Pubudu Kodikara (SCJP) is a writer at Tech Hamlet. He has been blogging for many months and also he is a student who is doing the final level of BCS examinations.
Most of the web masters use caching to boost the speed 
of their sites. But its not easy to integrate a caching system in to your site. For a wordpress web master, things are a bit easier, because we have a lot of free plugins which will add the caching functionality to your blog with some few clicks. But, the hardest part is choosing the right plugin! And thats what we are going to do today!
We use server side caching to speed-up our site by providing a faster method to access the site to our visitors than the disk. We also use it to reduce the load of our servers. If your on a low resource server, you must use a cache plugin to speed things up. As I said earlier, for wordpress web masters, there are a lot of caching plugins available. But you need to choose them according to your needs! So, today, we are going to make things easier for you by comparing the top 5 cache plugins for wordpress :
1.) WP Super Cache
With about 1,172,500 downloads, this is the most widely used caching system in wordpress. WP Super Cache is easy to install, easy to use and also give you a good performance boost. It generates static HTML files from your dynamic blog.
“After a HTML file is generated your web server will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive Word Press PHP scripts. “
This plugin will also provide gzip compression. If your a new user with average needs, this would be the best choice for you.
2.) Hyper Cache
This is a simple plugin made to cache your blog. It also have gzip compression just like WP Super Cache and also have a different caching method than WP Super Cache.
Some of its features are :
compatible with the plugin wp-pda which enables a blog to be accessible from mobile devices
- manages (both) plain and gzip compressed pages
- auto clean system to reduce the disk usage
- 404 caching
- redirects caching
- easy to configure
- Global Translator compatibility
- Last Modified http header compatibility with 304 responses
- compressed storage to reduce the disk space usage
- agents, urls and cookies based rejection configurable
- easy to integrated with other plugins
This plugin is different from the others. This plugin will not cache your wordpress files. It will cache your database queries and will give you a considerable boost. Most of the plugins mentioned here does not have this feature. So, I think it will be great to have DB Cache Reloaded with another normal caching plugin to give more speed to your site!
4.) Quick Cache ( A WP Super Cache Alternative )
This plugin is built as an alternative to WP Super Cache. This plugin is much more easier than WP Super Cache and also have some useful features. But some times, this might cause problems because, still this is a new plugin!
5.) W3 Total Cache
If im right, this is the best cache plugin that we can use for a wordpress blog. But theres one thing, if your web server supports all the technologies used in this plugin, then you can get a big boost for your site. Don’t worry, it won’t give any errors if you don’t have some features on your host. W3 Total Cache have a lot of great features like :
- Page Cache
- Database Cache
- Minify your CSS and Javascript (Not included in other pugins)
- Combine your CSS and Javascript (Not included in other pugins)
- Compress the site
- Enables the easy use of CDN (Content Delivery Network) with your site. (Will greatly improve your speed and server load)
I think this is the most complete optimization plugin that we have for wordpress. Even big sites like Mashable have trusted this plugin on speeding up their site.
I think this list will surely help you to choose what you want. Whether you want a complete solution or a simple plugin, I think this list have all sorts of them. So, choose what you want now, and if you know about more great plugins, please feel free to share them with us!
Remember this post is written by Pubudu Kodikara. Don’t forget to thank him by commenting here!
Cole Stan
Vishal Gaba
Brian@SC Marketing
Vishnu
Deepak Gupta
I used to use WP Total Cache but my current theme does not work with it. Whenever I activate it, the whole sit ebreaks.
My bad luck
Netchunks´s Last blog ..17 Sites that Pays You to Blog
So sorry for that! That happens sometimes even with me! It mostly spoils the theme featured posts bar and all that.
CDN Along with any one of these plugins will work very fine…
tricks tips ´s Last blog ..20+ Killer Tips to increase comments of your blog or website
You’re right! CDN is an added advantage!
Great post Pubudu and coing upto here WP Super Cache was my favourite.
Pavan Somu´s Last blog ..Shorten URL with Suspicious Keywords
Even I use WP Super Cache. Its still the best I feel…
Thanks mate! And your right… Super Cache is the favorite of many bloggers
Including mine…
I am not using any cache plugin yet but I may use this list if I decide to cache my blog in future.
Caching helps reduce blog load time.
Number #5 seems cover all with CDN. I am using it and feel happy and Mashable is using it too.
Even I will use it in coming days!
Agree that WP super cache is good but W3 Total Cache has more features to tweak and if you are using CDN, yes, W3 is the best one. Vote for it!
I use WP Super Cache. I tried using the other one, well I found it difficult to configure it. So I prefer using the first one.
Can you suggest some good plugin to show thumbnail pictures on the home page of the blog along side the post excerpts.
You can use thumbnail for excerpts plugin.
Hey Pubudu,
Great plugins….!!
W3 Total cache is really awesome plugin..I’m using it on my blog also..!!
Thanks for sharing this great list…
Thanks,
Dev
I use WP Super Cache plugin and like it too! Well I now plan to use W3 Total Cache.
i tried WP Super cache, W3 & Hyper cache, they all great. Right now, im using hyper cache. Just need to ask something …
when i enable ‘compression’ it feels like everything goes faster BUT then my blog failed to load. any tips for newbies?
Your server might not be supporting compressed files and compression. I have used compression in the past and it didn’t cause any problems to my blog.
is it connected with ‘mod_rewrite’ thing?
I think your server or web host doesn’t support .gz files and ‘mod_rewrite’ can also be a reason for the problem. I recommend you to consult the plugin author (maker) or a professional as I have very less knowledge in coding field.
ok thanks. i’m off
That’s fine. If you need any more help, please reply me back. And also once your problem gets solved, please comment with the solution for me to know! Thanks from me..
I still hesitate to use that one. but for now I’m using Hyper Cache
That too is a good one. I liked it!
I think hypercache with database reloaded is the best plugins for cache solution for all blogs that hosted on any shared hosting services..
Pratish | Free´s Last blog ..Rajasthan University Result 2010
Yes I agree with Pratish. Unlike W3Total cache, Hyper cache supports most servers. W3Total cache have some problems on some servers.
JK@techtrickz´s Last blog ..Simple to use FTP Server for Android Smartphone for sharing files