not as good), well at least, along side Litespeed Cache, but if I’ve a site not on a Litespeed server then obviously cannot use that…

Their pricing for 25 sites is double+ of what FlyingPress charges for 500 websites.
WP Rocket is $300 for Unlimited websites but they can afford it since they are the largest of all the rest.

WP Rocket can also be tweaked if you are willing to make the effort and they also provide some helper plugins on Github. For example an NGINX plugin. NGINX is critical for me because it is really fast and faster than lightspeed or varnish if configured properly. You need SHH access to the server and also alter several files if you also want to serve AVIF images. But this is not the same for everyone and depends on your server type, stack and config. I am using dedicated servers that also need to be managed.

Now, the other issue is once you setup Google Tag manager, Analytics GA4, Facebook Pixel, GDPR cookies consent with Complianz and now Google Consent V2 (required in Europe) sooner or later you will hit a wall with pagespeed et al and those damn scripts. You need the Consent Banner in your visitors face before even GTAG can work along with the rest. Delaying them and deferring them can break their functionality too.
…These are the things preventing me from hitting 100%, the rest I can take care of with my stack.

I really doubt any caching plugin can do anything about those…nonetheless, with all the changes coming and the deprecation of 3rd party cookies we will move to server side tracking (another cost) because clients need their stats and advertising. We will see how it goes.

I will test the free version on a staging environment because it looks interesting. But paying $1500+ for 50 sites (and I need more than 60) is 5X of WP Rocket (even adding Perfmatters) for what I doubt would be any serious improvement if there is any.

I don’t doubt that it is working great for you. I am just saying that in my case I don’t see the value.

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anyone of you have WooCommerce site what features you guys enabling for WooCommerce ?

since site has to stay dynamic there is no way to just enable page cache and leave.

for this I usually use redis but most hosting still doesn’t support redis.

Did WP Super Cache ever add browser cache .htaccess entries? I used to use it, but would use w3 total cache .htaccess entries with it. I would install w3 total cache on a test site and then copy it’s .htaccess entries to the site using WP Super Cache. It works even better that way.

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No, WP Super Cache does not add its entries to the file .htaccess.

Definitely the settings .htaccess is very important for the proper operation of the site, but you need to be very careful with them.

My basic settings look like this:

# WPhtC: Set admin email

SetEnv SERVER_ADMIN email@email.com
# WPhtC: Disable directory browsing

Options All -Indexes
# WPhtC: Protect WP-config.php

<files wp-config.php>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>
# WPhtC: Protect .htaccess file

<files ~ "^.*\.([Hh][Tt][Aa])">
order allow,deny
deny from all
</files>
# WPhtC: Protect comments.php

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-comments-post\.php*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*https://jurist-mo.ru.* [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$
RewriteRule (.*) ^http://%{REMOTE_ADDR}/$ [R=301,L]
# BEGIN WordPress

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

Nothing wrong with W3 Total Cache other than when I tried it years ago, it had to many settings and seemed complicated. The cache would get screwed up sometimes on the home page, so I switched to WP Super Cache and had no troubles and it didn’t have as many complicated settings.

I am sure W3 Total Cache has resolved that issue now. It’s recommeded by some webhosts.

Powered Cache free version works well too and it ads the browser cache entires unlike W3 Super Cache.

I use Litespeed Cache now since I am on Litespeed httpd. Using the quic.cloud and free image optimization is nice. You get more free credits if you are on Litespeed httpd.

I have used the paid version of WP Rocket Cache and I don’t see the value in it’s high price.

I absolutely hear you.
Also I do see speed with NGINX but don’t personally have the skills you have to tweak it more.

What tools do server side tracking?

I am just looking into this too and I need to “study” how it works.

Here is starting point:

There are also platforms providing such services but I can’t recommend anyone since I just learned about this too. This is quite new and related to the onset of 3rd party cookies by Chrome. I really need to see if I should spend the time it requires or whether I should hire someone to do it.

I am trying to scale too at the same time and after a point you need to set priorities especially regarding sales, and sales is something no one will do for me.

Just sharing my experience over the years…

Many different caching plugins get hyped up over the years… (but caching is essential).

Switching to a host that does it all for me has been a breath of fresh air, and I only enqueue scripts & styles on pages & post-types that require it.

My first experience of this was @ Pressable.com… I had a good experience, but with so many eCommerce plugins I need, the backend was about 2-3s load… (they used batcache with memcache)… I didn’t like how it took 2 page loads to cache, and would not stay cached all the time…

I then switched to Rocket.net which does full-page cache & object cache (caches after first page load)… same site backend is under 1.5s, and front-end is typically 750ms. (So I would assume more powerful CPU…)

I do not have any asset management plugins for minifying, etc. (I was manually minifying assets for a bit, but very small gains for work involved).

I’ve found dequeuing assets from plugins has provided the most benefits… as many plugins enqueue many scripts & styles on non-relevant pages.

Takes a bit to setup, but don’t have to rely on plugins, and more control. :+1:

Dequeue example:

add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', function() {

  if ( !is_admin() ) {
    wp_dequeue_style('wcv_vendor_store_style');
  }

}

Enqueue Example:

add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts', function() {

  if ( is_home()  ) {
    wp_enqueue_style( 'home-style', get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/your/folder/home-example.css' );
  }

}

In short: Plugins are annoying. Custom code that sticks to WordPress core I’ve found easier to maintain with less changes… (and a host that does both Page & Object Cache, and one less thing to worry about on your site!)

This also goes for firewall & security plugins… a host that does it for you has been such a nice approach.

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