Posts in category: Website Tips

There are so many candidates for being the best WordPress Caching plugin in 2018.

In this article, I will try my best to narrow down the list for you.

There are a couple of reasons why you should use WordPress caching plugin to speed up your WordPress website.

Two of the most important ones are because it affects the user experience and your SEO ranking.

Firstly, statistics says that if your website takes longer than 3 seconds to load then the visitor will abandon.

Another is if Google detects that your website takes a lot of time to load then it would punish your SEO ranking.

I guess we could all agree that nobody likes a slow loading website.

Fortunately, there are WordPress caching plugins that could speed up your website by simply enabling its features.

Before we get into the list, let’s first find out how the WordPress caching plugin works.

What does WordPress caching plugin do?

Basically a WordPress caching plugin creates a static HTML version of your pages and posts.

They then serve this static HTML file to the visitor instead of running the PHP codes and querying the SQL database every time someone visits your website.

This minimizes the CPU and RAM consumptions thus improving performance. Especially when multiple people are accessing your website at the same time.

Here are the best WordPress caching plugins in 2018.

1. WP Rocket

WP Rocket is currently considered as the best premium WordPress caching plugin.

It is literally the most complete and featured pack caching plugin there is.

Even if you combine the features of its top 3 competitors. There would still be features that only WP Rocket has.

The best thing about WP Rocket is that even if it has a lot of features. It doesn’t have a convoluted dashboard unlike its competitors.

WP Rocket starts optimizing your website as soon you activated it.

Some of the key features of WP Rocket are:

1. Page Caching
2. Cache Preloading
3. HTML, JS and CSS Minification
4. LazyLoad
5. GZIP Compression
6. Browser Caching
7. Sitemap Preloading
8. DNS Prefetching
9. Defer JS Loading

WP Rocket is currently being used by over 530,000+ WordPress websites.

2. WP Fastest Cache

The WP Fastest Cache found itself a sweet spot between being simple and yet powerful at the same time.

The way WP Fastest Cache works is very similar to how other WordPress caching plugin works.

It creates a static HTML file which is then served to the visitors instead of running the PHP codes and querying to the SQL database all the time.

This minimizes the CPU and RAM usage on the server thus improving performance.

To get access on all the features of WP Fastest Cache. You will need to buy the premium version.

Some of the key features of WP Fastest Cache are:

1. Desktop Cache
2. Mobile Cache
3. HTML, JS and CSS Minify
4. Combine CSS
5. GZIP
6. Browser Caching
7. Image Optimization
8. Lazy Load
9. Render Blocking JS

Currently, WP Fastest Cache have over 700,000+ downloads and installations.

3. WP Super Cache

WP Super Cache is a one of the most popular WordPress caching plugins in the WordPress plugin repository.

It has been downloaded over 25+ million times. And it currently has over 2+ million active installations.

Similar to other caching plugins. WP Super Cache also create a static HTML to be served to the visitors.

WP Super Cache can serve cache in 3 ways namely Expert, Simple and WP-Cache caching.

Some of the key features of WP Super Cache are:

1. CDN Support
2. Mutiple Caching Options
3. Page Compression
4. Garbage Collection
5. Preloading
6. Rest API Support
7. Custom Caching

WP Super Cache also offers pretty advanced capabilities like for instance in troubleshooting.

It does require you to edit some files in the WordPress in order to do them.

4. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is another popular WordPress caching plugin especially among developers.

This plugin boasts to improve SEO and user experience by increasing the website speed.

In addition to this, it will also reduce download times via the use of services like CDN.

W3 Total Cache is also the only agnostic WordPress Performance Optimization framework endorsed by many web developers and web hosts.

Some of the key features of W3 Total Cache are:

1. CDN Support
2. Accelerated Mobile Pages Support
3. SSL Support
4. Multiple Caching Support
5. HTML, JS and CSS Minification
6. Browsing Caching
7. Non-Blocking JS
8. WP-CLI Support
9. Reverse Proxy Integration

W3 Total Cache currently has over 1+ million active installations.

5. LiteSpeed Cache

LiteSpeed Cache is a rising star in the WordPress caching plugins lineup.

It currently has over 2+ million downloads and has over 300,000+ active installations.

The best thing about LiteSpeed is it retains its 5 star rating even though it has this large number of downloads.

LiteSpeed Cache is an all-in-one site acceleration plugin which features a server-level of caching. It also has a lot of other optimization features available.

