During the last few days I have been experimenting with few cache plugins like wp super cache, PHP speedy, quick cache, AskApache Crazy Cache and many other to speed up my wordpress blog. None of them satisfied me and ended up using a combination of plugins which indeed met my satisfaction !
The Combo !
I have tried several combination of plugin, WP Super Cache with DB Cache reloaded fix and WP minify, WP Cache with DB Cache reloaded fix and WP minify. The results were not impressive and those combination made my blog slowed down like hell or crashed my site.
Thankfully Hyper Cache with the database cache plugin and minify plugin is the perfect combination which works like a charm and gave a huge boost in page loading time.
And these three plugins are compatible with each other. DB Cache reloaded fix caches PHP queries and Hyper Cache caches HTML page so they don’t conflict with each other and you are absolutely safe with this combination.
Why Hyper Cache instead of others ?
Hyper cache is probably the best cache plugins ever from my point of view.
It’s simplicity, easy to configure and uninstall makes the plugin a perfect tool for any newbie users.
DB Cache reloaded fix
DB cache reloaded fix is the improved, bugs free and more secure version of DB cache plugins. This plugin is different in way that it caches database queries while hyper cache plugin caches HTML pages.
WP Minify
On my previous post, Some Effective Tips For Website Speed Optimization I talked about how combining all CSS and JS from different pages into one external file can speed up a site.
WP Minify plugin serves the purposes of combining all the CSS and JS from various pages into one page and greatly reduces the amount of HTTP requests.
Currently I am using the above combination of plugin but unfortunately the combination I suggested above does not cache mobile themes ! Alternatively you can use W3 total cache which is a single plugin and contains all the desired optimization feature. The combination is just an alternative to those who don’t want to use w3 total cache. Below is a list of point why using w3 total cache can be a good choice instead of using the combination.
- The combination I suggested actually do not support caching of mobile themes, which are quite popular today e.g. WPTouch
- W3 total cache supports CDN which is easily one of the largest performance gains today
- It helps you minify if you use the help tool on the minify settings tab, and even allows you to minify multiple themes and determine where javascript is placed in your page so you can control how your page renders
- It supports object caching, which is a bigger performance win than database caching.
- It supports browser caching, which is vital for shared hosting sites which have limited resources.
- It doesn’t require .htaccess changes if you use disk basic page caching
