DAMN!!!! DAMN DAMN DAMN! I feel embarrassed to say this but gotta give credit where it’s due: SWIFT PERFORMANCE LITE PLUGIN is the motherf**ken magic wand of the WordPress speed-up universe!
I’m embarrassed because I’ve made it my personal mission to stay on the cutting edge of WordPress speed-related optimizations/development and for whatever reason have not yet gotten around to this one. I’ve been talking up other plugins while not fully aware of this monster lurking in the shadows.
On to the review:
- basically, I’ve tried a ton already. All the big names and even many of the smaller names. If you really really have to know (W3TC, Super Cache, Fastest Cache, Hyper Cache, Simple Cache, Comet Cache, FOCUS Cache, etc.) and also a million other non-cache related plugins that minify/combine/concatenate/defer/re-organize asset delivery.
I initially installed Swift Performance Lite on my shared hosting server and then stopped setting it up because it wanted my email address (to spam me, of course!). I made a complaint on a FB group and the owner (god bless him) assured me the emails were few and far between and that the free plugin was definitely worth giving up my email.
Anyway, staying true to my personal mission I gave it a shot this morning and just have to say how blown away I am. I tried it on a SiteGround server and it beats the crap out of the silly SG Optimizer. In case you’re wondering, it took about 2 minutes to set up. We’re talking DNS-level speed using only code/server-level resources. On first impression without having to tune anything, it blows away what I could manage with other plugins requiring such precise tuning.
I don’t have screenshots and numbers but I do have words:
- Website with SiteGround’s inhouse SG Optimizer plugin: a little faster than without. 200ms difference in pingdom tests but to the eye, you wonder if there was any improvement. The annoying thing is that the page loads are still a little “sticky” so it feels like it slows down before it speeds up…if you get what I mean.
- Website with MAGICAL WAND “Swift Performance Lite”: it was so damn fast, I started laughing. We’re talking instantaneous. Like every f**ken click was instant like my site was loading locally.
- UPDATE 4/16/18 – I’ve tested on 3 servers Apache/LiteSpeed/Nginx, and Swift wins no matter what! (compare the numbers)
There were three small [neglible] issues:
- I saw a very rapid FOUT that was annoying but went away after disabling another plugin “WP Disable”. (Lesson to everyone, don’t combine speed/optimization plugins. Swift can handle it all!)
- On a WooCommerce store, the styles broke. All I did was disable the JS-related features and it was perfect again, and also so shockingly fast. For anyone else having issues, make sure you disable “Merge Scripts” and “Merge Styles” if something is breaking on your site.
- Another thing is that it doesn’t seem to decrease your test scores. So while it feels blazing fast to the eye, your pingdom scores might stay the same or even be a little higher compared to other cache plugins.
Anyway guys, give it a try. Take it from me, I’ve tried everything. This thing is the real deal and worth giving away your email, address, phone number, social security, bank account. This thing will get you a speed ticket in space. It should be a crime to load this fast!
- Swift Performance Lite – incredibly powerful free version used in this review
- Swift Performance – the paid version with all the features
- Swift Performance WordPress Cache Plugin – UNOFFICIAL GUIDE – copy my default configuration for Swift.
- Best WordPress Cache Plugins Review – my exhaustive cache plugin comparison guide. Over 40 cache plugins reviewed!
Swift Reviews from other users below…
It’s really helpful post. I was facing issue in the WordPress optimization and i used this. So, now there is no issue anymore. (y)
Awesome, Anjum! So glad this helped you.
Hey Johnny, firstly – brilliant, excellent & informative site – thanks heaps.
Quick question re SiteGround. I’ve been using their caching plugin & WP Rocket (as they apparently work well together).
Would your recommendation be to just use Swift instead of SG Optimizer & WP Rocket?
Do I not need to use their plugin (SiteGround’s) to take advantage of their dynamic cache etc (in cPanel)?
