WordPress Caching: What’s the best Caching Plugin?
Your WordPress blog getting sluggish? Caching is a great technique for speeding up your blog and the WordPress community has a lot of caching plugins to choose from. Lets review each one and find out which caching solution will work best for your WordPress blog.
Newer versions of these plugins may be available
These benchmarks may not accurately reflect the current version of any of the plugins listed below. From this post, you should take away some important abilities of these plugins, but attempt to do some testing of your own.
For those who ask, Tutorial9 uses W3TC. We have not done extensive testing, but it works incredibly well for us.
Quick Nav:
What Is Caching?
Each time you visit your blog, WordPress will go through a sometimes lengthy process to build everything you see. First it will process the PHP code which will make numerous calls to your database and finally output HTML for your web browser to display. On some blogs this could happen between 20 to 200 times per page! WordPress has often been criticized as slow but we can change that by enabling caching.
If you enable caching only the first visitor will go through this entire process. The caching mechanism will save the data and then serve every subsequent visitor the final result. Thus speeding up WordPress by a huge factor. Trust me, you want it and your visitors will thank you for using it.
Benchmarking
I will be using Apache Benchmark to grade the effectiveness of each caching solution. Apache Benchmark works by producing a large amount of requests to your website and then reporting back the average requests it was able to make per second, the average time it took per request and the transfer rate of data (among a lot of other data).
I will be running 1,000 requests at 10 concurrent or the number of parallel requests then taking the average of 3 tests ran at various times of the day. I will be using WordPress 2.9.1 with a few popular plugins activated: Akismet, All in One SEO Pack, and Google XML Sitemaps. My test blog is running on a shared server with a low amount of normal traffic so the benchmarks don’t get too disrupted. I’ve loaded my test blog with an average amount of content, images, stylesheets and javascript files.
I’m not going to test on a fresh install of WordPress because I want to simulate a real world every day blog rather than an unrealistic empty blog. This is the same reason I decided to host the test blog on a shared server. My goal is the average and most of us probably have our blogs hosted on a shared server with minimal optimizations specifically geared towards WordPress.
No Cache
First we are going to run a benchmark with caching completely disabled. This will give us a control test to compare the performance of each plugin.
Yikes, 13.96 requests per second is pretty bad but I can’t complain. WordPress is really slow without any performance tuning and my test blog is running on a $10/mo shared server account. Sometimes you really do get what you pay for. Lets see if we can get more out of this not so ideal predicament.
WP-Cache
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-cache/
WP-Cache is a simple and aged cache plugin. Although it has been around for a long time it also hasn’t been updated in a long time.
WP-Cache was an easy plugin to install but it does create a few files outside of the plugin directory and doesn’t clean up the mess when you uninstall. Some users may get the error message “sem_get” on the top of every page of their blog. Just edit the file wp-content/wp-cache-config.php and uncomment the $use_flock line. That will fix the error message if your server doesn’t support the sem_get file locking command.
WP-Cache is tried and true. Even for its age and lack of updates, WP-Cache is still a contender and a very light weight one at that. Overall performance and installation could definitely be better though.
WP Super Cache
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/
WP Super Cache is a very popular plugin once based on the previous WP-Cache plugin and it is routinely praised among many WordPress communities.
Overall it was somewhat easy to install and uninstall. Cleans up its own mess when deactivating which is always nice. I got a “gzuncompress” error message only once after activating but it didn’t appear to affect operation of the plugin. You have to manually create an .htaccess file but at least it gives you some code to copy and paste.
This plugin has a long page of endless options and the user interface could certainly use some cleaning up. Be sure to follow the directions carefully after activating. Especially pay attention to the directions on creating a proper .htaccess file.
With Compression Turned On:
Be Careful Enabling Compression
If you enable WP Super Cache Compression and your server already has compression enabled or doesn’t support it then you will get a lovely blank page of death or just a lot of garbage printed on the screen. Use with caution.
Something seriously wrong is obviously happening when compression is enabled. Despite what the people say, WP Super Cache isn’t very super. In my opinion it is a complicated version of WP-Cache with only slightly better performance. With numerous reports of blank pages of death, I am hesitant to install this plugin on an actual blog. On top of it all this plugin doesn’t seem to play nice with others. Improper configuration and/or a bad plugin combination can lead to a drastic decrease your performance. It is sad but true.
WP Widget Cache
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-widget-cache/
WP Widget Cache is a plugin geared toward those with heavier widget use. My test blog, only using the default widgets, may not have completely benefited from this plugin. The author recommends running this plugin along with either WP-Cache or Super Cache so I will run 3 tests: Standalone, with WP-Cache and with WP Super Cache.
WP Widget Cache was very easy to install and uninstall. Just clicked activate and since my wp-content folder was writable everything installed automatically. In order for this plugin to work you must goto your Widget settings and set the expire amount field on each widget.
Standalone:
With WP-Cache:
With WP Super Cache:
This plugin would be useful to those who use database intensive widgets on every page. Other cache plugins will process then cache your widgets for every page. This plugin will cache your widgets and serve your other cache plugins a copy as they save each page.
Some Widgets Should Not Be Cached
If your widgets are dynamic or change on every page then of course this plugin will be of little use to those widgets. Make sure you set the expiration to empty or 0 seconds on your dynamic widgets to prevent caching.
DB Cache
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/db-cache/
The DB Cache plugin works very different than the others. Instead of building and saving your pages it saves the database queries instead. This plugin is available in many different languages.
Installation was very easy and the user interface is simple and clear. Cleans up great upon deactivating.
DB Cache is more for the server administrator. Caching pages, especially if you have a lot of pages on your site, can be very CPU intensive and they take up a lot of disk space. If you run and optimize your own web server then this plugin will be good to you. Although if your blog is on a shared server or has fewer than 500 pages then this plugin may not be as beneficial to you.
DB Cache Reloaded
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/db-cache-reloaded/
DB Cache Reloaded is similar to DB Cache. In fact it is a fork of DB Cache because the author didn’t think DB Cache was updated quick enough. This plugin is also available in many different languages.
Installation was very easy and the user interface is simple and clear. Cleans up great upon… ok, ok it is really similar to DB Cache. Lets just call it DB Cache Reloaded… oh wait, it already is.
Just think of it as the same as DB Cache but better.
1 Blog Cacher
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/1-blog-cacher/
1 Blog Cacher is a lightweight and simple caching plugin. Not very popular but I’ve seen it recommended on more than one occasion.
Installing this plugin was annoying. I had to manually create the folder wp-cache, move the file 1blogcacher2.0.php to the wp-content/plugins folder and move advanced-cache.php to the wp-content folder. The user interface is terrible and the options are not editable through the admin settings. Everything must be configured directly in the advanced-cache.php file. Terrible for a multi-user setup or those who don’t want to FTP into their account every time they wish to make a configuration.
