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In modern times, people want everything to load quickly. That is especially true about websites and online shops. Same is for the owners of such websites as they also want their websites to perform faster. We at HowToHosting.guide will review the WP Speed of Light plugin, below.
What is WP Speed of Light Plugin?
WP Speed of Light Plugin is a speed optimization plugin for WordPress as you may have already guessed by its name.
It packs plenty of powerful features, as a database cleanup system, htaccess optimization and an auto cache cleaner to list a few.
WP Speed of Light also includes tests to determine why your site may be performing slowly. Tests are a speed loading test, comparison test and one for database queries.
In other words, WP Speed of Light will help you load every aspect of your website much faster free of charge. You can also pay for a Pro add-on if you want additional help with a custom Support option.
WP Speed of Light – Why Do You Need It?
WordPress is one of the most widely-used platforms for site-building. Everybody knows that the platform gets clogged from time to time and needs to be cleaned.
If WordPress is optimized better, it will not only load faster, but also get clogged less. WordPress can be enhanced and optimized for better performance and speeds via different speed optimization plugins.
One of the very best speed optimization plugins is WP Speed of Light. It builds upon the existing code base and integrates helpful features to speed up the whole website.
WP Speed of Light makes it even easier by having Content Delivery Network (CDN) integration. That helps you easily connect with CDNs such as Cloudflare.
WP Speed of Light – Features
Ranging from all features, we think that the full CDN integration is one of the most important ones. A CDN is a group of servers set in different geographical locations all over the world.
When your website is being visited from a specific country, the CDN will relay the request. Thus, your website will load to the user making the request, by accessing the closest server. This improves loading times and serves as a security layer at the same time.
You can also take advantage of the benefits provided by the tests available from WP Speed of Light.
WP Speed of Light Tests and Analysis
All tests that WP Speed of Light offers will come in handy when you have to run analysis of why your site is slow and which part of your website is causing the slowdown.
Here are the tests that are included with the WP Speed of Light Plugin:
- Page loading time, first load
- Page loading time, second load
- First byte time
- Time to start rendering
- Element served from cache in %
- Elements compressed with Gzip in %
- Percent on compressed images
Troubleshooting and pinpointing a root cause of a slow WordPress website can take a lot of time to figure out on your own. Thus, having the above tests right by your side will greatly help you to resolve things faster.
Main Features of WP Speed of Light
WP Speed of Light comes fully packed with impressive features that all help reduce the overall and loading speeds of your website.
Here is the complete list of features for WP Speed of Light:
- Generate static cache
- Selective or global cache for Desktop, Tablet and Mobile
- Check Gzip compression
- Remove Query strings: Pingdom, Gtmetrix, Google Page Speed score better
- Browser cache: Expire headers optimization
- Minify resources: HTML, CSS, JS
- Add Expire Headers (browser cache)
- Database optimization, clean: post revision, auto draft content, trashed content, spam comments, trackbacks and pingbacks, transients options
- CDN integration: load any CDN content
- Automatic clean cache on interval and cache cleaner button
- Automatic clean cache on content saving
- Option to disable the WordPress REST API
- Option to disable the WordPress RSS feeds
- Cache external resources such as scripts served from Google
- WooCommerce dedicated integration
- WordPress multisite compatible
- Page builders compatibility: ACF, DIVI Builder, Beaver Builder, Site Origine, Themify builder, Live Composer, Elementor
- Developer friendly using Hooks and Filters
- Gutenberg auto cache cleanup on save
As you can see above, there are so many useful features, that you are bound to get a speed upgrade if you install the WP Speed of Light plugin. You should also consider its paid Pro Addon.
WP Speed of Light Pro Addon Plugin
The Pro Addon Plugin of WP Speed of Light is a paid option that you can get along with the main plugin.
Albeit optional, we advise you to get the Pro Addon as it offers additional optimization features that come in very handy to make your website run at the speed of light.
Here are the additional optimization features that come only with the Pro Addon Plugin:
- Image compression
- Image Lazy Loading with page exclusion
- Local Font and Google Font Group
- Visual File Exclusion from Group and Minification
- Cache Pre-Loading
- DNS Prefetching
- Cleanup CDN data: Cloudflare, KeyCDN, MaxCDN, Varnish, Siteground cache
- Database Automatic Cleanup
- Possibility to disable Emojis
- Possibility to remove Gravatar
- Possibility to load scripts in footer
- Disable Cache per WordPress User Role
- Page Caching Exclusion Using PHP Rules
- Custom support for configuration
As you can see, some of these features will be of tremendous help to you, especially the Font and Image optimizations, plus the preloading of various resources. Do not hesitate and get the Pro Addon.
Conclusion
At HowToHosting.guide, we have seen the benefits that you get with WP Speed of Light plugin.
If you are going to invest time and money in your website and have serious business ideas revolving around a WordPress platform site, then invest a little further. The WP Speed of Light Plugin offers a lot and you will not regret getting all of the aforementioned features.
Being compared to many of its competitors as speed optimization plugins go, it shows that WP Speed of Light is the full package. And if you get its Pro Addon you will have nothing to worry about regarding performance and speed.
What We Like
We at HowToHosting.guide like the following in WP Speed of Light Plugin:
- Ease of Access and User-Friendly Interface
- The CDN integration
- How optimization is done, including its results
- Speed tests help to analyze potential speed issues
- All features that are offered for Free
As you know, WordPress as a platform does not have a dedicated speed optimization tool, which nowadays is a must. Having a Plugin like WP Speed of Light helps your website grow and attract more people to it.
What We Do Not Like
You can see how the lazy loading and other image optimization features are only in the Pro Addon of WP Speed of Light. And this is exactly what we do not like about the Plugin:
- Pro Addon of WP Speed of Light is paid, but has crucial features
- Only two supported languages – English and French
Seeing how essential some features are, which are only exclusive to WP Speed of Light Pro Addon, does not make us happy. At the same time, we understand that if you want custom Support, you have to pay for it.
Here are some related articles about WordPress Speed Optimization that we have previously written:
Light and Fast WordPress Theme – How to Test It?
WordPress Speed Optimization Plugins – How Do They Work