I’m running a Cloud VPS, & have tried swapping SG/Rocket for Swift on one site & definitely have registered an improvement, but I just want to make sure that just using Swift will still take advantage of SiteGround’s set up. I’m pretty sure that’s the case, but I’m no expert so would love to hear your professional opinion.
Thanks again,
Jason
Hi Jason,
I highly recommend Swift Lite (yes, the free one) over SG/Rocket on even SiteGround servers. If it’s performing faster for you, then it’s definitely “taking advantage of their set up”. I can look at the site if you’d like as well.
I used Swift Performance Lite and went to their paid version after an already great score (got 100/100 now). Swift Performance plugin outperforms WP Rocket on every level. Worth to mention: The paid version intergrates and optimizes Google Analytics and has a really good image optimizer build in. Making different/seperate plugins for this absolete. After all the less plugins the better. This plugin deserves so much more installations. According to me Swift Performance is the new standard. Finally! Spread the word!
I’m right with you, Frank. It’s incredible Swift isn’t more popular. Granted, it’s still a bit less user-friendly than some of the established plugins on the market but they are definitely the fastest (top 2) for me and yes, better than WP Rocket. I can’t wait to see their new UI redesign in the works.
Oh really. Do they have a new design upcoming? How do you know? I’d like to get more info on that.
I’m in good contact with them. 😉
FB group and other blogger suggested this plugin, I tried many times, but it breaks the theme often, tried disabling scripts, style, Cloudflare, but no way. So uninstalled.
I reckon I can fix the issue if you can get me admin access.
Hi
I have a LiteSpeed web server and I do use LiteSpeedCache WordPress pluginand it’s very very fast.
Is Swift Performance Lite better?
Thanks
Oupss! I read your tests, and It seems that a LiteSpeed server + Litespeed cache plugin is also good 😉
I’m French and I do not understaf what you call the “stickiness”?
Thanks again
The “stickiness” is what I refer to when it seems like the page is frozen for a split-second and then loads everything instantly.
Yes, LiteSpeed cache is beautifully fast. I highly recommend it if you have tons of traffic or more than 3k pages.
Just noticed that Swift Performance Lite is caching all emails sent via SMTP Post plugin. I don’t see a way to exclude it. Really odd.
Have you tried excluding them in the post types?
Swift Performance is now my No 1 cache plugin. Beside speed…What I like most about this plugin is the lazyload image blurry placeholder. It looks professional!
Hehe. Awesome! I’m glad you like it. I never use lazyload but I do like when they allow a placeholder so things don’t jump all over the place.
Hi WP Johnny, I got started with Swift Performance because of you and I wanted to let you know their company SWTE Group, Ltd. is trending with very unhappy consumer reviews due to their unethical billing practices.
If you look at wordpress.org reviews, you’ll see many accounts of scammed customers. I canceled my subscription the day of my renewal and they charged me anyway and responded with a scripted rebuttal to refused to refund me regardless of my account status.
I never would have worked with them had I’d known they were one of those companies ok treating their customers this way. I am very disappointed.
I am VERY sorry to hear this. Did you make a complaint on the Swift Performance Facebook group?
Hi Johnny,
I started using Swift performance and they asked me to install some plugins, so I installed them and my site was fast but my site break up after some days. Later on I disabled all the plugins and used Nitropark but I’m not happy with them. So I used most of the plugins but no improvement. I now go back to Swift performance but now it doesn’t prompt me to install the plugins and I don’t even know them but I configure the Swift performance plugin but no improvement. Should I go with Swift performance or litespeed cache plugin. I have a tech news blog .
If you get really lost, maybe you should hire someone to configure for you.
Nice overview, Johnny… Plugin working great for us! Lots of tweaks to test, which is fun yet can be a bit sophisticated for some. Hint, we’ve learned to make sure all other cache and speed plugins are deactivated (if still installed), and then we test Swift after each setting adjustment. Testing with patience has indeed paid off!