I don’t think this plugin even works despite appearing to have done something by adding a message in my source. The author says its version 2.0.2 but it almost seems like a plugin that is still in beta. Easily the worst caching plugin I’ve encountered.
Hyper Cache
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/hyper-cache/
Hyper Cache is a new caching plugin out in the community. It is geared towards the everyday blog or those hosted on low cost shared servers. Also available in many different languages.
Installing was a simple upload and activation. This plugin has a lot of great configurations and organized appropriately in a clean user interface.
Hands down the fastest caching plugin I’ve reviewed and surprising for how light weight it is. It may just be me but my blog just seemed to click on rather then load with this plugin enabled. Definitely for those hosted on a shared server or who are looking for as much caching performance from a plugin as possible. The development around this plugin looks very active too. A definite must have plugin especially if you plan on configuring your own additional performance tweaks such as minifying, db caching or compression.
W3 Total Cache
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/
W3 Total Cache is the mother of all caching plugins. It is huge, well documented and packs in an impressive amount of performance configurations all into one plugin.
Installation was surprisingly easy. With all the options available I thought I was going to be here all day configuring this beast. After activating it automatically best guessed an optimal configuration. Great for those who just want to install and go.
If you’re looking for a plugin that does everything then this plugin is your golden ticket. From multiple methods of page caching, minifying, database caching, content delivery networks… this plugin does it all. They even have support request available and built right into the plugin.
Now to avoid sounding too much like a car salesman lets review the cons. First, it is huge. Even though disk space is becoming less and less of an issue there are some blog admins out there that either don’t have or want to spare the space. Second, it is fast but not the fastest caching plugin out there. Especially if you disable the minifying and compression built into the plugin. Then it runs on a more equal footing with the other plugins reviewed here.
Do It Yourself Caching
Who said you have to use a plugin to cache your blog? Caching pages yourself can sometimes be the best solution, especially for those high traffic and rarely changing pages in your blog. It does take a bit of manual labor though.
First create a folder called cache in your wp-content folder. Visit the page on your blog that you would like to cache then view the source. Copy the entire source into a file named relevant to the page you are caching. For example if I want to cache my about page I would name the file about.html and put it in my wp-content/cache folder.
From here we need to create a .htaccess file in your root WordPress folder. Copy the following code into your .htaccess file.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteRule ^about$ wp-content/cache/about.html </IfModule>
Using mod_rewrite we are telling the server to deliver the contents of the wp-content/cache/about.html file when someone goes to http://yourblogurl.com/about. I suggest learning more about mod_rewrite before manually caching a bunch of your pages. A handy solution though because from here you can perform other tweaks directly to the file such as minifying. Manually creating the files will also save a great amount of CPU load, which is critical for high traffic servers.
Although it is a lot more work then using a caching plugin; caching pages yourself does deliver high performance. Just remember your manually cached pages will not and can not be updated through WordPress and you must continuely update your cached pages by hand. This is a viable solution for those static high traffic pages but not an ideal solution for most bloggers.
Combining Plugins
Combining some of the plugins can lead to an increase in performance such as Hyper Cache + DB Cache Reloaded. Although some combinations will greatly decrease performance such as WP Super Cache + Anything. Try combining and see what works for you.
What Not To Cache
There are a few elements to a blog that you should avoid caching. Such as ads, feeds or any dynamic content obtained using php or a server side system. The whole point of caching is to save time by avoiding server side processes. If you have any content that needs to change for each visitor then you should avoid caching that page or content.
Don’t worry about your Google Ads or BuySellAds. Those ads are delivered using javascript and caching won’t affect the delivery of those ads. Most javascript based systems will not be affected by caching since they are client side scripts; not server side scripts. Although it is always good practice to double check to ensure your dynamic content is not being cached.
Final Results
Overall the best out of the box cache plugin configuration in my opinion is: Hyper Cache + DB Cache Reloaded. Despite the allure of W3 Total Cache’s professionalism and only slightly less admired performance, I prefer to retain some manual control over my blog. For those on a medium priced shared server or if you like the idea of installing and forgetting, the W3 Total Cache plugin will be your ideal choice.
A lot of people still use WP-Cache and WP Super Cache. They are still respectable WordPress caching plugins but consider trading up for Hyper Cache or W3 Total Cache. These newer caching plugins prove better performance and install/config much easier and cleaner. Also the development communities around these newer plugins are much more active and attentive to their users.
I hope I’ve helped you in choosing the best caching solution for your WordPress blog but this is only the beginning. There are so many more techniques to improve the performance of your blog. Caching is a great first step in preventing your blog from crashing during a flood of traffic.
295 Comments
Just installed Hyper Cache + Cache DB Reloaded for the main site Bangkok courses, to see how it goes as I had so many stupid problems WP Super Cache that was boring. Laptop Reviews
Flag as inappropriateI use W3 Total Cache and I am very happy with it.
Flag as inappropriateThanks for taking the time to time-test all of these! Saved me time sorting through them all.
Flag as inappropriateHave a question… I’ve used both w3 and wp super cache.
If I have a low server load on my shared server running wordpress with traffic under 10,000 page loads a day; w3 blows supercache out of the water
Once I start getting to around 150K pageloads a day running w3 my server is basically nonfunctional. With wp supercache it’s still not even sweating…
I’ve tried both disk and memory based caching in w3 and database caching on and off; makes no difference when exp high traffic.
Any ideas?
Flag as inappropriateJust installed HyperCache + DB Cache Reloaded Fix…
Wow! What a difference… load times reduce from 10 secs to <.5 secs. While I still have issues with PageSpeed reporting problems with javascript loading and extern CSS, your article was VERY helpful.
Thanks, ThomasB
Flag as inappropriateQuick Cache is another cache plugin you might want to test. I find this plugin easy to use and doesn’t give ‘headache” like your website
For all the cache plugin, setting browser cache setting to on make a lot of difference on the speed.
Flag as inappropriateOps, I didn’t mean “headache like your website”. I mean headache when your new blog post doesn’t appear on the homepage due to cache plugin and etc. (It took me a few days to solve this problem when I installed Total Cache)
Flag as inappropriateI have installed both hyper cache and Db-cache but still getting the same page load time. Do you have any idea , what is going wrong with it.
Flag as inappropriateNice Plugins .
Flag as inappropriateI like hyper cache..
Thanks for the article. I’ve only ever used W3 Total Cache so I can’t comment on others, but it seems as though you left out some important information. Was all caching enabled (Page/Database/Object/Minify) and which method was used (Disk (Basic/Enhanced)/Memcache/etc).
I personally use W3TotalCache with Memcache and it seems to be faster than Disk cache, although I never actually did benchmarks on the two.
