Users reviews
Installing a cache plugin on your WordPress website is one of the most effective strategies to optimize its loading speeds. Even slashing just few milliseconds off the loading times may improve conversion rates and website traffic.
If you’ve been considering using a cache plugin to speed up your WordPress site, WP Rocket is a name you’ve definitely heard across. It’s a plugin that’s said to provide outstanding outcomes with minimal effort. Is it, however, the best caching solution for your website?
Read further to learn more about WP Rocket, we will detail its features, pros and cons with our rating, and a conclusion about why you should use it.
Click on “open” if you want to see exactly what we will talk about in the rest of this article:
Quick Overview
What is WP Rocket?
WP Rocket is a WordPress plugin that allows caching on websites in order to improve loading speeds. WP Rocket offers various additional features that may help websites load faster, which we’ll go over in this review.
WP Rocket specifications
Features | CDN integration / Database optimization / Elementor compatible / Heartbeat control / Lazy load images / Woocommerce compatible |
Best suited for | Individuals, Freelancers, Small businesses |
Website languages | Deutsch / English / French / Italian / Japanese / Spanish |
Website URL | Visit official website |
Support link | Support page |
Live chat | No |
Company address | SAS WP MEDIA, 18/20 rue Tronchet, 69006 LYON FRANCE |
Year founded | 2017 |
Pricing
WP Rocket pricing: How much does WP Rocket cost?
WP rocket costs from $49 to $249 per year. The price varies depending on how many websites you need to use WPRocket.
Pricing range | From $49 to $249 per year |
Pricing types | Annual subscription |
Free plan | No |
Free trial | No |
Money back guarantee | Yes, 14 days |
Pricing page link | See plans |
WP Rocket pricing plans
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WP Rocket is a premium WordPress caching tool, as previously said, with three purchase options:
- Single plan, $49 for a year’s worth of support and updates for one website.
- Plus package, $99 gets you a year of maintenance and upgrades for three websites.
- Infinite plan, $249 for a year’s worth of maintenance and upgrades, good for an infinite number of websites.
Your license will renew automatically after one year by default, with a 30% reduction granted to the price. If required, you may deactivate the auto-renewal in your account section also on WP Rocket website. Because WP Rocket comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee, you can try it out and see how it affects the site speed without risking any money.
Features
WP Rocket features: What can you do with it?
When it comes to picking a caching plugin for a WordPress site, the most important consideration will most likely be whether or not it decreases your site’s loading times.
However, it’s also crucial to know whether you’ll be able to correctly setup the plugin to achieve the greatest outcomes from it, in addition to the possible gains in site performance.
So, with all that in mind, let’s have a look at the main features of WP Rocket.
Caching features
WP Rocket’s most basic function is page caching. Once a user views a webpage for the very first time, a site cache retains chosen page contents. The site cache remembers the saved material and loads it significantly faster than the initial visit when the user returns to the same page.
To adjust cache parameters with WP Rocket, go in to “Settings” in WordPress’ left-side panel, click “WP Rocket,” and you’ll be sent to WP Rocket’s settings page.
You may change the settings for mobile caching, customer caching, and cache lifetime by clicking “Cache.”
Files optimization section
The File Optimization tab then allows you to activate minification and concatenation, and also additional options.
In essence, these options allow you to reduce the size and amount of HTML, CSS, or JS files without affecting their operation.
WP Rocket may also assist you with:
- JavaScript and CSS that are render-blocking should be removed.
- Files from Google Fonts should be combined.
- Query strings should be removed from static resources.
One thing to keep in mind is that minification and concatenation might create difficulties with your site’s front-end presentation, which WP Rocket will notify you about:
The good news is that WP Rocket allows you to exclude individual CSS and JavaScript elements explicitly, which might help you avoid problems. However, if minification and concatenation are creating problems and you’re not sure which file is the source of the problem, I’d propose just removing this capability.
Media improvements
WP Rocket includes various options to aid with this possible issue, since huge picture files might slow down your website.
To begin, the plugin offers an extra LazyLoading feature that allows users to postpone the processing and display of pictures and videos until they have scrolled to their desired point on the page. This is in contrast to the browser instantly loading all the photos and videos as fast as the content is shown.
Instead of downloading emojis from WordPress.org, you may use WP Rocket to load them from the visitor’s PC in your content. The WP Rocket team has also built Imagify, a free image optimization plugin that compresses your website photos to minimize file sizes and speed up loading times.
