Here’s another post on the on-going series of “Ask the Readers”. This readers series is really doing well and I’m really happy with its success. This is the third post in the Ask the readers series.
Today’s question - Which Cache Plugin Should You Use? W3 Total Cache or Quick Cache or any other cache plugin.
The question came from Scott of VirtualMixEngineer.
I have a question regarding the cache. I have heard W3 Total is one of the best, but since I’m not totally competent at managing its features, Quick Cache is much simpler to handle. Do you feel one is better than the other regarding performance?
Personally I prefer to use W3 Total cache, as it has all the functions that a WordPress blog need to improve the caching and speed. I know, it may be hard to configure for some people (mainly, non-techie users), but still W3 Total Cache is best.
I think Quick Cache is good alternative, as it works out of the box and doesn’t need any extra configuration unlike W3 Total Cache.
Your Thoughts
Do you use either of these plugins on your WordPress site? Do you recommend a different caching solution? Comment below with your answer, and we’ll discuss as the comments come in. I’ll choose the most useful or interesting comment and credit the winner in the next “Ask the Readers” post when it goes up.
W3TC does take some figuring out. They do have paid support for those who might need it. Plus, it supports Amazon S3 and Cloudfront, which means you can create a CDN for your blog with just a few configuration tweaks.
I recently used WP Super Cache. But it is not much better than W3 Total Cache. Which one you recommend us?
Hi Devesh, on the recommendation of Hesham I’m using Hyper Cache. It is the best one that works well with Thesis and Hesham’s Awesome Blogskin that I have installed on Basic Blog Tips. I’ve had it for about 2 weeks and I see a big improvement.
Hi Devesh and Ileane,
I was on the lookout for a new caching plugin. W3TC totally crashed my Thesis design a while back. (I wrote a post on the experience.) It had been running fine but after making a small tweak to my design, it wiped out all of my settings. After rebuilding my design, I reverted to WP Super Cache. It works okay but if Hesham and Ilean like Hyper Cache, I’m switching too.
I use W3TC for all my sites, except for Multisite networks because it doesn’t support multisite yet. For multisite I use Quick Cache.
W3TC isn’t *that* difficult to figure out, and has got so many features that it can really grow with your site. And let’s face it, most of us don’t need XYZ obscure feature that one cache plugin has over the other (unless you have a blog like Techcrunch)
I wrote a tutorial on setting up W3TC for shared hosting too:
http://clickwp.com/wordpress-caching-w3-total-cache
Hi,
I tested many plugins and now I;m so happy with Hyper Cache+DB Cache Reloaded Fix. Maybe it’s the best choice for users who run their blog on a shared hosting platform.