Flag as inappropriateHow would caching plug-ins compare to CDNs like Amazon cloudfront or something like Cloudflare? Cloudflare is pretty easy and free, I notice response times from my websites speed up at least 150% but I didn’t do a comprehensive test.
Any views on how something like that would compare to a caching plug-in? Would it make sense to combine such a service or would it just mess up things?
Thanks for doing the tests and sharing, really very interesting stuff!
Flag as inappropriateExcellent article and easily understood for an IT dullard like me.
I just installed the Hyper cache and the site has taken a real leap in speed. I also tried installing DB Cache Reloaded but the current WP version told me it didn’t work.
Thanks again.
Flag as inappropriateI’m pretty new at this and this is very helpful. I don’t think I have any cache at all :-) Learn, learn, learn!
Flag as inappropriateI am using WordPress for my blog. But few days back I installed wp super cache for caching purposes. Still I haven’t configured it. After reading your nice article I have got a clear direction about caching plugins. Thanks for your awesome article about WordPress Cache Plugins.
Flag as inappropriateKyle: Thank you, for this SUPER comparison of WordPress Caching PlugIns! Just what the doctor ordered for me! Today, for the first time, I installed WordPress. From your clear reviews and suggestions, I chose Hyper Cache. My only surprise was that I needed to add a line to the wp-config.php file, to enable the WordPress Cache system, which took me a few minutes to figure out how to do. Kudos to you and keep up the great work! Your tutorial is greatly appreciated!
Flag as inappropriateJust installed Hyper Cache + DB Cache Reloaded for Web Courses Bangkok’s main site, will see how it goes as I had so many stupid issues with WP Super Cache it was getting boring.
Thanks for this round up!
Flag as inappropriateI had some difficulty finding good information on caching plugins for a multisite (formerly WPMU) installation. Found Quck Cache and am very impressed.
Flag as inappropriateI have been using quick cache but am in the middle of a site wide redesign and wanted to know if any thing else came out.
I will be checking in to Hyper cache.
Amazed that this post is so old and you are still getting this many comments. Keep it up!
Flag as inappropriateReally appreciate the advice and performance ratings. My site kept crashing from heavy traffic so caching became essential, but I wasn’t sure how to set something up. I went with Hyper Cache based on your recommendation (and the fact that it seems to be the easiest one of the bunch to configure) and so far so good. Thanks for the help!
Flag as inappropriateWow! Only just *learned* that my blog was “slower than 86% of sites”
Pox on Google webmaster tools for scaring me half to death!
But, rescued by your fabulous article which has saved me having to really ‘learn’ how to make my site faster.
Your good self and W3 Total Cache to the rescue.
Many, many thanks. Tweeted of course :-0
Flag as inappropriateAbsolutely an excellent article. Just moved to hyper cache it works better than others. Thanks for sharing.
Flag as inappropriateGreat article :)
We tried W3 Total Cache, and it performed OK on benchmark websites, but it seemed a bit slower to most of the users with faster connection since it prolonged the time needed for page serving (you would wait a while then most of the page would show up).
Flag as inappropriateGreat article. I was running WP Super Cache for a long time but never really noticed any speed improvement. I swapped to Hyper Cache after reading your article and it is excellent.
I actually installed W3 Total Cache first but it turned my dashboard pages into blank white screens! Thanks for that W3!! So Hyper Cache gets the thumbs up from me!
Flag as inappropriateYup, hyper cache works quite a bit better. I have my own cloud server, and even then it made the site about 1 second faster. Might not seem like much but speed is a big deal in my line of work.
Flag as inappropriateWP Super Cache was malfunctioning and IE users got a 3 week old cache.
Very cool indeed.
after change to hyper cache my site got loading faster… thanks for this info….
Flag as inappropriateThanks for this. Will be dumping WP-Super Cache in favour of Hyper or Total.
Flag as inappropriateThis is the final confirmation that I needed to move over to W3 total cache. I’m sold on the simplicity of it.
Flag as inappropriateThanks for help.
Flag as inappropriateKyle thanks for a great tutorial
I have been looking at installing W3 total cache and have read good reviews about it. Plus, as you mention, the basic configuration still gets good results.
This tutorial has probably given me the push that I needed.
Flag as inappropriateThis post is valued 12 out of 10. I’ve shared with my contacts. Thanks much! This was a very complete and informative comparison.
Flag as inappropriateI’ve had amazing results with W3 Total Cache
Flag as inappropriateI’m looking for a better than WP-Super Cache because this not very comfortable on multisite. When I disable it on one site it also disable on all other site… Found the Quick Cache but not so sure about it’s functionality… So found your benchmark. It’s great and I love your job. Thank you very much I will try Hyper Cache now to see :)
Flag as inappropriateThank you for sharing this tutorial. It is short and simple to understand. No mumbo, jumbo. I do not know how to use Photoshop much, with the screenshot, it just opened up the world of PS to me. Thank you.
Flag as inappropriateGreat tutorial, useful for me
Flag as inappropriateThis is a very helpful article. It has helped clear up some of my concerns. Thanks for sharing.
Flag as inappropriateAfter reading your article, I tested Hyper Cache on a cheap virtual server and the speed increase was phenomenal!
I tried using Super Cache and got a white screen of death, but Hyper Cache rocked.
I appreciate your efforts!
Flag as inappropriateThanks for the great review
Flag as inappropriateI use hyper cache for my site
According to my Experience Hyper Cache is better then Wp-Super-Cache. I would recommend Hyper Cache or Wp-Super cache as the top two Cache Plugins for WordPress Powered Blogs
Flag as inappropriateI’ve used a few cache plugins and Hyper Cache seems to work the best with the easiest UI. I’m sticking with it and highly recommend it to anyone, especially if on shared hosting.
Flag as inappropriatejust foun this article from google and i installed W3 Total Cache for my blog with 5000 hits daily and its awsome. This plugin is pretty cool. But i have a problem to disable a folder cached. Can you help me?
Regards
Flag as inappropriateHi, could you please do the same test with http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/quick-cache/
I noticed best improvement on my site with that one.
cheers, Henk
Flag as inappropriateHum, sorry, I just saw a bug. After submiting my previous comment, the page reloaded and the comment pagination now reads “Page 8 of 6″ :D
Flag as inappropriateGreat article but would be cool to know the date it was redacted :D Indeed, with IE8-WIN (yeah, maybe, it’s a display bug), the date is nowhere on the page …
Flag as inappropriateThanks for the great review! I installed Hyper-Cache on my site and have already noticed a speed increase.
