25 Best WordPress Performance Plugins in 2024

In 2024, WordPress is among the top CMS choices, mainly known for its user-friendliness, and for other obvious reasons. However, it can also be challenging at times. And among those challenges, plugins play a very important role.

WordPress plugins can make or break your site. So, we must choose performance-optimized plugins that are easy on your site and ramp its performance up.

But don’t worry—this blog uncovers a list of both free and premium plugins that will help you boost your site’s performance. So, let’s dig in.

Why Should You Use a WordPress Performance Plugin?

A performance plugin improves your site’s load times, helping it run smoothly even under heavy traffic. Here are some of the benefits that you get when using these plugins:

• They optimize images and file sizes at the best compression level to minimize load times.
• Performance plugins use faster content delivery networks (CDNs) to handle seasonal or unexpected traffic.
• These plugins implement efficient caching strategies for quicker access, reducing server load times.
• Performance plugins also help simplify your site’s code and manage server resources effectively, providing a fast user experience.

25 Best WordPress Performance Plugins (Free + Paid)

We have compiled a list of the industry’s Best WordPress performance plugins, both free and paid, based on their features, user reviews, and ratings. Also, the list focuses on how well they integrate with WordPress and its latest versions.

1. Breeze

Image Source: Cloudways.com

Breeze is considered among the best WordPress cache & performance plugins, and the numbers speak for this claim – as it has over 300,000 active installations and enjoys favorable reviews.

This performance plugin boosts your website’s speed by leveraging features like a file-level cache system, database cleanup, built-in support for Varnish, and more.

And if you are a Cloudways user, then you’re in luck. Why? Because it comes pre-integrated with the Varnish cache on all Cloudways accounts.

Not a Cloudways user? Don’t worry. Sign up on their platform today & enjoy a 3-day free trial, WITHOUT even entering your credit card details – so no risks there. 😉

Key Features

• Combines and minifies CSS/JS/HTML
• Optimizes your database
• Preloading & page caching
• GZIP compression
• Varnish and CDN support

Pricing

It’s absolutely FREE. Yes, you don’t have to pay a dime as it has no premium plans.

What Do Breeze Users Say?

Here’s what the users have to say about Breeze on WordPress.org.

Image Source: WordPress.org

2. RankMath

Image Source: rankmath.com

Struggling with improving your site’s SEO? You can use RankMath, a WordPress SEO plugin that uses AI to improve SEO, helping you get more traffic. It has more than 2 million installations and uses smart & automated features to put your site in the top SERPs.

Also, RankMath provides additional global SEO options since it’s integrated with page builders such as Eelementor SEO, Divi SEO, and Astra.

Key Features

• Simple setup wizard
• Rich snippets integrated
• Optimizes unlimited keywords
• AI assistance for content
• Analytics & Search Console integrated
• LSI keyword tool integrated
• Smart redirection
• Advanced link options

Pricing

RankMath provides both free and paid versions. The pricing plan starts at $6.99/month.

Image Source: rankmath.com

Rating & Reviews

RankMath is rated 4.9 out of 5 stars based on 6,665 Reviews on WordPress.org.

Image Source: wordpress.org

3. WP Smush

Image Source: wordpress.org

WP Smush is among the best image optimization plugins trusted by over 1 million users. It offers both basic and pro features. Using the WPMU DEV WordPress Smush API, this plugin saves several KBs by reducing the weight of every image loaded on your website.

Want to compress images in bulk? Use this plugin’s “Bulk Smush” feature to get the job done.

Key Features

• Resize/compress images
• Automatic image optimization
• Lossy/lossless compression
• Built-in lazy loading
• Convert to WebP
• Gutenberg Block Integrated
• Multisite compatible
• 123-point global CDN

Pricing

WP Smush offers both free and paid versions. The Pro version starts at $15/month.

Image Source: wpmudev.com

Rating & Reviews

WP Smush is rated 4.8 out of 5 stars based on 5,982 Reviews on WordPress.org.

Image Source: wordpress.org

4. W3 Total Cache

Image Source: boldgrid.com

Optimizing your site’s SEO, Core Web Vitals, and overall user experience results in better rankings & better performance scores. W3 Total Cache offers all of this and is trusted by over 1 million users.

This performance plugin allows you to customize all the parameters, from minimizing CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to loading some page parts asynchronously.

Also, it provides multiple cache settings options to cover every type of caching, such as page, database, browser, and more.

