Which Word Press Cache is the better

I am running about 120 autoblogs on WordPress platform on a dedicated fast server with plenty of RAM and fast processors but sometimes i found my sites does not load as fast as i want to.

I have tried many different solutions including but not limited to:

• Varnish
• Cloudflare
• WP Cache
• WP Super Cache
• W3 Total Cache
• Amazon S3 & Cloudfront
• and a few others which no longer excist or just total rubish.

I were until recently using mostly W3 Total cache, but found that you need to be a server or network rocket scientist to get the huge list of options just right. I also discovered a huge error log with most W3Total Cache Page cache errors.
I contacted there support and after about 3 weeks got a response that there is a bug :

Code:

In the PgCacheAdmin file: add 'require_once W3TC_INC_DIR . '/functions/url.php';'
Around linenumber 219, the line right below (or above) require_once .../functions/http.php

Well that fixed the problem but i was still not happy wth the load times of my sites, so i decided to ran a test using the current best cache options available. The following is how i conducted the test.

• I took 4 brand new domains, never used before. Changed the Nameservers on Godaddy at the same time.
• All 4 sites added to my server
• Each site on a different IP
• In Cpanel under : Optimize Website; I enabled on all 4 accounts : Compress all content
• I enabled Spam Assasin and set it to auto delete - changed from default level 5 to level 8
• Created one email account on each account
• Installed WordPress in the Root of each account

• I then left it for 12 hours so the DNS can propagate.
• Logged into each account and updated to latest WordPress 3.3.1
• I enabled on all Aksiment and deleted Hello Dolly Plugin.
• I changed the permlaink to the Post Name option.
• I kept only the default Twenty Eleven 1.2 theme and delete the other one.

On each of the 4 blogs i installed a different Cache option, as follow:

• NEWDELHI-MEGA.COM -- No Cache
• OSAKA-MEGA.COM -- Hyper Cache + DB Cache Reloaded Fix
• CHIANGMAIMEGATRAVEL.COM -- WP Super Cache
• NHATRANG-MEGA.COM -- W3 Total Cache

Hyper cache + DB Cache Reload Fix:
Here i just selected the default settings

WP Super Cache:
In initially installed it with cdn support enabled and another plugin called CDN Sync tool and hooked it up to my Amazon Cloudfront account, but i noticed that for some reason it is not loading the theme files but only the site minus the theme, so i uninstalled CDN sync tool and disabled the CDN option in Super Cache and continued the test from there onwards.

W3 Total Cache
The following options were selected:
Used Page cache ( Disk Enhanced )
Did not use Minify ( tried the auto option before but stopped as it was not helping)
Did not use DB cache as it ( Used it in the past but stoped as it was causing IO bottlenecks which overloaded the server )
Used Object Cache
Used Browser Cache
Used Amazon Cloudfront CDN
Used Varnish
Did not use cloudflare



After setting up all the cache's i pinged all 4 sites using http://www.pingfarm.com/
I then left it over night to get some traffic and hopefull get the cache to build up.

The testing phase
I used 4 different services to test the site load times, they were:

• tools.pingdom.com/fpt/
• websiteoptimization.com
• iwebtool.com
• webwait.com/ ( made 20 calls for each test )
• site-perf.com/

Below you can see the results of my 20 test
The Below are load times in seconds

As you can see from the above results the site with the fastest average load time after 20 test, is the site with Hyper Cache + DB Reload Fix installed.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a great cache option which require basically no additional configuration after installing and activating then the Hyper Cache + DB Reload Fix option is the best option. It provides you with a out of the box install and forget option.


I now will test the winning option further by adding a Image resizer such as wp-smushit and look at the possibility of using this with cloudfront cdn.



If you are a server Guru and know what you are doing then it might be worthwhile fine tuning W3 Total Cache as i think it hold great potential.
Personally i will no longer use W3TC as i am not a server Guru, but mostly because there support is very poor and they expect you to pay somthing like $100 to help you configure the plugin



WP Super cache has a good reputation and i know may people use it, but again many options to play with which also could mean many things which could be set wrong.
This came second in my test and i think with a bit of configuring the results could be better - so this would be my second choice.


Disclaimer:

I am no way affiliated with any of the above plugins, these test are done on my server using my accounts. The results might be different for you on your server and i am sure better results can be achieved wth some of these plugins mentioned here if you know what you are doing.

I just set up nginx + fpm-php and w3 total cache (apc caching), and the speed improvement is significant.

Certain W3tc settings are dependent on the webhosting provider to make sure opcode or memcached is installed. Nice work though royal mice , i think i will also switch to hypercache+db cache

i did some basic testing on w3 total cache over wp-super cache and it was a lot faster. The only drama is if you have managed server you need some decent interaction with your admin who is prepared to fine tune your server to get the most out of it. If you need something quick and simple super cache does ok

Originally Posted by Rogul

i did some basic testing on w3 total cache over wp-super cache and it was a lot faster. The only drama is if you have managed server you need some decent interaction with your admin who is prepared to fine tune your server to get the most out of it. If you need something quick and simple super cache does ok

The server could be super fine tuned, but if one of the 50 settings in W3TC are wrong it could actually slow down and create bottle necks.

It also proofs that W3TC is not user friendly, anyway not for 95% of domain owners.
Look at Hyper cache, install activate and there you have a full functional premium cache - no server tuning and no 50 plugin settings that needs to be configured.

AS I said in my initial post W3TC might be a kick ass cache tool but your average Blogger wont know how to set it to function optimal

-- edit did some tests Hypercache has some severe limitations
1) u need to manually edit wp-config.php it wont do it itself even if it has permission to
2) Updating the plugin requires you disable / upgrade / enable.. not particularly practical if you have a few hundred blogs

did find it around the same speed as wp super cache, but based on needing manual interventions i would stick with Super Cache