Flag as inappropriateThe article has made me understand, I wore wp-super cache and the result the blog blank accesed. Now I little bit undertstand about cache, I will try W3TC. Thank
Flag as inappropriateWow, nice compilation and reviews. Just want to use DB Cache Reloaded+Hyper Cache. Thanks
Flag as inappropriateI use WP Super Cache with WP Minify. They seem to work good together.
Flag as inappropriateNever seen an article on WP caching so informative and convincing. It does help chosing the one I feel the best. Thanks!
Flag as inappropriateInformative article, thanks! Currently I’m using WP Super Cache but my hosting is so lame that it can only do so much. You’ve got me curious about Hyper Cache, so maybe that’s next.
Flag as inappropriateInteresting Cache report! I was looking for it and I think Super Cache is the best one and I would say also that it depends on your server and the plugins of your site
Flag as inappropriateWow what a great primer. I have almost no experience with caching (and very little understanding of how it works), so this was a really helpful overview. My site has become exceedingly slow, so I decided to try W3 Total Cache based on its popularity. While obviously very comprehensive, it was also a little frightening. ;)
After reading this I’m giving Hyper Cache a shot instead. Maybe later when I have time to read through some of the documentation for W3 Total Cache I’ll try again. Anyway – many thanks for a very useful article!
Flag as inappropriateUnbelievable. Excellent article. Great comments and feedback. Quick setup of Hyper Cache and DB Cache and the site is flying now. Thanks for your effort.
Flag as inappropriateThat really interesting article,im really enjoyed it.Thanks
Flag as inappropriateThanks for the review. Useful.
Flag as inappropriateExcellent review.
I’m testing out these plugins myself right now, so nice to stumble across your work here.
Flag as inappropriateThis is a brilliant list of caching plugins, thanks for the post! At the moment I use W3 Total Cache and I have found this to be the best so far.
Flag as inappropriateHelo,
you’ve done great job. :) thanks for your review atleast it does help me to pick one the best .. very informative posting!
Flag as inappropriateNice compilation! I’ve used W3 Cache, had some problems, then uninstalled only to have it take the site down entirely.
A nice alternative is Really Static, which generates static pages on your WordPress site kind of like Movable Type does out of the box. Combined with other optimization, it has most of my page loads under five seconds. No complaints so far.
Really Static: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/really-static/
Flag as inappropriateI help run a couple of high-load wordpress sites. Interesting review. I’d agree with the above commenter, you shouldn’t have had that bad a performance with supercache and compression, it only affects anything on cache-page generation. After gen, it should be lightning fast.
Also, I know the supercache dev is active, and is a nice guy. Certainly, he’s helped us with stuff on one of the sites.
Flag as inappropriateI enjoy this article so much that I always come back to it for whenever I need to convince people on what the best caching plugins are for their site. I switched over to the Hyper Cache + DB Cache Reloaded combo and have never looked back. Performance on my site increased tremendously! Thank you so much for taking the time to do the research and putting together a solid article.
Flag as inappropriateGreat review, and at just the right time for my latest project! I’ll be trying out Hyper Cache tonight :)
Flag as inappropriateGreat post, really insightful.
Flag as inappropriatei run a fairly busy american idol blog and have been running caching for quite sometime. i am on a quad core dedicated with 6GB RAM. I have a local memcache server, an external memcache server and Xcache installed.
I have tested every single caching plugin i can find for wordpress with the above setup and wp-supercache still performs the best. i have page load times less than .900 all the time and i am running 47 plugins.
right now i am testing DB-cache reloaded combined with hyper cache and i am seeing nothing better.
did try the new quick cache last night. worked great except it wasn’t what i was looking for. there was in issue with a plugin i run. won’t go into that but everyone should give it a look and try it out
Flag as inappropriateThanx, this was very informative
Flag as inappropriateI should compare Hypercache to W3 Total Cache on my blogs, I also hadn’t used DB Cache reloaded and will have to check into that.
Exceptionally good review of the various caching plugins.
Flag as inappropriateThis article was so useful! I followed your advice – disabled WP Super Cache and moved to Hyper Cache + DB Cache Reloaded — it worked like a charm. From 25 seconds, it now just takes less than 5 seconds.
Thank you so much! :)
Flag as inappropriateproverò alcuni di questi plugin sul mio sito, grazie per l’aiuto
i will try this plugin on my website, thank’s for the help
Flag as inappropriatebored…
Flag as inappropriateI’m honestly surprised WP Super Cache did so badly. If configured correctly it should be just as fast with compression on or off. Cached files are stored compressed so once cached they’re served like any other files.
If you didn’t configure it correctly you might have been serving the cache files using PHP rather the mod_rewrite .htaccess rules. Those should be blazingly fast.
Flag as inappropriateIn this photoshop tutorial we will learn to design a clean website layout. … This photoshop tutorial show you how to design a very beautiful and shining …
Flag as inappropriatethanks.. find more best tutorials here http://newsclub1.com
Hi,
I’m in the process of setting up a blog, and already tried the Super & Total plug-ins. And I was disappointed about the gain in speed.
Thanks to this article I discovered the Hyper plug-in. It made my site 2x as fast as the Super & Total solution !
Do you know if the cache plug-in selection depends on your hosting company, and its default server settings? That could explain why for some the other plug-ins are the way to go.
Thanks !
Marc
Flag as inappropriateThanks, that was exactly what I needed to know, I want performance without tinkering with configuring and blah, htaccess! What?
Hyper Cache it is for me :-)
Flag as inappropriateHi Kyle,
I found your information very useful in choicing a cache system, but I got a question: did you try W3 total cache with its innovative APC feature? Stay in touch, I’d like to work with you!
Pedro
Flag as inappropriateThat really interesting article,im really enjoyed it.Thanks
Flag as inappropriateVery awesome comparison. Validates my switch from Super to W3 Total
Flag as inappropriateHi there, very good post. I tested Hyper cache and DB Cache Reloaded. Whit DB, my blog don’t charge everything.
I always have problems with DB optimizer plugins and cache.
Greetings
Flag as inappropriateValentin
Usefull post, great job!
Flag as inappropriateYou could update this post after testing Quick Cache too.
BYE!
This was good. Actually smart. No need for the frills.
Flag as inappropriateThanks.
Wow. That’s complete reviews on WP Caching
Flag as inappropriateI’m using W3 Total Cache, never fail. It’s a great plugin.
I want to Hyper Cache, but many people reported that’s a broken plugin
Excellent article. I was going to test it myself luckily i found your post in google search.
Flag as inappropriateGreat test!
I was heading for WP Super Cache but it was not happy about PHP Save Mode On. So I ended up with Hyper Cache. Easy setting up and speed like a deamon :)
Flag as inappropriatei m using w3 total cache latest version
Flag as inappropriateworks nice
Hi
One question i have about caching. If i just have a 5 page site with a few posts caching may not help very much thats fine
BUT will it cause any harm ? as part of sandard build process?
i.e. will it eat resources just sitting there ?