Some of the key features of LiteSpeed Cache are:

1. WooCommerce Compatible
2. bbPress Compatible
3. SEO Yoast Compatible
4. Object Cache
5. Image Optimization
6. Minify CSS, JS and HTML
7. Minify Inline CSS and JS
8. Automatically Generate Critical CSS
9. LazyLoad

6. Autoptimize + Cache Enabler

This one in order to be fully effective will require installation of 2 lightweight plugins.

Both plugins are also highly recommended by the WordPress plugins community.

Basically Autoptimize will handle the optimization features like minification. And Cache Enabler will handle the caching functionality.

They work pretty well together and currently the setup I am using on this website.

Autoptimize user interface is very intuitive. All the settings you need to enable is in one tab.

It is one of the user friendliest plugin I have ever used.

The Cache Enabler user interface is very clean as well. All the setting options are in one page.

Cache Enabler is developed by KeyCDN which is one of the best CDN service provider out there.

Some of the key features of Autoptimize are:

1. CSS, JS and HTML Minification
2. Image Optimization
3. Multiple Image Optimization Quality
4. Inline CSS
5. CDN Support
6. Async JS
7. Remove WP Emojis

Some of the key features of Cache Enabler are:

1. Cache Expiry Time
2. Multiple Clearing Cache Options
3. Cache Minification
4. Cache Exclusions

7. Comet Cache

Comet Cache is another rising star WordPress caching plugin. It is quiet famous because of its easy two-minute setup time.

The Comet Cache takes a snapshot of every page or post in your website and serve it later as static html.

The plugin also uses advanced techniques on whether to serve the cache page or not. Basically by default the Comet Cache does not serve cache version to a logged in user.

Comet Cache boasts that their control panel is simple and well-documented.

Some key features of Comet Cache are:

1. Automatic Cache Clearing
2. Client-Side Caching
3. Apache Optimization
4. WP-CLI Compatibility
5. Logged-In User Caching
6. HTML, CSS and JS Minification
7. Auto-Cache Engine
8. Server Load Monitoring
9. Cache Statistics

8. Hyper Cache

Hyper Cache is a purely PHP based WordPress caching plugin. It is slowly joining the ranks of the elite WordPress caching plugins.

What makes Hyper Cache special is because it is very lite and simple. The reason behind it is because it is designed for hosting with low resources.

After you install Hyper Cache it will have some preset values already enabled. You can use the default settings or you can go ahead and tweak it further.

Some of the key features of Hyper Cache are:

1. Mobile Aware
2. HTTPS Ready
3. bbPress Ready
4. CDN Support
5. Browser Caching
6. Mobile Theme Switch Option

Conclusion

All the above mentioned WordPress caching plugins will enable you to speed up your WordPress almost instantly.

I highly recommend WP Rocket though because of how user friendly it is and how featured pack it is for the price.

If you are in the process of optimizing your WordPress website. You might also want to check out my best image compression plugins and best CDN service provider articles.

Choosing the best blogging platform is one of the first major step in starting your blogging journey.

In this article I will introduce you to a comprehensive list of blogging platform that are preferred by many.

Some blogging platform in this list are even free. And some are self-hosted.

Most of the blogging platform in this list has been around for ages and has matured well through time.

Here are the best blogging platform in 2018.

1. WordPress.org

WordPress.org is the most popular blogging platform right now.

They control over 30% of all the active websites in whole world as we speak. And this number will just continue to rise.

The WordPress platform alone is completely free.

What would cost you money is buying a domain and hosting where you would install your WordPress platform.

I have created a list of the best cheap hosting and best managed WordPress hosting articles so you might want to check them out.

What makes WordPress really attractive is being highly customizable.

This is because there are tens of thousands of themes and plugins for you to choose from. You can literally make your website look exactly as you picture it in your mind.

2. WordPress.com

If you want to use WordPress right away but do not have the technical knowledge to buy a domain and hosting.

Then WordPress.com would be perfect for you.

WordPress.com is a free blogging platform hosted by Automattic. A company created by the cofounder of WordPress.org.

The best thing about WordPress.com is you can use it free forever.

The only time you would need to pay is when you decided to have your own domain, additional storage or subscribe to one of their powerful plans.

WordPress.com is very easy to use and similar to any WordPress website will allow you to install plugin and themes of your choice.

3. Blogger

Blogger is a Google owned free blogging platform that has been around for almost 2 decades.

This is best for beginner bloggers as this requires zero technical knowledge in order to be part of.

Changing your blog appearance and color scheme is also pretty straightforward.

You just need to go to the themes section and choose which theme you want to use then click the apply button.

Once your blog started to gain a steady amount of traffic. You can always purchase a domain from Blogger to finally establish your brand.

