A 1-sec delay in your site’s speed can drop your conversions by 7%. That’s not us saying. A report by Akamai backs this up. So, ignoring your site’s load time isn’t very smart, especially today, when users don’t take time to bounce to a faster site.
Our Cloud Bootcamp was focused on exactly that. Hence, the theme: every second counts.
With 1,270 attendees, and an average watch time of 130 minutes, people didn’t just join the event. They stayed and learned practical, actionable strategies for solving their performance issues.
And with our diverse panel of guest speakers from Cloudflare, Varnish, WP Rocket, GTmetrix, EWWW Image Optimizer, ShortPixel, and EqualizeDigital in the room, attendees weren’t short of expertise.
Missed the event? No worries. Read on to learn what the event captured and learn the experiment of an attendee who boosted their site’s performance from 51% to 96% in 5 days.
What Made This Bootcamp a Success?
It wasn’t your typical boring session with a speaker reading aloud the best practices. It was an interactive set of 13 sessions spread across 2 days, featuring 20 speakers.
There were live site teardowns. Real server configurations shown on screen. Queries answered in real time. The focus wasn’t on rhetorical statements but actual fixes and real results. Over 1,145 questions were asked and answered on the spot. The audience didn’t just watch. They worked.
And the real proof isn’t in the attendee numbers or the questions asked. It’s in what people did after and how they ran with those learnings.
One Attendee. Five Days. A Completely Different Site.
Joshua, one of the event attendees, is primarily a musician and runs his own recording studio. He wasn’t just seeking to improve his site’s performance but was trying to cut the hosting costs as well.
As he was winding down his client’s web work, he ran an experiment on an AWS Micro Server that Cloudways explicitly warns against. And the result was multiple crashes.
Based on his learnings from the Cloud Bootcamp, he saw exponential changes in JUST 5 days. Here’s what he did.
Day 1: He enabled the WordPress Cron Optimizer and ran a baseline to measure the point where he was starting from.
Day 2: Two things happened. He activated the Breeze plugin after clearing the server cache and CSS cache in Elegant Themes Divi. Then he set up Breeze AutoOptimize, Varnish, and Redis following Cloudways’ own instructions.
Day 3: Redis had disconnected from the application even though Varnish was running on the server. He reactivated Redis to get everything properly connected.
Day 4: Then, he implemented Smush Pro by wpmuDev for Next-Gen WebP image optimization. The reason why he chose this over the paid image compression options covered in the bootcamp is because he already subscribed to wpmuDev, a practical cost decision worth mentioning.
Day 5: Two big moves. He cloned the AWS Micro Server to a DigitalOcean BASIC server with 2 CPUs and 4GB RAM, bringing his monthly cost down from ~$65 to ~$40. Then added Cloudflare Free on the same day.
And here’s the before/after snapshot of his experiments.
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | 51% | 96% |
| FCP | 0.8s | 0.3s |
| LCP | 1.7s | 0.7s |
| TBT | 1.9s | 0.060s |
| Speed Index | 3.8s | 0.7s |
| Monthly Hosting Cost | ~$65 | ~$40 |
And in Joshua’s words on the Bootcamp: “The content was priceless.”
What we can learn from Joshua’s success is that performance gains don’t come from expensive tools. They come from CORRECTLY applying what’s already available.
And if a self-described beginner with intermediate server skills can hit 96% on performance scores, it’s proof of what structured, guided learning can unlock.