Thanks
steve wyman
Flag as inappropriatehttp://cloudventuresgroup.com/domain-portfolio-development
For a small site it wouldn’t really be needed unless you are experiencing slow page loads or high traffic.
Flag as inappropriateThis is great resource. I am trying to recreate some of the tests you did to see what server configuration works best on my VPS server. I have a few questions: What command line did you use to run the tests? I am using $ ab -n 1000 -c 10 http://mywordpresssite/ and my Requests per second scores are coming out 1.70 [#/sec] (mean) which seem much slower than any of your tests.
Also what Time per request score are you using (mean) or (mean, across all concurrent requests)?
Thanks!
Flag as inappropriatei have been using Hyper Cache after reading your great article. Thankyou!
Flag as inappropriateGreat, just enabled the hyper caching plug-in on a site and really impressed with the results.
Flag as inappropriateDownload60s.com is a graphic designing website. photoshop tutorials.
Flag as inappropriatehttp://download60s.com
aigo
Flag as inappropriatehi, it’s aigo, thanks for your sharing
Super Cache has given me fits on my site…creates other issues…might try a few others from this super…maybe Hyper!
Flag as inappropriateThanks for test & compare those plugins. I try Autoptimize, WP Super Cache & W3 Total Cache before, but those plugins gave me blank page. I search on google and found this post. I try Hyper Cache & it works for me now.
Flag as inappropriateSuper write-up. Thank you. You’ve gotten me interested in switching away from SuperCache.
One thing I like about SuperCache, though, is that it works okay with mobile plugins, like WP-Touch. Do you know if W3 Total Cache or HyperCache do this as well? I didn’t see anything in the Total Cache FAQ about it.
Flag as inappropriateKyle –
Thanks for taking the time to go through all these options! I’m moving over to Hyper Cache + DB Cache Reloaded for my http://SocialMediaAZ.org site and my BLOG.
Thanks!
Flag as inappropriateFred
Wow. I knew caching made things faster, but not 800% faster! That’s ridiculous.
Thanks for the great article.
Flag as inappropriateHey,
Thanks for the making this tutorial, I’ve just entered the wordpress world and this was very informative.
Thanks,
Kyle
Flag as inappropriateDesperately needed this, thank you so much! Caching is serious business, especially with the growing widespread use of WordPress as a full blown CMS. It’s about time we see some strong unbiased opinions on the subject.
Flag as inappropriateNo word about the best one – WEBO Site SpeedUp
Flag as inappropriatehttp://www.webogroup.com/ru/home/site-speedup-wordpress/comparison/
Thanks for adding your plugin. Looks like a license is $99.
I didn’t see an option for CDN’s, is that included in your plugin?
Flag as inappropriateHi,
Thanks for the great article. I use Super Cache on my site and haven’t had any problems at all.
I’ve now installed DB Cache Reloaded and that looks to have improved things even further! So far I’m pleased with the set-up.
Thanks for the advice and taking the time to post your findings. Now it’s up to blog owners to make the changes that work for them…
Flag as inappropriateThanks for taking the time to run all these caching tests. Very useful data.
Flag as inappropriateGood article, but I didn’t have success in installing and activating w3 cache, Supercache and Hypercache. Coz my Wpcontent is not writable and i can’t find a way to make it work
Flag as inappropriateI will tried Hyper Cache and we hope clear out our problem
Flag as inappropriateExcellent article on caching. I’ve been using Cache Reloaded and Total Cache on different sites. This detailed analysis really helps compare/contrast.
Have you looked at “Quick Cache”?
Flag as inappropriateI think i have choose my 1.
Flag as inappropriateNo doubt, This is the best post on this topic.
Good article, now i’ve trying
i try too my blog
Flag as inappropriate__http://psycolours.blogsome.com
Thanks, this was great help. Wondering about the generalizability of the results. I guess, it would help to just repeat the experiment again or better still on some other site (just to be doubly sure)
Flag as inappropriateThanks so much for the comparison, I was havign some serious issues with WP Super Cache (some people wouldn’t see new posts, no matter how many times I cleared the cache) and it was starting to get frustrating so I was actively looking for a replacement. Hyper Cache is outstandingly simple to set up and does a far better job. My site now loads in under 1.8 seconds, which is fantastic news.
Flag as inappropriateThanks for comparing these! I know it took some work.
I switched over to Hyper Cache today, and it seems to be working well.
Flag as inappropriateThis is a very useful comparison! I ended up using Hyper Cache! Thank you!
Flag as inappropriateThe ’1 blog cacher’ is definitely one to avoid as I found out. It doesn’t separate mobile users, it just shows the cache to them even if you have a mobile version of your site. And if a visitor lands on a page via a cellphone first it caches that and shows it on your normal site, as it did with my homepage once! Couldn’t believe it! And it also breaks the ‘post preview’ function so you can’t preview posts before publishing. For these 2 reasons alone the plugin is badly flawed and should be avoided.
Flag as inappropriateKyle – Thanks, this sped up loading on my Thesis-themed site tremendously. Your site is also great – that Flash header with your exploding text masthead is really well done. Thanks for the great resource!
Flag as inappropriatereally awesome info…..i really needed that…thanks for all this
Flag as inappropriateHi, can you post your Hyper Cache and DB Cache Reloaded settings?
Flag as inappropriateIs it possible to use each of these plugins one by one so I can figure out which one is best for me? Can I use one plugin then deactivate it, use another next… like that? Is it safe to do that?
Flag as inappropriate@Dave: why did you copy & paste my comment? you had nothing to comment or ask on your own?
Flag as inappropriateWell, Super Cache is the most popular plugin according to wordpress.org. But i faced problem while uninstalling like wp cache. Now from this discussion, I’shall take a look on hyper cache. Then posting my experience as comment here.
Flag as inappropriateIs it possible to use each of these plugins one by one so I can figure out which one is best for me? Can I use one plugin then deactivate it, use another next… like that? Is it safe to do that?
Flag as inappropriateYes its safe. All of the plugins listed above activate/deactivate cleanly except for WP Cache and 1 Blog Cacher. I wouldn’t even bother with those two though.
Flag as inappropriateWaht about this one? http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/quick-cache/
I didn’t test it yet, but did install it and it looks very promising.
Flag as inappropriateSO I switched to Hyper Cache now. Mt site is not so busy so I don’t see a big speed improvement but I love the absence of intricate settings WP Super Cache has.
Flag as inappropriateThanks, quite useful data for me. So far I have never used any cache program. I have only gziped my blog.
Will using gzip and a cache program create any problem?
Also I would like you to test WEBO Site SpeedUp. I think it combines best of all worlds. I never tried it myself though.