Key Features

• Delay scripts
• Gzip compression
• Lazy load Google Maps
• Eliminates render-blocking CSS
• Removes CSS/JS
• Purges Cache Logs
• WebP image conversions
• REST-API caching

Pricing

W3 Total Cache offers both free and premium versions. The pricing plan starts at $99/year.

Image Source: boldgrid.com

Rating & Reviews

W3 Total Cache is rated 4.4 out of 5 stars based on 5381 Reviews on WordPress.org. 

Image Source: wordpress.org

5. WP Fastest Cache

Image Source: wpfastestcache.com

Optimize Google PageSpeed score, Core Web Vitals, GTmetrix, and Pingdom score, which are favored by Google’s search algorithm and help you rank better with WP Fastest Cache. It is the fastest caching plugin trusted by over 1 million users.

This performance plugin offers many features in its free version, such as code minification, page and browser caching, etc., which is enough to enhance your site performance. However, if you are looking for additional benefits, you can always opt for the premium version.

Key Features

• Minify & combine Codes
• Minify (CSS, JS, HTML) Plus
• Google fonts async
• Database cleanup
• Preload cache
• GZIP compression
• Page caching
• Lazy load

Pricing

WP Fastest Cache offers both free and premium versions. The premium plans are a one-time fee for the lifetime and start at $49/lifetime.

Image Source: wpfastestcache.com

Rating & Reviews

WP Fastest Cache is rated 4.9 out of 5 stars based on 4,074 Reviews on WordPress.org.

Image Source: wordpress.org

6. LiteSpeed Cache

Image Source: litespeedtech.com

Worried about slow load times? Try Litespeed Cache, which is an all-in-one site acceleration plugin downloaded by over 5 million users. This plugin helps you reduce load times with automatic page-caching and optimization features like lazy load, image and browser cache, CDN support, and more.

This performance plugin has to be paired with the LT web server to fully utilize its caching benefits and features.

Key Features

• Automatic page caching
• WP-CLI commands
• Free QUIC.cloud CDN cache
• Minify, combine and optimize codes
• Heartbeat control
• Multiple crawlers
• Database cleaner and optimizer
• Defer/delay JS loading
• Multiple CDN support+

Pricing

LiteSpeed Cache plugin is entirely free and requires no charges.

Rating & Reviews

LiteSpeed Cache is rated 4.8 out of 5 stars based on 2,486 reviews on WordPress.org.

Image Source: wordpress.org

7. WP-Optimize

Image Source: getwpo.com

WP-Optimize is a powerful WordPress plugin trusted by over 1 million users to improve their site’s speed and SEO rankings. It’s designed to enhance your website’s performance through a combination of caching, image compression, database cleaning, and code minification.

Also, this performance plugin offers an additional feature for mobile sites that generates a separate cache for them.

Key Features

• One-click caching
• Convert and compress images
• Database cleaning and optimization
• Combine and minify codes
• Multisite support
• Flexible scheduling
• Delete unused and unwanted images
• Run from WP-CLI
• Lazy loads images and pages
• Optimization preview

Pricing

WP-Optimize provides both free and paid versions. The pricing starts at $49/year.

Image Source: getwpo.com

Rating & Reviews

WP-Optimize is rated 4.8 out of 5 stars based on 2,308 reviews on WordPress.org. 

Image Source: wordpress.org

8. EWWW Image Optimizer

Image Source:ewww.io

Image formats are also important aspects of your site’s load time. Use EWWW Image Optimizer, a performance plugin that boosts website speed by significantly resizing, compressing, and optimizing images automatically. Over 1 million users have trusted this image optimizer plugin for their site’s optimization.

However, you will have to opt for its premium version to access the majority of its features, such as PNG support and no file size limit.

Key Features

• Compress API
• Easy IO CDN
• Page caching
• Lazy loading
• Convert images to next-gen formats

Pricing

EWWW Image Optimizer offers both free and paid versions and pricing starts at $7/month.

Image Source:ewww.io

Rating & Reviews

EWWW Image Optimizer is rated 4.8 out of 5 based on 1,704 Reviews on WordPress.org.

Image Source: wordpress.org

9. Imagify

Image Source: imagify.io

Imagify is an image optimization plugin activated by 900k+ users to help them resize and compress images without losing quality. This plugin offers both free and premium features and lets you optimize images at the best compression level with its one-click and async bulk optimization feature.

Imagify also offers auto & bulk image optimization and compression features.

