Is WP Rocket the Most Powerful Caching Plugin? An Honest Wp Rocket Review Based on Real Performance Data

Are you looking for the best WordPress Cache plugin to speed up your website? Well, you’re in the right place. Because in this detailed WP rocket review shows you how you can use the WP Rocket WordPress plugin to reduce your website load time.

WP Rocket is a performance optimizer plugin for WordPress that helps make websites load fast with few clicks. It’s effortless to configure and not as complicated as other cache plugins.

We will also discuss the pros and cons of the WP rocket and see the features in this wp rocket review.

This plugin is suitable for all types of users:

If you have the budget to devote to your site, we advise you to opt for WP Rocket.

To make your website blazing fast, WP Rocket includes options that provide immediate benefits to your website. These options apply 83% of web performance best practices so that you will benefit from better loading times immediately.

Almost 40% of the users abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. That’s almost 40% of the revenue loss. I know no one wants a 40% revenue loss in their business.

Page speed is also a Google ranking factor. So, to rank higher on Google, you must need a high-speed website. And, if you want to improve your website loading speed, you need a cache plugin. A good WordPress cache plugin can make your site extremely fast.

The cache plugin creates a copy of static files of your website and stores them, and when a user comes into your website, it directly serves from the cache file before reaching the database, and that’s why websites load super fast. A cache plugin is essential for any WordPress website as it helps to reduce page load time.

Very Less Chance of Site Break: Wp Rocket Review

Almost all Free Cache plugins are infamous for causing errors or breaking the site.

Don’t believe me? Just go and check out the 1-star reviews of some popular cache plugins.

You’ll notice that most complaints are regarding some error or complete site break, but there is very little chance of any errors with the WP Rocket.

Even if you got any errors, you can always contact the support team and get their professional help. Unlike other cache plugins where support is virtually non-existent).

WP Rocket is not just a simple cache plugin. It is a speed booster loaded with all the possible features to speed up your website. Over 800,000 websites are using WP Rocket to optimize their sites.

In this WP rocket review, we will talk about features like:

When you install this plugin, this automatically detects and implements the optimization according to your website needs. Before installing the plugin, check your website loading speed to see the results.

You can see the image below about what we achieved on GTmetrix after using WP rocket on this website.

Still, you can enable more features and optimize your site according to your need in the WP Rocket settings. If you’re using Cloudflare or any CDN services, you can configure WP Rocket with Cloudflare in just one click.

And, You don’t have to install plugins for lazy load images or database cleanup, as you’ll get all of these features in WP Rocket. WP Rocket is also compatible with the WooCommerce plugin.

Google page speed insights lab data for mobile device, WP Rocket review:

WP Rocket includes many advanced features that improve your website performance beyond just Caching.

Google page speed insights lab data for desktop device, WP Rocket review:

Apart from just Caching, this plugin has additional features that can take your WordPress website performance to the next level.

47% of visitors expect to load your website in two seconds or less? Any longer and more than 40% of users will abandon the site.

To make it easier to see the differences, here’s a table summarizing the change before and after optimizing my test site with WP Rocket:

Before configuring it manually, you need to determine which options are good for your website. You also have a lookout if your site is broken while configuring it. We will cover all the aspects in this WP rocket review.

I will explain to you all the settings of WP Rocket, which will help you load your site faster. First, go to the dashboard of the WP Rocket plugin.

Here you’ll get all the settings on the sidebar. Let’s explore these settings one by one.

Cache Options:

Mobile Cache – Enable caching for mobile devices to make your website fast on mobile devices. You can also create separate cache files for mobile devices.

User Cache – Don’t enable the caching for logged-in WordPress users.

Cache lifespan – You can also specify the time for the cache to be cleared automatically. But, I would suggest you leave it at 10 hours and click on save changes.

Now let’s go to the second step, which is File optimization.

File Optimization:

File optimization is crucial, and you must be very careful while optimizing it, as it can also break your site. It helps to minify and combine HTML, CSS, and Javascript to reduce the size of the files and load faster.

Make Your Files Lighter

An optimal loading time also passes from the number of files uploaded to your website.

With WP Rocket, you can minify and combine your site's CSS and JS files, making them faster and lighter and reducing page size.

