Why I stopped using W3 Total Cache (WP Super Cache is Better)
Update: I am updating that, I am using W3 Total Cache again because they havefixed the issues in the latest plugin update. So I’m back to W3 Total Cache.
If you are looking forward to knowing why I stopped using W3 Total Cache because of switched WP super cache on Softstribe.com then you should read the rest of the article. In this article, you will see what w3 total cache intends to do in your WordPress installation to make it work faster.
Making WordPress site faster with w3 total cache is a joke in front of me now because w3 total cache does nothing but increase the server response time of your WordPress site. It also increases the resource usage of your WordPress site.
Logic of W3 Total Cache
On installation of W3 Total cache, it manipulates with your apache server’s .htaccess file and adds some code to make it faster using gzip and leverage browser cache logic.
That’s not something we can’t-do without a plugin then why bother installing w3 total cache. However, besides browser caching of w3 total cache, the minification option sucks as well. It completely ruins the site functionality sometimes the slider doesn’t work, sometimes the image popup functions and so on.
Why is WP Super Cache better?
Because WP super cache does enable caching and helps your site load in a considerable amount of duration. I just installed the WP super cache and enabled the basic caching option and set the caching parameters to cache on daily basis and I saw that my site’s TTFB (Time to first byte) was incredible loads in milliseconds (if you are curious about the time to first byte of your site then visit webpagetest.org).
WP super cache is really a site saver and website page speed booster. If you want to install caching on your WordPress site then I would definitely recommend you to go with wp super cache rather then w3 total cache.
I have also written some page speed that you might wanna check and I’m sure these articles will get you good page speed score on page speed testing sites.
- How to: Remove Query String URL From Static Resources in WordPress?
- How to: Enable HTTP Keep-Alive in WordPress?
- Top 3 Methods to Enable Gzip Compression in WordPress
- How to: Add Leverage Browser Caching in WordPress via .htaccess?
- How to: Add Expires Headers in WordPress using .htaccess?
- How to: Use CSS Sprites in WordPress Blog?
- Ultimate Guide to W3 Total Cache
- WP Super Cache: A Guide That You Really Need
- 10 Easy Steps to Setup CloudFlare CDN in WordPress
- Defer parsing of JavaScript in WordPress
Try out the above page speed tutorials and comment if you need any help.