Flag as inappropriateSome of the caching plugins listed above also have gzip capabilities. It can cause problems if a plugin gzips content that has already been gziped. You’ll notice quickly though when your pages show up as random lines of characters. I would either disable gzip in the plugin you choose or remove your previously setup gzip solution.
As for WEBO Site SpeedUp… I try to avoid solutions that are not free and open source. Not just because I’m cheap but because I believe code that is freely open for critique and modification will always be better. Plus it just seems wrong to pay for a caching plugin that runs on WordPress, running on PHP, running on Apache, running on *nix …all of which are free and open source.
Flag as inappropriateThanks for the great article!
I tried to get Hyper Cache running for a client (dredgingtoday.com), but I had some trouble with the plugin not being able to write the cache files. The plugin had no problems on my development server, but the production server has some weird configuration which the plugin apparently didn’t like.
I decided to use Quick Cache for this site, which looks pretty solid and had no problem with the weird configuration of the server. But haven’t done any real benchmarking with it at this moment.
Flag as inappropriateMy guess would be your plugins/hyper-cache/cache folder on the production server doesn’t have write permissions to create or write to the cache folder. You could manually create the folder and chmod it to 777. A better option would be to have the server configured to run php as a user to avoid world-writable files. suphp is a great solution for doing this.
Let me know how it goes with Quick Cache. It looks like an great overdue upgrade that WP Super Cache has been needing.
Flag as inappropriateOoh, I didn’t know about WP Super Cache, I just used the one before it. Thanks a lot for this post.
Flag as inappropriateThank you for this great article…I am not a programmer by any means but I do run a wordpress blog. This was precisely what I was looking for.
Flag as inappropriateI enabled Hyper cache and db cache reloaded but now my server increased a lot in load average.
What do you think ?
Flag as inappropriateHow big is your blog? Dedicated or shared server? If enabling a couple of WordPress caching plugins causes your server load increase significantly then either your blog is enormous or there is something wrong with the server.
Flag as inappropriateThanx, this was very informative. I might switch to Hyper Cache now.
Flag as inappropriateThis article is so timely! I was just researching different caching plugins. The problem that I’ve had in the past is that the caching plugin’s fail once you change permissions up on the server. I’ll try a couple of these new ones though.
Flag as inappropriateOnly thing that has stopped me using hyper cache is this in view source of every page:
Flag as inappropriateI’m currently using wp super cache. After reading this post will give a try to Hyper cache !
Flag as inappropriateExcellent review on caching plugins. I just recently changed from wp-super cache to W3 Total Cache because of the community activity, that’s the problem with a lot of plugins, they don’t have an active community which is vital for the security and future developement.
Thanks’ for the read
Flag as inappropriateThanks, this was very informative. I might switch to Hyper Cache now.
On a side note, please get rid of this horrible mistake: “If your looking for a plugin …” – it should of course be “If YOU’RE looking…”
Flag as inappropriateDon’t spread the disease of bad English please.
Wow I am embarrassed. Thanks for catching that. My mistake has been fixed.
Flag as inappropriateHello!
I’m new to webdesign and coding. I must say it’s very interesting! Anyways, I’m going to begin creating my own website soon, and i wonder why is WordPress really so good?
But the most important question is: Do I need to know PHP to creat my own template for wordpress?
Thank you!
PS. Tutorial9, you always have awsome tutorials!
Flag as inappropriateHi Pontus,
I’d say WordPress is really useful because it allows for a wide variety of content management.
You can easily edit your site’s content in the backend, WordPress is a powerful framework and it’s easily configurable.
You need to have a basic understanding of HTML and PHP to create your own template, but there are many, many tutorials that will help you out.
Chris Coyier over at CSS-Tricks.com has done many articles and screencasts on this subject, so it might be worth checking that out.
Good luck! :)
Flag as inappropriateThanks Thomas!
I’ve heard PHP is really hard to learn. I find HTML & CSS quite easy. At the moment I’m learning Javascript. Hope PHP isn’t much harder than Java, since I find Java really difficult!
And thanks for the good luck, I’m going to need it :)
Flag as inappropriateIt is for the long set of options these plugins appeared critical to me and I didn’t dare to use these. But I’d definitely try it out first on a lesser traffic blog and make sure I worked correctly on the options. Thanks, your guide would be helpful when I try it out.
Flag as inappropriateWhat a great article, really useful info here.
Flag as inappropriateGreat Post.
Flag as inappropriateI always use WP super cache, but know after some test I decided to switch to your best choice…definitly better !
Thanks.
I added Hyper Cache too all my sites after I read this, and trying it out on one of my sites. I was so amazed I installed it on all of them. Thanks for this.
Flag as inappropriateI’m using WP Super Cache on my blog right now, but might consider switching to a different one. When enabling WP Super Cache, you /did/ enable supercaching, right?
Flag as inappropriateKyle, Awesome post! This is exactly the information I was looking for. I’m going to follow you from now on… Thank you!
Flag as inappropriateNot to keep going, but I would be interested in seeing the effect of each caching plugin on the site’s YSlow! score, since front-end optimizations makes a big difference in how performance is viewed by Users.
Flag as inappropriateGreat in-depth article! I’ve always wanted to see someone benchmark this plug-ins to really see them side by side.
Will definitely try hyper cache + db cache soon!
Flag as inappropriateThe other thing that comes to mind (and I believe the w3edge guys emailed you privately about) is the lack of information on how the tests were performed, how we can repeat them against our own blogs, and like Sean said above, the specs of the machine the site is hosted on.
I’ll also +1 Sean’s recommendation of utilizing a reverse proxy cache. If you have the ability (i.e. skills to implement, and a VPS or Dedicated machine you can install software on) you can add to the caching awesomeness provided by these plugins by having a reverse proxy at the edge. Nginx, Squid, and Varnish are all great choices here, aren’t too terribly difficult to implement and store the results of your pages in MEMORY. If you can hand a “pre-cached” version of your page off to a reverse proxy cache, you can almost double your throughput in most cases.
Flag as inappropriateDefinitely with Eric Marden on using (or using in addition to) siege. It’s pretty powerful, and from what I understand, a little more accurate than ab.
I love that you ran the tests against a server that more imitates an actual application – instead of just a base WordPress install with the Kubrick theme and no plugins.
It’d be great if you could share the physical specs of the machine you were benchmarking against, as well as relevant configurations (relevant lines from Apache confs like modules used, VirtualHost settings, etc.).
I know some of the comments have pointed out benchmarking against cache engines that use memcache as well (like Batcache: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/batcache/).
While I realize the goal here is to just benchmark against plugins, other users may be interested in using something like Varnish (although it requires some *nix knowledge as well as an environment that would allow you to set it up).
All in all – great post. Thanks for sharing.