4. Wix

Wix is a free hosted blogging platform that allows you create beautiful looking websites very easily.

What makes Wix standout from the rest of the blogging platform in this list is they allow you to create and design your website from the front-end. So you can see what your website looks in real-time.

You can also easily control the elements of your website through drag and drop.

If you want to start with an existing template design you can also do so. Or you can let their Artificial Design Intelligence feature to design the website for you.

Overall, Wix is highly customizable and it doesn’t require you to know any coding skill. You can even add third party apps.

Once your website started gaining a steady amount of traffic. You might consider upgrading to their premium plans.

They also offer a free domain name if you upgrade.

5. Squarespace

Squarespace is paid hosted all-in-one platform that allows you to create websites easily.

Similar to Wix, Squarespace also allows bloggers to create their website easily in the front-end through drag and drop.

What makes Squarespace really standout is that they offer top class designs as your base template. Believe me their designs are just gorgeous.

They also provide powerful tools for online store. So if you ever want to sell services or products in your blog. You can do it here with ease.

Another thing that they offer are marketing tools such as social media integration and email campaigns.

Though Squarespace is a paid blogging platform, they do offer a trial period.

They will not collect your credit card details when you signup for the trial.

6. Joomla 

Joomla is a free self-hosted blogging platform which is very similar to WordPress.

The platform is free but you will be the one to buy a domain and hosting so you can setup Joomla in your host.

Similar to WordPress, Joomla also offers a wide range of extensions and templates for you to choose from.

This basically allows you to shape your website to any appearance you may want.

Currently nearly 2 million websites are estimated to be running on Joomla.

7. Weebly

Weebly is a free hosted complete platform which is good for personal, online store, business, event and blog websites.

The Weebly platform offers a pure and powerful drag and drop website builder. This allows you to create website with no coding required.

They also offer amazingly looking templates for you to build from.

With Weebly you can easily sell services and products in your blog if you want to.

You can also grow your audience faster using their built-in marketing tools.

The other great feature of Weebly is that they currently have over 200+ apps available for you to extend the functionality of your website.

Once your website started to gain a steady number of audience. Consider upgrading your free plan to one of their paid plans.

8. Tumblr

Tumblr is a bit different compared to the blogging platform I mentioned above.

Basically a vast majority of people considers Tumblr a micro-blogging platform.

This is because Tumblr is best used for posting short blogs, quotes, videos, static images and animated images such as GIFs.

Tumblr also offers features similar to social media such as built-in sharing tools.

Another difference from the blogging platforms is that it offers very limited customization options to its users.

However, the fact remains that Tumblr is very easy to use.

And if you are into posting videos, images and animated images. Then you would love Tumblr as it is optimized for these kind of post.

Tumblr is 100% free to use but you can buy a custom domain and map it to your Tumblr account.

9. Medium

All I can say about the people that created Medium is that they are absolute geniuses!

Medium is a hosted blogging platform which has become very popular to bloggers, writers and journalists.

What makes Medium great is that they allow popular blog posts created by its members to show on their homepage.

This basically gave the website a newspaper magazine feel to it when you go to their homepage.

This is just 100% genius!

Many people consider the lack of customization options a turn off to joining Medium. But I honestly like the idea as it keeps the Medium blog posts really neat looking.

Though there is limited customization options, Medium offers a wide range of typography options.

Medium is 100% free however you can buy a domain and connect your blog posts to it.

10. Ghost

Ghost is a blogging focused platform which main goal is to provide a platform with simpler interface compared to WordPress.

With Ghost, new bloggers will not be intimidated with numerous options on the control panel unlike in WordPress.

Ghost features a very intuitive and clean looking user interface.

Editing and customizing your blog post texts are also very straightforward with their rich editor.

What makes Ghost standout is the fact that it is powered by Node.js which allows the user interface and the website to load very fast.

Ghost is also available at hosted and self-hosted options.

The hosted option is paid and a bit pricey at that. But the performance is comparable to premium managed WordPress hosting prices.

They also offer a free trial period so you can first test if this is the right blogging platform for you.

The self-hosted option is 100% free but setting it up would require some technical knowledge.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that WordPress is the #1 blogging platform right now. So I will not be surprised if you will go with it immediately.

However you are still free to use the other blogging platforms in this list especially the ones that are free.

Just remember that once your website started getting traction and getting a lot more visitors. Then consider buying a domain and upgrading your plan.

This will establish your brand and will make remembering your website easier.

Also do not forget to redirect the old links to their equivalents so your SEO ranking will not be affected by the move.