You can optimize CSS delivery and load JS deferred to eliminate render-blocking resources and improve load time. Besides, delaying loading JavaScript files until user interaction will reduce the initial load time.
There is no need to touch the code: it’s all done in one click.

Now move into the next setting, which is Media.

Media Optimization:

Most of the time, a site loads slowly because of images or videos. You must optimize your images and videos to load your website faster.

No other cache plugin gives a media optimization option, which is why I said earlier in the article, “It is not just a cache plugin. It is an overall speed booster.”

Media Files Loaded Only When Needed

WP Rocket includes a smart set of options to tweak the display of images and iframes on your site. With LazyLoad, you can defer the loading of images or iframes, leaving them ”off-screen” until they need them. 

Lazy-loading is a brilliant way of optimizing both perceived and real performance. It also saves the users bandwidth because they won’t have to download all your images.

If your site uses WebP images, WP Rocket can also create a separate cache file to serve those, if needed.

WP Rocket Review

• Lazyload for images, iframes, and videos – It will improve the loading time as the image will be loaded when the user scrolls down to the image point.
• Disable Emoji – Disable emojis to reduce the HTTP requests.
• Disable WordPress embeds – If you want to disable WordPress embeds, you can do it by ticking the marking on that box.

After you enable all the options now, click on save changes.

You’ll assume that your site will load much faster when you enable the media option.

Now let’s dive into the fourth option

Preload:

• Active preloading – You can enable preloading for better performance.
• Prefetch DNS requests – It will make external files load fast. You can skip this part as it is not that much important.

Let’s jump to the fifth option, which is Advance rules.

Advanced Rules:

• Never cache URL(s) – If you don’t want to create a cache for any particular page, just put the URL of that page here, and that particular page will be excluded from your cache file.
• Never Cache cookies – If you want to exclude any cookies from the cache, specify the Id of that cookies.
• Never cache user agent – You can also disable cache for a specific user agent.
• Always purge URL(s) – Put any specific URL you want to purge when updating any page or post on your website.
• Cache query strings – You can specify any query strings for caching. You can avoid this as it's not that much important.

Advanced rules are not that important, so you can skip this part if you don’t want to.

Database:

• Post cleanup – Cleanup your revisions, auto drafts, and trashed posts. But before clearing auto-draft, ensure you don’t have any important posts in the draft.
• Comment Cleanup – Clean up the spam and trashed comments on your site.
• Transients Cleanup – You can remove the temporary transients, but they will automatically generate again as your plugins require them.
• Optimize table – Optimize the tables in your database.
• Schedule automatic cleanup – You can schedule an automatic cleanup for your database. But, I would recommend you to do it manually.

CDN (Content delivery network):

• Enable content delivery network – If you’re using any content delivery network, enable the content delivery network and connect your CDN with WP Rocket.
• Exclude files from CDN – You can also exclude any file from CDN.

Heartbeat:

• Control heartbeat – If your admin dashboard is slowing, you can enable this option to make your admin panel faster.
• Reduce or disable heartbeat activity – You can reduce heartbeat frequency here. Avoid this setting if you don’t need this.

Built-in add-ons

Finally, the Add-ons tab houses several WP Rocket’s built-in integrations.

WP Rocket includes integrations for Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel that lets you host those tracking scripts locally with the click of a button:

WP Rocket also includes other built-in add-ons for:

For example, if you enable the Cloudflare integration, you’ll get a new Cloudflare area where you can connect your site to Cloudflare and control some basic settings from your WordPress dashboard. You’ll also be able to clear the Cloudflare cache:

You can also import and export settings from other plugins. So, now you’ve understood all the important WP Rocket settings and learned how to configure it with your website.

You don’t have to enable all the features. You need to enable the features which are important for your website.

Let’s talk about the Cost of WP Rocket.

WP Rocket has three types of licenses Single, plus, and Infinite.

If you run a web development company or create websites for clients, you can buy the infinity version for $249, which you can use on unlimited websites. Without buying a single license for each client, you can buy the infinity license, which will save you lots of money.

Plus, you’ll get 1 year of free support and updates with each license.

The prices of this plugin are quite reasonable if you are serious about your website loading speed. This plugin is far better than the free cache plugins out there.

If you don’t like the plugin after purchasing it, you’ll get a 100% refund within 14 days of purchasing. Trust me. It’s worth spending money to improve website speed.