Flag as inappropriateThanks for the feedback Sean. There is a lot more technical developers here on tutorial9 than I anticipated. I’ll definitely have to widen my benchmarking methods and discuss more details in my upcoming posts.
The blog was hosted on a shared server farm in Fremont, CA. The server has an Intel Xeon X3360 (Quad Core 2.83Ghz) with 8GB of RAM and connecting through multiple full gigabit ethernet. Running Ubuntu, Apache2, PHP5.2.4 with the following modules loaded: core mod_log_config mod_logio itk http_core mod_so mod_alias mod_auth_basic mod_auth_digest mod_authn_file mod_authz_default mod_authz_groupfile mod_authz_host mod_authz_user mod_autoindex mod_cgi mod_dav mod_dav_fs mod_dav_svn mod_authz_svn mod_deflate mod_dir mod_env mod_expires mod_headers mod_include mod_mime mod_negotiation mod_perl mod_php5 mod_rewrite mod_setenvif mod_ssl mod_status mod_userdir
I ran ab from a clone but hosted in New York, NY.
Flag as inappropriateExcellent post Kyle. I use WP-super cache and WP-minify which is also a performance booster. I haven’t noticed any collision between these plugins (you said super cache shouldn’t be combined with other plugins).
Flag as inappropriateThanks! I meant WP Super Cache doesn’t work well with other caching plugins such as DB Cache Reloaded and WP Widget Cache. Good to hear it works with WP Minify.
Flag as inappropriateAlso, check out Seige: http://www.joedog.org/index/siege-home … Its a bit more flexible than ‘ab’ and has better stats.
Flag as inappropriateThanks I’ll check it out!
Flag as inappropriateI’m curious, which caching backend did you enable for W3 Total Cache? If you are caching to the file system, then it will probably be slower, but if you enable caching to APC and/or Memcached, you should be able to squeeze out a lot more performance out of this plugin. Add in the fact that you can enable CDN support for static files, and your requests per second should shoot WAY up.
Flag as inappropriateYeah I completely agree. I only ran with disk (basic) page caching method and database caching enabled. I figured memcached and CDNs would be their own post as they are kind of advanced topics for your average WordPress blogger.
Flag as inappropriateI have been waiting for this article a long time. Absolutely essential info for caching novices such as myself. This is THE go-to article for me. Thanks a lot.
Flag as inappropriateDid you using W3 Total Cache in the ‘disk enhanced mode’ or the default?
Did you copy code from the .htaccess file in /w3-total-cache/ini into your root .htaccess file? This enables http
Flag as inappropriatecompression and client-side (browser) caching of files that W3 Total Cache does not handle.
I ran W3TC with disk (basic) page caching and database caching enabled. Since I didn’t test any of the other plugins with compression enabled I thought it would be only fair to disable it while testing W3TC.
Flag as inappropriateWell, not at least enabling mod_rewrite rules for WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache explains their poor performances relative to WP Cache. It doesn’t make sense not to use the rules for both plugins – it’s like testing a car and not getting out of second gear.
In Basic mode, W3TC has to invoke a PHP script for caching – which slows down page load time. In enhanced mode, it does not need to invoke this script.
Other benchmarks using several plugins:
Flag as inappropriatehttp://cd34.com/blog/scalability/wordpress-cache-plugin-benchmarks/
http://loadimpact.com/blog/wordpress-load-test-part-2-amendment/
How about some memcached-based caching systems? I’ve got WordPress set up on two servers behind a load balancer, and the caching sysems based on saving a static file don’t work for my setup.
Flag as inappropriateThere are a few WordPress memcached plugins: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tags/memcached I’ve heard good things about Batcache but have yet to fully dig into it.
Flag as inappropriateOh and you can use memcached with W3 Total Cache.
Flag as inappropriateI use W3 total cache and love it. One nice feature is that if you do move to a VPS or dedicated server you can install APC, etc and set W3TC to use memory to cache things vs disk. ON shared hosting? You can just use disk since you usually can’t use APC there. That flexibility is very nice since it lets me use one plugin and tailor it to the client’s environment.
Flag as inappropriatei install wp super cache plugin its great but the css in my blogs inner pages didn’t loading. I uninstall it and the pages are loading fine now.. any ways thanks for the great info :-)
Flag as inappropriateI am using W3 Total Cache, but I will try Hyper Cache and see if there is an improvement in speed.. as my site will have a lot of images.. Thanks for the information on the other plugins..
Flag as inappropriateThank you for taking the time to write this- this information is invaluable!
Flag as inappropriateHi you say “Combining some of the plugins can lead to an increase in performance such as Hyper Cache + DB Cache Reloaded”
I thought that Hyper Cache creates a static page and shows that to the user. So Im not sure why or how DB Cache Reloaded would make it even faster.
I must be missing something?
What does DB Cache Reloaded do that Hyper Cache does not do?
Also I had to disable the “bad behavior” plugin as it conflicted with Hyper Cache.
Thank you for your help, great post.
Flag as inappropriateDB Cache Reloaded only caches database queries. When running in tandem, DB Cache Reloaded will make Hyper Cache cache your pages more efficiently. It will reduce the load on the server and speed up the caching process by reducing the amount of database queries.
If your blog has a lot of pages, uses a lot of plugins and/or widgets then running DB Cache Reloaded along with Hyper Cache will be more beneficial to you. Otherwise if you don’t then running DB Cache Reloaded won’t hurt performance, so I recommend the two.
Flag as inappropriateForgot to say in my last comment, but I’m also running DB-Cache with it. It is faster than lightning :-) Sorry for the multiple comments.
Flag as inappropriateOkay… All I have to say is Hyper Cache is a god-send! Thank you so much T9.
Flag as inappropriatelol good job!
Flag as inappropriateI use Super Cache because I’m on shared hosting, and the overhead for W3 Total makes less sense as the extra features are unusable or frowned on (compression uses processor) by the provider.
Flag as inappropriateHi,
great article. What tool is used to pull off speed benchmark? Thx
Flag as inappropriateThanks! I used the Apache Benchmark tool or ‘ab’. It is usually installed on most servers running Apache. Type ‘man ab’ to check if its installed on your server. Here is a link for more information: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/programs/ab.html
Flag as inappropriatevery well written material
Flag as inappropriateGreat information and thoughtful review. Didn’t even know that caching would help with WP. Looking forward to applying these plugins. Thanks for sharing!
Flag as inappropriateA big thumbs up to you Kyle. Definitely an important post with some real meat behind it.
Flag as inappropriateVery interesting. I previously tried Super Cache, but for some reason, it does not work for me.
Flag as inappropriateI’ll try Hyper cache, since it is so impressive.