Key Features

• Convert images to WebP/AVIF and next-gen formats
• Async bulk optimization
• Optimize Images
• Resize and compress images

Pricing

Imagify provides both free and paid versions. The Pricing starts at $9.99/month.

Image Source: imagify.io

Rating & Reviews

Imagify is rated 4.3 out of 5 stars based on 1,462 Reviews on WordPress.org. 

Image Source: wordpress.org

10. Autoptimize

Image Source: autoptimize.com

Autoptimize is a go-to solution for over 1 million customers to improves page speed by optimizing images, CDN, critical CSS, JavaScript, HTML, and more! It is compatible up to version 6.2.1. This performance plugin makes optimizing your site easy and can improve WordPress’ performance even when your host has page caching already and when you use HTTP/2.

You can also complement Autoptimize with free page caching plugins like Speed Booster Pack or KeyCDN’s Cache Enabler.

Key Features

• Minify and cache scripts and styles
• Injects critical CSS
• Moves and defers scripts
• Lazy-loads images
• Optimizes google fonts
• Async non-aggregated JavaScript
• Extensive API

Pricing

Autoptimize offers both free and paid versions. The Pro starts at $11.99/month.

Image Source: autoptimize.com

Rating & Reviews

Autoptimize is rated 4.7 out of 5 stars based on 1,410 reviews on WordPress.org. 

Image Source: wordpress.org

11. Hummingbird

Image Source: wordpress.org

Identify what’s slowing down your website and fix it with a quick scan and one-click fix feature with Hummingbird. It is a performance plugin trusted by over 100k million users to cache and optimize their sites.

This performance plugin also includes uptime monitoring with all the other positives as well.

Key Features

• Scan and one-click fix
• Brotli/Gzip compression
• Minify CSS/JS/HTML
• Defer unused CSS
• Lazy loads of offscreen images
• Generate critical CSS
• Dealy JS and third-party scripts

Pricing

Hummingbird offers both free and premium versions. The pricing plan starts from $15/month.

Image Source: wpmudev.com

Rating & Reviews

Hummingbird is rated 4.7 out of 5 stars based on 1,466 Reviews on WordPress.org.

Image Source: wordpress.org

12. WP Super Cache

Image Source: wordpress.org

WP Super Cache is a popular free performance plugin trusted by over one million users. It improves your website’s load time primarily by creating static HTML files from its contents (articles and pages) and exponentially reducing the use of server-side resources.

This performance plugin is simple and easy to use, even for novice users.

Key Features

• Simple caching
• Gzip compression
• CDN support
• Garbage collection
• Preloading
• REST API caching

Pricing

WP Super Cache is a complete free-of-cost performance plugin.

Rating & Reviews

WP Super Cache is rated 4.3 out of 5 stars based on 1,333 Reviews on WordPress.org. 

Image Source: wordpress.org

13. WebP Converter For Media

Image Source: wordpress.org

Standard image sizes and formats (JPEG, PNG) can lead to slow load times. With WebP Converter For Media, you can replace and optimize files from their standard formats to WebP and AVIF formats (Preferred), making your page lighter and load faster without much effort. It is a free and premium image optimizer plugin with over 400k active installations.

The whole process is simple and even converts the new images automatically without having to perform any additional steps.

Key Features

• WebP convert
• Image compression and conversion
• AVIF support
• Replace and resize images
• One-click optimization
• Modern browser support

Pricing

WebP Converter For Media offers both free and paid versions. The Pro starts at $5/month.

Image Source: mattplugins.com

Rating & Reviews

WebP Converter For Media is rated 4.9 out of 5 stars based on 947 Reviews on WordPress.org.

Image Source: wordpress.org

14. ShortPixel Image Optimizer

Image Source: shortpixel.com

Resize, rescale and optimize your images with ShortPixel Image Optimizer without losing quality for optimal website performance. It is an easy-to-use plugin installed by 300k+ active users that helps their site stay optimized and improve search engine rankings. And is compatible with WP Retina 2x, WP Offload Media, WPML and its media plugins.

This performance plugin helps you test each type of compression, such as lossy or lossless, to identify what works best for you.

Key Features

• Optimizes images and PDFs
• Lossy/Glossy/Lossless algorithms
• HEIC file support
• Convert any
• Background mode
• Automatic scan
• Full WP-CLI support
• Convert images to next-gen formats

Pricing

ShortPixel Image Optimizer has both free and paid versions. The pricing starts at $9.99/month.

