Using caching plugins, if also using Cloudflare?

  • Are there any advantages to using third party WordPress caching plugins, if we are already running WordPress behind CloudFlare and taking advantage of their caching accelerators?

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  • Hey OneTech IT,

    Yes, running a WordPress caching plugin alongside CloudFlare will definitely improve the performance of your setup.

    The caching plugin pre-generates your WordPress content, like posts and pages, as HTML files to make them quicker to access when visiting your site. If not, your server must generate those HTML pages each time your site is visited, which is slower than serving pre-generated HTML pages.

    CloudFlare stores and serves your site’s static content like CSS, JS, and images. It’s also possible for CloudFlare to store and serve the pre-generated HTML pages, which you can read about by clicking here.

    Just make sure to:

    • Only use one caching plugin, such as WP Super Cache. I’ve used W3 Total Cache too. It’s a bit more complicated to set up than WP Super Cache, but has more features and control over how your site is cached and optimized.
    • Set up CloudFlare with its Standard caching level
    • Use CloudFlare’s Auto Minify and Rocket Loader

    This setup seems to work best for the sites I’ve implemented it on. And the performance increase is definitely noticeable, both in web performance testing (using https://gtmetrix.com/, https://www.webpagetest.org/, https://tools.pingdom.com/, and https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/) and perceived performance (you’ll notice a site load quicker, especially if you visit the site a second time).

    Best,
    Niall

    Hi,

    If you use CloudFlare then you don’t need any plugin

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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