Database optimization
Your WordPress database can increase with time, potentially slowing down your site. WP Rocket includes various database optimization options to aid with this, including the option to clean up old post revisions, drafts, and trashed posts, but also deleted or designated as spam comments.
WP Rocket can be set up to automatically clean up your database on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, in addition to improving your database tables per demand. While there are specific WordPress database optimization solutions available, having WP Rocket handle it is more easy and, hopefully, more effective than adding another plugin.
Preload feature
The Preload tab allows you to use cache preloading, which is one of WP Rocket’s most powerful features.
Some WordPress caching plugins only load a page into the cache after someone views it, which means that each visitor after every purge will not see a cached version of the website.
It’s not helpful for your site’s performance if you have articles or pages that get rarely visitors (even high-traffic sites have these kind of content).
The Preload option assists you in changing this by “preloading” your material into the cache, especially if it hasn’t been viewed yet.
WP Rocket allows you to preload your material in two ways:
- WP Rocket preloads material depending on a Link to your sitemap that you provide. WP Rocket can also identify popular SEO plugins automatically.
- To generate the cache, a real bot will crawl URLs.
Sitemap preloading is less resource-intensive, but only runs when the cache lifespan expires, whereas the bot will preload pages as soon as they get published or edited (but uses more resources as a result).
This option also allows you to activate DNS prefetching, which helps speed up the loading of external files.
Advanced Procedures (Expert settings)
You may skip the Advanced Rules page if you’re a casual user.
This tab essentially provides you greater control over which material is cached, who gets cached material, and when specific material is removed.
You can do the following:
- Specify a list of URLs that should never be cached, including wildcards. For instance, I normally don’t cache my contact form webpage since caching might create problems with various form plugins.
- Allow or disallow particular cookies and user agents from receiving cached information.
- Whenever you change a post or page, specify particular URLs to always remove.
- For certain query strings, you may force caching.
CDN Integration
Although WP Rocket provides his own CDN, the CDN tab allows you to connect to a third-party CDN by allowing you to rewrite URLs to deliver content from its CDN.
For example, instead of serving all of your picture files from yoursite.com, you may instruct WP Rocket to serve them from cdn.yoursite.com.
It’s convenient to be able to establish distinct rules for:
- Each and every file
- Images
- JavaScript and CSS
You may also exclude particular files from being provided through the CDN manually.
You’ll should get your own CDN to utilize this functionality, such as:
- KeyCDN
- Stackpath
- WP Rocket has its own Cloudflare integration as well
Heartbeat Tab
The Heartbeat API is a functionality that runs in the background and assists with essential operations. It’s what, for example, makes the WordPress Editor’s post auto-save function possible.
However, since it is continually operating, it might put a strain on the resources of your server.
The Heartbeat tab allows you to do one of two things:
- Reduce the Heartbeat API’s frequency
- Heartbeat API may be turned off completely
You may also build separate rules for various sections of your website.
Caching for ecommerce
Many cache plugins are incompatible with e-commerce extensions such as Woocommerce, leading visitors to experience a variety of issues.
Visitors will be unable to view their updated carts and other information because these plugins cache all pages, including the basket, checkout, and user data pages. If left unchecked, this will have major consequences for your company.
E-commerce plugins such as Woocommerce, Easy Digital Download, iThemes Exchange, Jigoshop, or WP-Shop are all completely compatible with WP Rocket. All Woocommerce webpages are identified automatically and are not cached.
Conclusion
WP Rocket review: Why you should use it?
On the other hand, if you’re on a tight budget, I believe you can stack free plugins that provide similar functionality to WP Rocket. Perhaps not everything. However, it’s really near.
But here’s what I believe you get for your $49:
- Convenience – everything is contained under one roof and is simple to access and manage, however if you developed your own free stack, you would be continually switching between various plugins.
- WP Rocket is a cohesive plugin, therefore you can be certain that few of the features may conflict with one another. If you attempt to stack various plugins together, you’ll rapidly run into compatibility concerns.
- Support – If you use free plugins, you will either get no help or very limited support. When it comes to something as difficult as performance, it’s worth it to consult a professional from time to time.
- WP Rocket is a paid plugin, so you can be certain that it will remain to get frequent updates as long as the creators have a financial incentive to do so.
Yes, using the free alternatives, you can obtain a fast-loading site, and many people do. However, if paying $49 for such perks seems like a fair investment to you, I believe WP Rocket is a fantastic product that tries to provide a lot of functionality while being user-friendly.
Time is, after all, money. So, if WP Rocket’s simplicity of use and simplicity saves you a few moments of hair-pulling and results in a speedier website, I believe the price is reasonable.