20 Speakers. One Mission. Faster Sites.
The best of the best were there. From WordPress core contributors to agency owners to ecosystem engineers, everyone brought their unique insights on reducing site load times. Here are the speakers who took the stage:
- Sabrina Zeidan – WP Performance Expert
- Miriam Schwab – Head of WordPress (Elementor)
- Amber Hinds – Founder & CEO (Equalize Digital)
- Thijs Feryn – Technical Evangelist (Varnish Software)
- Than Oo – Sr. Manager, Solutions Engineering (Cloudflare)
- Trever Jackson – Sr. Systems Engineer (Cloudflare)
- Matt Medeiros – WP Community Evangelist (Gravity)
- Marko Nikolic – Happiness Rocketeer (WP Rocket)
- Varun Raman – Customer Support & Content Lead (GTmetrix)
- Shane Bishop – Founder (EWWW Image Optimizer)
- Georgi Petrov – Founder & CEO (Uxify)
- Igor Mateski – Founder & CEO (WebMax Formance)
- Nat Miletic – Founder at Clio Websites (Clio)
- Adrian Rus – Technical Product Manager (ShortPixel)
- Roi Tal – Product Marketing Manager (Elementor)
- Jeremiah Broadway – Performance Expert
- Adam Silverstein – Owner at Round Earth
- Joshua Clare-Flagg – PageSpeed and Core Web Vitals Consultant
- Danish Hameed – Senior Director, Engineering (Cloudways)
- Matt Zeunert – Founder (DebugBear)
Missed The Event? Find All the Videos Here.
The session videos below cover the full spectrum of everything that was taught across both days.
Pick the one most relevant to your problem, or watch them all. Either way, every second you spend here is a second you’re saving on your site’s load time. Here’s what’s inside the playlist:
Session #1: The State of Web Performance in 2026 by Sabrina Zeidan (WP Performance Expert)
Session#2: How Accessibility Failures Drive Down Your Core Web Vitals by Amber Hinds (Founder & CEO, Equalize Digital)
Session#3: The 30 Minute Website Performance Makeover by Shane Bishop (Creator & Developer, EWWW Image Optimizer)
Session#4: Why Good Enough Performance Is No Longer Enough by Georgi Petrov (Co-founder, Uxify | Formerly NitroPack)
Session#5: Fixing 80% of WordPress Performance Issues in Under an Hour by Marko Nikolić (Performance Expert, WP Rocket / WP Media Team)
Session#6: How to Improve Core Web Vitals with Varnish by Thijs Feryn (Technical Evangelist, Varnish Software)
Session#7: How to Fix a Slow Site in Real Time | Live Performance Teardown by Nat Miletic (Founder, Clio Websites) and Matt Zeunert (Founder, DebugBear)
Session#8: Using AI to Debug Performance Issues Faster (Without Replacing Your Expertise) by Adam Silverstein (Owner at Round Earth)
Session#9: How Performance Impacts Sales, Leads and LTV by Adrian Rus (Technical Product Manager, ShortPixel) and Igor Mateski (Founder, WebMaxFormance)
Session#10: Optimizing WordPress with the Right Data Lab and Field Metrics by Varun Raman (Customer Support & Content Lead, GTmetrix)
Session#11: How a CDN Makes You Local Everywhere | A Global Website Hack by Than Oo (Senior Manager, Solutions Engineering, Cloudflare) and Trevor Jackson (Senior Systems Engineer, Cloudflare)
Session#12: Inside the Cloudways Lightning Stack and How It Delivers Real World Performance by Danish Hameed (Senior Director & Engineer, Cloudways)
Session#13: How to Keep Feature Rich WordPress Sites Under 2 Seconds by Miriam Schwab (Head of WordPress, Elementor), Roi Tal (Product Marketing Manager, Elementor), and Matt Medeiros (WP Community Evangelist, Gravity Forms)
And here’s the full playlist:
The speakers have done their part. What happens next is up to you.
Joshua went from 51% to 96% in five days, not due to better tools, but from finally learning how to use them. The same knowledge is now yours.
Ready to See Your Own “Before & After”?
You’ve watched the experts. You’ve seen the 51% to 96% jump. Now, it’s your turn. Join 100,000+ agencies and businesses who chose speed without the complexity
Sarim Javaid
Sarim Javaid is a Sr. Content Marketing Manager at Cloudways, where his role involves shaping compelling narratives and strategic content. Skilled at crafting cohesive stories from a flurry of ideas, Sarim's writing is driven by curiosity and a deep fascination with Google's evolving algorithms. Beyond the professional sphere, he's a music and art admirer and an overly-excited person.
