WP Rocket Review: Features, Pros & Cons that you should know

WP Rocket Review

Slow WordPress sites are irritating, no matter how well-designed they are. The world has become super-fast & everyone wanted everything yesterday! Imagine having a great-looking website that’s intriguing & attractive but takes time to load.

We earn a commission when you buy through the links on this page. Affiliate disclosure.

Would your potential customer spend time on your website, waiting for it to load? I don’t think so!

In fact, excessive load time is why almost 60% of visitors bounce off from any website. To be precise, if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, you will lose many visitors.

So what’s the solution? Installing a caching plugin on your WordPress website can help trim a few milli-seconds of your loading time. This can deliver game-changing results by improving your SEO ranking & boosting Conversions.

WP Rocket boosts your WordPress website loading speed, helps you improve Google page speed and core web vitals score. More than 19 million websites are using it.

WP Rocket is one of the most popular WordPress Caching plugins that supposedly delivers excellent results. But does WP Rocket WordPress Plugin really works? Is it the best WordPress Caching plugin ever?

I will try to answer all your questions in this honest WP Rocket Review. I will take you through all the WP Rocket features, how to use WP Rocket to reduce the load time, WP Rocket’s pros & cons & WP Rocket pricing.

So, let’s get started.

Understanding WordPress Caching

You can jump to the next section if you know how WordPress Caching works. But if you have no idea about WordPress Caching and how it works.

Massive data exchange occurs whenever a visitor wants to access your website. This exchange occurs between the WordPress Database, WordPress software & your domain service provider server. This data exchange, in turn, generates a dynamic version of your website.

Now, this is a complex & time-consuming process. And that’s why your WordPress Site suffers from lazy loading. But if you reduce the time taken during the whole procedure, you enable caching.

When you enable caching, it generates a static version of your website. So the next time a visitor tries to access your website, it will see the static version, which will load fast. Using the best WordPress Caching plugin, you can easily speed up your site & improve your User Experience. 

What is WP Rocket & How it can speed up your site?

WP Rocket is one of the best WordPress Caching plugins out there. It helps speed up your website & reduce loading time by caching. Launched in 2013 to help sluggish websites load faster, it has revolutionized the WordPress website industry.

Its UI is clean; it’s easy to use & has been tried & tested by WordPress developers around the globe for almost a decade. Continuous updates & top-quality support has ensured WP Rocket offers a clear edge over its competitors.

That’s why almost 1 million websites use WP Rocket to speed up their site. In this detailed WP Rocket review, I will explain all its features, how it works, & WP Rocket pricing.

Now let’s understand how you can install & activate it.

How to install & Activate WP Rocket Plugin?

You will have to download the WP Rocket archive from their official site. To do so, go to My Account Dashboard & click on the “Download WP Rocket” button.

Once done, open your WordPress Dashboard, go to “Plugins”, click on “Add New”, & upload the archive file. After the file is uploaded, activate the WP Rocket plugin.

What are the best features of WP Rocket to speed up your website?

Features of WP Rocket
Features of WP Rocket

Cache Setting

As WP Rocket is a WordPress Caching plugin, this feature obviously sits on the top.

This tab has some of the most basic cache settings for your website.

Here you can choose whether to show the cached version of your website to a logged-in WordPress user. The default setting excludes logged-in WordPress users. This ensures you, as an admin, can view your uncached version.

WP Rocket - Cache - Basic cache options
WP Rocket – Cache – Basic cache options

You can also select whether you want to cache your website for mobile users. There is an option to offer a mobile-first cached version of a website. If your primary users utilize mobile devices to access your website, this feature can help you offer a unique User Experience.

Last but not least, you can select the Cache Lifespan. This is the period for which your visitor will see the cached version of your site before the version is cleared. If the content on your page is highly dynamic, you have to select Cache every 5 or 10 minutes.

But if your website’s content stays the same for longer, you can select to store the cache file permanently.

The higher your Cache Lifespan, the higher your website’s speed i.

File Optimization

Some or all of your files have unnecessary white space that impacts your website performance. With File optimization, you can eliminate these issues & it will certainly boost your website’s performance. This is where the real job starts.

Go to WP Admin> Setting>WP-rocket & click on the “File Optimization”.

In this section, you will see all the file formats used by your WordPress website. You can select the ones you want to combine or minify.

WP Rocket File Optimization - Optimize CSS and JS
WP Rocket File Optimization – Optimize CSS and JS

When you minify your files, it becomes considerably smaller & hence, they will take less time to load. This will speed up your site considerably.

The combining process merges all your similar file types & packs them in one. This ensures you do not have larger files on your website & it becomes feather-light.

Apart from this, you can do a bunch of other settings too:

  • Minify HTML.
  • Combine Google Fonts files.
  • Remove query strings from static resources. 
  • Minify CSS files.
  • Combine CSS files.
  • Optimize CSS delivery. 
  • Minify JavaScript files.
  • Combine JavaScript files. 
  • Load JavaScript deferred. 
  • Safe mode for jQuery.

These optimal settings will ensure that it will load fast the next time visitors land on your website.

