Note: Breeze is temporarily unavailable on the WordPress.org repository. We are working closely with the plugin review team to get it back online.
Cloudways launched its very own caching plugin Breeze in 2017. The idea was to offer an effective yet simple all-in-one caching solution to WordPress users. This plugin offers a great set of options that can be tweaked to achieve a very high level of website performance.
The innovation lies at the heart of everything we do here at Cloudways, and Breeze is no different. After hours and hours of hard work, thousands of lines of code, and a few hundred coffee cups, the Breeze team has improved the overall plugin performance and integrated better-performing and robust user-centric features.
We have released version 1.1.0 that has overhauled the WordPress Multisite support of the plugin allowing you to control settings on a subsite level. Also, we have upgraded the code of Breeze and it now supports PHP 7.3.
WordPress Multisite Support
Breeze users were asking about this feature for quite some time. Now Breeze supports WordPress Multisite where the subsite users can either let the network admin configure the caching for their site or set custom Breeze settings for their websites.
Let’s see this feature in action.
Go to your WordPress Multisite Dashboard → Installed Plugins → click on Network Activate.
Once the plugin is activated, configure browser caching and minification of CSS and JS files. These settings are applied across the sites on this Multisite Network.
Now, log in to one of the subsites to see what options you get as a subsite owner.
By default, the subsite is using the settings set by the network admin. However, with the new updates, subsite owners can opt to overwrite the Network Level Settings by selecting the second option of using custom settings for the subsite.
With the option to set custom subsite Breeze settings, the options are populated inside the plugin settings window. Here, you can define custom caching rules specific to this subsite. Note that these subsite level settings will replace the global Network level Breeze settings. Great right?
Note: Make sure that you hit the ‘Save’ button to apply changes. You can also verify this by checking the [ACTIVE] marker in front of your selection.
With custom settings in place, subsite level breeze operations can differ from the main Network Level Settings. For instance, you can apply CDN and varnish rules specific to a subsite which will have no impact on the Network or other subsites on the network. Similarily, Database operations like post revisions, and transients can also be managed at the subsite level.
Upgraded Code Base
The Breeze code base is upgraded to support PHP versions 5.6 to 7.3. The team ensured that the code follows the Codex guidelines. Deprecated functions (such as create_function()) are replaced with the current recommended versions. Additionally, wp_redirect is replaced with wp_safe_redirect, offering better security in URL redirection.
Nonce validation is another important security update. Nonce prevents unauthorized access to WordPress backend and modification based on URL parameters. This improvement is an important step toward our goal of making Breeze the most high-performing and secure cache plugin for the WordPress community.
Final Thoughts!
Caching optimizes WordPress site for performance that ultimately enhances the user experience. There are many caching plugins out there but configuring them is challenging especially for WordPress newbies. On the other hand, the Breeze caching plugin is not only effective but is easy-to-use and is now loaded with additional features and improvements.
Owais Alam
is the WordPress Community Manager at Cloudways - A Managed WooCommerce Hosting Platform and a seasoned PHP developer. He loves to develop all sorts of websites on WordPress and is in love with WooCommerce in particular. You can email him at [email protected]
