Performance issues

  • Resolved agolovachev

    (@agolovachev)


    4 years, 5 months ago

    Hi Jeff,

    Appreciating your hard work, I seem to have performance issues with the plugin.

    Originally I used CF7 until I realised how much performance overhead reCaptcha3 adds (plus one SECOND of load time on my cheap shared hosting) so I started looking for alternatives.

    CF has some really nice features like storing messages in the database and Ajax submissions but using it gives 0.5s increase in page load time compared to the no-js SBCF plugin and adds about 18 extra requests as confirmed by Pingdom and GT tools.

    Again, the issue could be just by cheap hosting so I’ll try not to whinge too much ??

    Any ideas how this could be mitigated?

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Author Jeff Starr

    (@specialk)

    Hi @agolovachev,

    Glad to help.

    Apart from the Google reCaptcha scripts, CFX makes two requests (at most) on the frontend, for the following files:

    cookies.js - 4KB
frontend.js - 8KB

    So not sure where “18 extra requests” is coming from, certainly it is not CFX.

    For the Google reCaptcha scripts, that’s not something that any plugin has control over, as the service and scripts are provided wholesale by Google. So any/every contact form plugin that uses Google reCaptcha will require/call the same number of reCaptcha-related scripts.

    As for the performance measurements you mention, I’m guessing there are other factors involved slowing things down. CFX is super lightweight by design, I use it as the contact form on my own site, Perishable Press. You can measure and compare performance for that page and others, they all return relatively similar results.

    “Any ideas how this could be mitigated?”

    First I would look at all other variables that are contributing to the performance of your page(s). That includes things like other plugins, scripts, the theme, web hosting, server configuration, and other factors. Then for CFX’s part, there is a setting that you can enable to ensure that the CFX scripts are loaded only on the page that displays the contact form:

    CFX Advanced tab > “Targeted Loading”

    Other than that, there is not much that can be tweaked performance-wise, as the plugin already is as dialed in for optimal performance. It’s basically two scripts and some markup added to the page.

    I am open to any suggestions if you have them, or any questions, feedback, etc. Glad to help however possible.

    Thread Starter agolovachev

    (@agolovachev)

    Thank you very much for a compelling response!

    I’ve realized I could just compare the CF X vs SBCF http access reports by using the GTmetrix compare tool. So i did it.
    The culprit turned out to be Google Maps api which is quite heavy and slow. The paid WP theme that I’m using does not support defining map markers via coordinates so it stupidly does geocoding EACH TIME a page is loaded. Sadly, I’ve run out of support on that theme so I cannot make a feature request.

    Now, interesting thing is that enabling SBCF ‘JS-script free’ form in the middle of the page in question somehow prevents 18 geocoding requests from being sent. Which results (surprise!) in a much faster page – and a blank map which I did not notice as it is located within a modal window.

    Now, replacing SBCF with CF X somehow causes those geocoding requests to fire off which makes the page ‘slow’.

    Just out of curiosity, what do you think could cause this behaviour?

    Meanwhile I guess I will switch back to CF X and look for alternative map solutions….

    Plugin Author Jeff Starr

    (@specialk)

    Yeah that all makes sense then. Not sure about possible cause, would require some investigation, troubleshooting, etc. Let me know if I can provide any further infos about CFX, glad to help anytime.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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