  • Media Optimization

Media present on your website plays a vital role in the speed of your website. Optimizing your media can help boost your WordPress site. And the Lazy Load feature of WP Rocket can be of great help here.

When you activate Lazy Load, your site will load only the content visible on your screen without scrolling. Once you scroll down, it will start loading the content in that section. This will reduce the burden on your website when it’s loading for the first time after the user has clicked. In return, it boosts your website’s speed.

WP Rocket - Preload - Generate cache files and preload fonts.
WP Rocket – Preload – Generate cache files and preload fonts.

There is one more interesting tweak that you can do with WP Rocket for lower load times. If you use a lot of YouTube embedded videos, their thumbnails might take too much time to load & slow down your website. But with WP Rocket, you can replace the whole thumbnail with the static image.

Once you click that image, the embedded content will load.

Cache Preloading

This is rather an advanced & next-level optimization function. But it’s very useful& hence I will explain this feature in layman’s terms.

When you use the free cache plugin, your website’s content is loaded into the Cache only when a visitor visits your website. This means whoever visits your website after your cache lifespan has ended will encounter a sluggish site.

But WP Rocket takes the game a notch higher by “Pre-loading” the content into the Cache. This means that whenever you update the content on your website, it will be automatically updated into the Cache. So no matter when visitors access your website, they will always see the cached version, which will be faster.

Database Optimization

Your website’s database is the backbone of your website. This is where all the important files, data & settings are stored. But sometimes, it becomes too cluttered & can negatively impact your website’s performance.

WP Rocket - Database - Optimize, reduce bloat.
WP Rocket – Database – Optimize, reduce bloat.

With the Database optimization feature of WP Rocker, you can eliminate such clutter. For E.g. some posts sitting in the trash or spammy comments on your blog posts can be removed using WP Rocket. Such clean-up ensures your website performs optimally without slowing down.

You can also automate the regular clean-up with the interval of your choice, i.e. Daily, Weekly or Monthly.

Optimize Heartbeat

Heartbeat is an API used by all almost every WordPress website. This constantly communicates with the server via AJAX calls & maintains a sync between the server & your website. But this constant communication via Pulses & Trigger events impacts your website’s speed.

But with WP Rocket, you can optimize the frequency of this communication & thereby optimizing load speed.

CDN Integration

If global users access your website, you must use CDN (Content Delivery Network) for higher speed. CDN’s concept is simple. It stores your website’s static files at different servers across the globe.

When a user tries to access that network, the nearest server to the user will send them your static file. This will drastically reduce your website’s load time.

WP Rocket offers you two options:

  1. Either you can use their own RocketCDN
    • Or you can use any third-party CDN

If your website handles very high traffic, I would recommend using RocketCDN. It offers unlimited bandwidth @ just $7.99 per month.

WP Rocket - CDN - Ingetrate your CDN.
WP Rocket – CDN – Ingetrate your CDN.

These are the WP Rocket features that I liked the most. Apart from this, there are other features too. E.g. Built-in add-ons, Hosting Integration & advanced rules. All these features make WP Rocket a great cache plugin tool for WordPress websites.

Does WP Rocket work?

WP Rocket comes equipped with all the necessary features to boost your WordPress website. If you utilize its features efficiently, it works & you will see the result quickly.

What is WP Rocket’s pricing structure?

WP Pricing plans start at $49 per year. The “Plus” plan will set you back $99 per year & “Infinite” plan will cost you $249 per year.

Check out the complete WP Rocket pricing details.

WP Rocket Price
WP Rocket Price

What do I like the most about WP Rocket?

WP Rocket - Favourite features.
WP Rocket – Favourite features.

Here are some things that I liked the most about WP Rocket

  • It’s a powerful plugin that has been tried and tested for years
  • All the available tools deliver results
  • The user interface is clutter-free & Easy
  • A lot of minor settings can boost your WordPress website
  • Customer Support is excellent
  • Has Automatic Speed optimization feature
  • It has a static cache for both mobile & desktop
  • 14-day full refund if you are not satisfied with the plugin

What didn’t I like about WP Rocket?

There are very few things I disliked about WP Rocket:

  • It’s a paid plugin & does not offer a free version or even a free trial
  • Website owners with a relatively lower budget might find it expensive.

My Final Verdict on WP Rocket: Should you buy it?

WP Rocket is an excellent WordPress caching plugin if you want to speed up your site. Although it’s not free, it’s worth every penny. Some of you might argue that there are free caching plugins too. Let me address your concerns. These free plugins won’t offer the service WP Rocket offers.

So if you have a budget, don’t hesitate to add this plugin to your WordPress website. In my final verdict on WP Rocket, I’ll say it’s a great catch.

I hope you will find all answers about WP Rocket in this detailed WP Rocket Review. If you want to explore more such reviews, visit our tool reviews page.

FAQs

Is WP Rocket free?

No, WP Rocket is a paid WordPress Caching plugin.

Can WP Rocket speed up my website?

Yes, WP rocket can optimize your website’s performance by effective caching.

How is WP Rocket support?

WP Rocket offers excellent support and their team is always eager to help sort out the issues.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


Scroll to Top