Image Source: shortpixel.com

Rating & Reviews

Shortpixel Image Optimizer is rated 4.5 out of 5 stars based on 758 Reviews on WordPress.org.

Image Source: wordpress.org

15. SiteGround Optimizer

Image Source: world.siteground.com

SiteGround Optimizer is an easy-to-use, free performance plugin with more than one million users that improves overall user experience and SEO rankings. This performance plugin easily eliminates all the complexities of speed optimization, code minification, image optimization, and compression with a few clicks.

SiteGround Optimizer now has new automatic optimization features for front-end and images.

Key Features

• Dynamic caching
• Memcached
• Database maintenance
• Frontend optimizations
• Media optimization
• Speed Test

Pricing

SiteGround Optimizer is entirely free.

Rating & Reviews

SiteGround Optimizer is rated 4.3 out of 5 stars based on 589 Reviews on WordPress.org. 

Image Source: wordpress.org

16. Image Optimization by Optimole

Image Source: wordpress.org

Image Optimizer by Optimole is a performance optimization plugin installed by over 200k+ active users. This performance plugin is primarily automated and full of advanced features to clean and optimize your images in a one-click setup.

Optimole also optimizes images based on visitors’ devices instantly and scales accordingly.

Key Features

• WebP image conversions and optimization
• Smart cropping using AI
• CDN support
• Lazy load without jQuery
• Device-based optimization
• Cloud library support
• Upload multiple file types

Pricing

Image Optimizer by Optimole offers both free and pro versions. The Pro starts from $19.08/month.

Image Source: optimole.com

Rating & Reviews

Image Optimizer by Optimole is rated 4.7 out of 5 stars based on 588 Reviews on WordPress.org. 

Image Source: wordpress.org

17. Jetpack Boost

Image Source: jetpack.com

Improve your site’s ranking, core web vitals, and overall load times with Jetpack Boost, a performance plugin with various optimization features. It has over 300k+ active users and also measures and improves your LCP/FCP.

This performance plugin automatically generates critical CSS for your site every time it gets an update.

Key Features

• Optimize and generate critical CSS
• Reduce image sizes
• Historical site performance chart
• Additional image quality control
• Page caching
• Site performance scores
• One-click optimization
• Defer non-essential JavaScript
• Optimize CSS loading

Pricing

Jetpack Boost offers both free and paid versions. The pricing starts at $19.95/month.

Image Source: jetpack.com

Rating & Reviews

Jetpack Boost is rated 4.7 out of 5 stars based on 494 Reviews on WordPress.org. 

Image Source: wordpress.org

18. WP Performance Score Booster

Image Source: wordpress.org

Boost your website speed and performance score on popular testing tools like GTmetrix, Pingdom, YSlow, and PageSpeed Insights using WP Performance Score Booster. This performance plugin is trusted by over 20,000 users and is completely FREE.

WP Performance Score Booster is pretty much about removing any query strings from files and leveraging browser caching.

Key Features

• Enable GZIP compression
• Leverage browser caching
• Disable ETag
• Preloading
• Remove any query strings

Pricing

WP Performance Score Booster is a completely free plugin.

Rating & Reviews

WP Performance Score Booster is rated 4.6 out of 5 stars based on 336 Reviews on WordPress.org.

Image Source: wordpress.org

19. Nitropack

Image Source: nitropack.io

NitroPack is one of the most useful WordPress performance plugins for comprehensive site optimization. This trusted performance plugin has over 100,000 active installations and is compatible with the most popular WordPress plugins and themes, such as WooCommerce, Elementor, and Astra.

Nitropack also optimates Core Web Vitals, boosting performance without coding complexities.

Key Features

• Advanced caching
• Automatic Image optimization
• HTML, CSS, and JS minification & compression
• Integrated global CDN
• Lazy loading for images and iframes
• Font optimization options
• You can customize cache strategies based on user devices and cookies

Pricing

NitroPack provides both free and premium versions. The pricing starts at $17.50/month.

Image Source: nitropack.io

Rating & Reviews

NitroPack is rated 4.3 out of 5 stars based on 302 reviews on WordPress.org.

Image Source: wordpress.org

20. LazyLoad by WP Rocket

Image Source: wordpress.org

LazyLoad by WP Rocket is the best free performance plugin with 100,000+ active installations. It helps users optimize the lazy loading of images without any additional options. This performance plugin loads image thumbnails and video iframes to speed up the page speed.