That is seriously some in depth comparison done by you, Kyle. From the comparison we discovered that Hyper Cache speed the blog the best but still I will stick with my current plugin – W3 Total Cache..I dumped WP Super Cache as it was having very less features..
Also, as I am also using CDN and hence I found W3 Total Cache the best & easy plugin to integrate CDN settings in my blog.
Interestingly, I also wrote an article yesterday to speed up wordpress blog – http://www.smartbloggerz.com/2010/04/how-to-speed-up-wordpress-blog-in-3-simple-steps/
It revolved around W3 Total Cache and use of CDN with it.
Flag as inappropriateGreat review, thank for that, and now, i will use Hyper Cache!!!
Flag as inappropriateYou should also point out that you are testing only the caching features. Some plugins, like W3 Total cache, also offer css and js minification and also compress those files into two files, so there will be more speed gain by having fewer files/requests to deal with.
Flag as inappropriateAmazing man! Thx a lot – i used wp super cache but now Hyper is the only solution. THX again!
Flag as inappropriateThanks for this very detailed article! Bookmarked.
Flag as inappropriateExcellent report – however I think having the CDN capabilities of W3 Total Cache are fantastic. I just connected it with MAXCDN the other day and it’s incredible.
Flag as inappropriateVery detailed informations. But I don’t think I can use WP Super Cache because Text Link Ads don’t like it. I have Text Link Ads plugin installed on my blog currently.
Flag as inappropriateI have been searching for an in-depth comparison like this and haven’t found one. This is the best post I’ve read in a really long time. Thank you so much! Here’s to catching with HyperCache and DB :-)
Flag as inappropriateThank you
Flag as inappropriatereally worth article..
maybe I have to try something other than WP Super cache..
I don’t think this post is actually helpful. You don’t even discuss the CDN functionality of W3 Total Cache, nor really explain why the plugins are different. If you want to do a comparison you should have actually done a 1 to 1 comparison of features so readers would actually know how to make a decision.
Flag as inappropriateI could write an entire article just on W3 Total Cache. This post is aimed at your average WordPress blogger whom I doubt will be using a CDN. I prefer articles that get straight to the point and so that is how I write. If anyone would like more information on any of these plugins feel free to ask!
Flag as inappropriatewp-cache and wp-super-cache have a few conflicts with some hosting providers, like godaddy, for example. I had problems with super cache even on media temple. Pretty strange. For the moment, I’m using w3 cache and works like a charm.
Flag as inappropriatea long lost definition. thanks for giving the answers =)
Flag as inappropriateGraphically inspiring article! Thanks.
Flag as inappropriateYou’re the man! I was thinking about doing a post on exactly this topic yesterday. Awesome! Thanks a lot for your evaluation!
Flag as inappropriateWell all i know is that i have just tried “Hyper Cache” and it’s very simple to get working and seems to be fast, faster than “WP Super Cache” which is what i was using before. Good review.
Flag as inappropriatehtaccess caching is interesting. copying the site to static files and not passing through index.php would also make the site more secure (no php or mysql hacking)
Flag as inappropriateThose results for WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache definitely are not right, check out: http://loadimpact.com/blog/wordpress-load-test-part-2-amendment Also what are the version numbers of the plugins you tested? HyperCache is actually well over 2y old.
Flag as inappropriateFirst off it doesn’t matter how old the plugin is, if it’s still the better product.
Also I would like to say I’ve used w3 with “enhanced disk” for over a year and had some improvement. It definitely was way better than Supper Cache (for many reasons), but HyperCache has cut my load time in half. I believe these stats to be very accurate, especially since my own load times improved by similar amounts.
Flag as inappropriateMy sincere thanks for a real round-up and a full coverage instead of the 13-in-a-dozen ‘top caching plugins to checkout’ kind of post…
Will try HyperCache for sure now…!
Hmmm…could this be a trend for other blogs and bloggers?
Flag as inappropriateThis is a GREAT post! Finally a complete evaluation that really helps to determine what you need for your blog. Thanks a lot!
Flag as inappropriateThanks!
Flag as inappropriateApache Benchmark is a good choice. Doing all these bench must be tiring, thank you for this test and post.
Flag as inappropriateHey All, I think this post has the most accurate information for WordPress performance benchmarking: http://cd34.com/blog/scalability/wordpress-cache-plugin-benchmarks/
Flag as inappropriateAwesome comparison – thank you! I wasn’t aware of the Hyper Cache plugin until your post. Just installed it, tested and can already notice a big difference from the WP Super Cache I was using prior.
If you do another benchmarking post, I suggest one on SEO plugins for WordPress – there’s a lot of old and new one’s now but it’s hard to tell the difference. :)
Flag as inappropriateThis was really informative, but I find it odd that you didn’t include metrics for your recommended setup. Do you have the stats for HyperCache + DB Cache Reloaded?
Flag as inappropriateThe difference was insignificant between Hyper Cache alone and Hyper Cache + DB Cache Reloaded. If my test blog hit the database more frequently then difference would probably show more. Adding DB Cache Reloaded won’t hurt your performance if your blog isn’t database intensive but will increase performance if your blog is hitting the database frequently.
Flag as inappropriateNice job. i was just wondering about this myself today.
Flag as inappropriateThis is a really great post. There are so many caching plugins, glad this posts tried a little to clarify them.
Flag as inappropriateHmm, Hyper cache seems the best, but it doesn’t do minifying. W3 Total Cache seemed so complete and robuste, now I’m in doubt. Is there a way we can test for our own blogs what works best?
Flag as inappropriateI try to minify before uploading to the server but it can be a hassle if your updating the files frequently. If that is your blog then just go with W3 Total Cache. There are a lot of great tools for testing. I used and prefer Apache Benchmark or ‘ab’ because it is usually installed on servers running Apache. Here is a link for more information: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/programs/ab.html
Flag as inappropriateBeen sitting on the fence not doing anything because I couldn’t decide what to install/try. Thank you. Hyper Cache here we come!
Flag as inappropriateGreat write up – Im always a sucker for great data.
Flag as inappropriateThese stats are so good that the graphs stand on their own… that’s all I have to say about that.
Flag as inappropriategreat write up. I just installed WP-cache the other day. Works the best for me.
Flag as inappropriateNice Article, I mostly use w3tc – but I guess I will take a look into Hyper Cache + DB Cache Reloaded soon :)
Flag as inappropriateWhat an awesome article! The graphics are wonderfully helpful. Time to install something on Gecko Time
Flag as inappropriateCool article. Definitely worth a try. DIY options looks so easy to use.
Regards TJ
Flag as inappropriatethanks for detailed information, I used W3… but now I have to change it, I think
Flag as inappropriateI am using wp-super-cache in my websites and i am very satisfied by what this plugin doing. Very great job to the guy who developp this plugin.
Flag as inappropriate