WordPress Cache Plugin - Benchmarking Cache Enabler
KeyCDN released its free WordPress cache plugin, Cache Enabler, because we weren't happy with the current free caching plugins on the marketplace. We have been getting great feedback so far and a lot of you have been asking how Cache Enabler compares to third party caching plugins. Check out our performance benchmarks below that we ran against WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache. Our goal was to create a free caching plugin that is super easy to use and is blazing fast!
Test configurations
These tests were run with KeyCDN over HTTPS to take advantage of HTTP/2 performance on the CDN. The Cache Enabler plugin focuses around new HTTP/2 practices such as no domain sharding and no concatenation, taking full advantage of parallelism.
- Website Speed Test tool: Google PageSpeed Insights
- Tested from New York
- Used Google Chrome over unthrottled connection
We used a KeyCDN customer's WordPress website when running these tests.
1. Cache Enabler with WebP enabled
In this scenario we are testing both the speed of the Cache Enabler plugin but also with WebP images. We used three KeyCDN plugins in this test: CDN Enabler [Free], Cache Enabler [Free], and Optimus [Premium]. Optimus is used to convert the images to WebP.
Cache Enabler settings
We had the following enabled in the Cache Enabler settings:
- Create an additional cached version for WebP image support. Convert your images to WebP with Optimus.
- Cache Minification: HTML & Inline JS
You will not only benefit from WebP over Chrome right now, but according to W3Counter, Chrome holds over 65% of the browser market share.
| PageSpeed | Page load | Page size | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 96% | 0.8 s | 0.28 MB |
2. Cache Enabler without WebP enabled
We then ran the same tests but without WebP enabled. We realize some people might not want to purchase Optimus and are simply looking for a free lightweight caching plugin. If you have larger images on your site you will notice quite a big difference between WebP and without.
| PageSpeed | Page load | Page size | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 86% | 1.0 s | 0.97 MB |
3. WP Super Cache
We then disabled the CDN Enabler and Cache Enabler plugins and configured WP Super Cache for caching and deploying the CDN.
| PageSpeed | Page load | Page size | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 86% | 1.4 s | 0.98 MB |
4. W3 Total Cache
We then disabled the CDN Enabler and Cache Enabler plugins and configured W3 Total Cache for caching and deploying the CDN. We had minification enabled, disk caching, and object caching.
| PageSpeed | Page load | Page size | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 85% | 1.2 s | 0.97 MB |
WordPress cache plugin comparison
And finally we compared all of the speed tests. Cache Enabler won all tests. Also, this is with the version without WebP enabled. The WebP version saw even faster load times.
| # | Plugin | PageSpeed | Page load | Page size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cache Enabler + WebP | 96% | 0.8 s | 0.28 MB |
| 2 | Cache Enabler | 86% | 1.0 s | 0.97 MB |
| 3 | WP Super Cache | 86% | 1.4 s | 0.98 MB |
| 4 | W3 Total Cache | 85% | 1.2 s | 0.97 MB |
So the next time you are looking for a new caching plugin, we recommend giving Cache Enabler a try. It is lightweight, free, and can be setup within minutes. And if you take advantage of Google's WebP format you will be a step ahead of the competition.
KeyCDN's plugins have all been developed and fully tested to work together. You can still use them individually but together you will benefit from the most speed. Deploy your CDN in minutes with CDN Enabler, optimize your images with Optimus, and cache your WordPress site with Cache Enabler, while also deploying WebP images.
Have you used Cache Enabler yet? Or perhaps you have your own favorite WordPress cache plugin. If so, we would love to hear your thoughts below.