Also, its script is lightweight and does not use any jQuery.

Key Features

• Reduce HTTPs requests
• No JavaScript library
• Replace Youtube iframes
• Reduced server and CDN costs
• Reduced browser work
• Better mobile responsiveness

Pricing

LazyLoad by WP Rocket is entirely free.

Rating & Reviews

LazyLoad by WP Rocket is rated 4.2 out of 5 stars based on 138 Reviews on WordPress.org.  

Image Source: wordpress.org

21. Cache Enabler

Image Source: wordpress.org

Cache Enabler is a simple caching plugin that requires minimal configuration to improve website performance by creating and serving static HTML files. This process bypasses the resource-intensive tasks of generating content on the fly, leading to faster load times.

This performance plugin is simple and lightweight and focuses mainly on page caching.

Key Features

• Automatic cache engine
• WebP support
• WP-CLI support
• Minification of CSS/JS/HTML
• Brotli and Gzip compression

Pricing

Cache Enabler is a completely free plugin.

Rating & Reviews

Cache Enabler is rated 4.4 out of 5 stars based on 129 Reviews on WordPress.org. 

Image Source: wordpress.org

22. Swift Performance

Image Source: swiftperformance.io

Swift Performance is an all-in-one performance plugin with free and premium features. This performance plugin is trusted by 10k+ active users and is designed to improve your website’s load times with its modern caching system.

Swift Performance has also introduced its AI version, which includes all the advanced features but is all configured by AI.

Key Features

• Page caching
• Combine and minify CSS/JS/HTML
• Database optimization
• Compute API
• Critical icon fonts
• Lazy loading
• Unlimited image optimizer
• Extended wWooCommerce features

Pricing

Swift Performance offers three versions: free, premium, and AI. The price starts at $49.99.

Image Source: swiftperformance.io

Rating & Reviews

Swift Performance is rated 3.6 out of 5 stars based on 123 Reviews on WordPress.org.

Image Source: wordpress.org

23. Comet Cache

Image Source: wordpress.org

Comet Cache is a free and premium caching plugin installed by 30k+ active users. This plugin is specially designed to accelerate your site’s speed in a simple and reliable way by creating static HTML files for your pages.

Comet cache has the most straightforward setup process and is compatible with WP-CLI.

Key Features

• Simple configuration
• Automatic and intelligent cache clearing
• Import/Export functionality
• HTML compressor
• CDN support
• Apache optimizations
• Client-side caching
• GZIP compression

Pricing

Comet Coche has both free and paid versions. All pricing plans are a one-time fee for the lifetime and start at $39/lifetime.

Image Source: cometcache.com

Rating & Reviews

Comet Cache is rated 4.4 out of 5 stars based on 108 Reviews on WordPress.org. 

Image Source: wordpress.org

24. RapidLoad

Image Source: rapidload,io

RapidLoad is a premium WordPress performance plugin actively used by more than 1,000 users. It optimizes elements like images and CSS/JS to make your site lighter and improve page speed by removing unused CSS.

This performance plugin audits your site’s performance and provides a solution with its feature “Titan Optimizer.”

Key Features

• Easy installations
• RapidLoad CDN
• Titan optimizer
• Serve next-gen images
• Lazy load images/iframes
• Page caching
• Image delivery
• Minify CSS/JS/HTML

Pricing

RapidLoad offers only the premium version, and its pricing starts at $10/month.

Image Source: rapidload,io

Rating & Reviews

RapidLoad is rated 4.1 out of 5 stars based on 62 Reviews on WordPress.org.

Image Source: wordpress.org

25. WP Super Minify

Image Source: wordpress.org

WP Super Minify is a WordPress plugin trusted by 10000 users to enhance your website’s speed and performance by minifying and optimizing CSS, JS, and HTML.

This performance plugin also lets you compress files at a suitable level and disable the option if needed.

Key Features

• Minify and combine CSS/JS/HTML
• Caching
• Source of HTML/JS/CSS compressed

Pricing

• WP Super Minify is an entirely free plugin.

Rating & Reviews

• WP Super Minify is rated 3.9 out of 5 stars based on 54 Reviews on WordPress.org. 

Image Source: wordpress.org

Conclusion

Finding the right performance plugin for your WordPress site is no more a hassle. In this guide, we have covered almost every type of wordpress performance plugin, from images to code optimization to help you boost your site’s load times.

Each plugin’s features, pricing model and ratings are also mentioned to help you choose what’s best for you.