10 Best WP Rocket Alternatives To Boost Your Site Speed: Free + Paid Options

Originally Posted on Niche Pursuits by Ahmed Lodhi

Looking for the best WP Rocket alternatives?

WP Rocket is a popular performance plugin for WordPress. It’s built to speed up websites via code optimization, caching, and more. Thousands of sites use this tool to boost their websites’ loading time and improve user experience.

However, it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. For instance, WP Rocket doesn’t offer image optimization, and you must pay extra for CDN use.

That’s where alternatives come in. These tools offer a variety of features that can fill the gaps left by WP Rocket. 

Let’s dive into our list of the 10 best WP Rocket alternatives:

1. NitroPack: Best Overall WP Rocket Alternative

NitroPack is an all-in-one solution that excels at optimizing WordPress sites for Core Web Vitals. It’s a pricier tool but offers more features, speed, and optimization than WP Rocket.

NitroPack’s main appeal lies in its simplicity and effectiveness. You get a plug-and-play service that automatically optimizes your WordPress site for superior performance. 

It has all the basic features required to boost your web speed: caching, file minification, a powerful CDN, and media compression. Plus, you get smart cache invalidation—a feature that saves server resources without requiring manual deletion of old cached files.

NitroPack also works with other CMS platforms besides WordPress, including OpenCart and Magento. So, if budget isn’t a concern but exceptional site performance without human input is a priority, NitroPack is the way to go.

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Want a more detailed overview of NitroPack? Check out our complete NitroPack Review: A Must-Have Tool To Help Speed Up Your Website?

2. WP Optimize: Best WP Rocket Alternative For File Optimization

WP Optimize is a powerful WP caching plugin for cleaning up your WordPress site’s database and shrinking images. 

It’s built to make your site load faster by removing old post updates, revisions, and spammy comments that stall it.

WP Optimize also does a superb job with image and media optimization. You can set it to automatically compress new uploads and even adjust compression intensity in settings.

The best part? WP Optimize is free to install and use on any WordPress site (albeit with limited features). The basic version will clean and optimize selected files to give your website a little boost. 

And even when you plan to upgrade, you’ll find WP Optimize to be much cheaper than comparable caching plugins in the market. Paid plans will give you access to more fine-tuned optimization, lazy-loading, and much more.

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For an in-depth comparison between WP Optimize and WP Rocket, read WP-Optimize vs WP Rocket: Which WordPress Caching Plugin Is Better?

3. LiteSpeed Cache: Best Free WP Rocket Alternative

LiteSpeed cache is a free yet one of the most super-powerful WP Rocket alternatives. 

This plugin is known for its next-level performance optimization features and freedom of control. You get server-level caching (separate for both mobile and desktop), code minification, multi-site support, and heartbeat control practically for free.

To make it even stronger, you can couple it with QUIC.cloud CDN and unlock image compression, database optimization, and responsive lazy-loading within a few clicks. 

Another major plus of LiteSpeed Cache is its superb compatibility. If you’re using WooCommerce, Elementor, Yoast SEO, and bbPress, etc. the tool will seamlessly merge with your current WordPress plugin and provide an error-free experience for both you and your web visitors.

LiteSpeed Cache is completely free to install and use, with over 5+ million active installs. If you’re hosted on LiteSpeed servers and need a massive boost in Core Web Vitals, this is the best option for you.

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4. FlyingPress 

FlyingPress is one of the more powerful WP Rocket alternatives on our list for WordPress sites needing some extra juice. 

With this all-in-one caching powerhouse, you get features not typically seen in other plugins, like Google font optimization, baseline code minification, and advanced catching.

However, its features like link preloading, background visual lazy loading, and auto adjustments to web layout distinguish it from other WordPress caching plugins like WP Rocket. 

FlyingPress also comes with extensive bloat removal settings. You can disable or remove unnecessary elements like jQuery Migrate, XML-RPCC, and Google Fonts in a few clicks from the settings in the WordPress dashboard.

What’s more, FlyingPress’s CDN (which uses Bunny Optimizer and BunnyCDN’s replication) is faster and more affordable than RocketCDN. While you have to purchase it separately, the sheer performance gain makes this investment worth it.

All of these features come at a cost, though. FlyingPress starts from $42 per year for a single website, making it one of the more premium WordPress caching plugins on the market.

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5. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is a configuration-friendly alternative to WP Rocket with loads of developer options.

On the surface, it looks like any other cache plugin. Delayed script loading, code minification, WebP image conversion, and lazy loading are all built into W3 Total Cache as standard. 

But its real power lies in settings. Users can fine-tune their caching options to the very last details, such as integrating reverse proxies, optimizing with opcode caching, and implementing fragment caching for specific sections.

This probably won’t make sense for the average WordPress user, but W3 Total Cache can dramatically reduce your site loading speed with these options.

W3 Total Cache supports SSL and works seamlessly with most third-party plugins. With both free and paid plans available, it’s perfect for experienced site owners seeking advanced performance optimization without breaking the bank. 

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6. Breeze

Breeze is the perfect beginner’s caching plugin to boost WordPress performance without much tweaking.

Built by the Cloudflare team, Breeze is easy to install and use from the get-go. Like WP Rocket, you get plenty of features like file-level cache cleanup, database optimization, code minification, and GZIP compression—all of which can be enabled with a few clicks.

Breeze comes built-in with a CDN from Cloudways, though it also works well with third-party CDNs. Plus, it has a unique feature not present in WP Rocket—the ability to enable or disable relative paths.

Cloudways hosting users will find Breeze to be the perfect caching plugin for their site. With the two working together, expect even faster loading speeds and fewer bugs. Additionally, you’d get the benefit of Varnish for server-level caching, a handy feature for dashboard management. 

The best part? Breeze is a completely free plugin. Its user-friendly dashboard and powerful servers make it an excellent WP Rocket alternative for new WordPress users looking for an uncomplicated caching tool.

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7. SiteGround Speed Optimizer

SiteGround Speed Optimizer is currently one of the most popular caching plugins on the market for WordPress websites.

Built by experts at SiteGround, the plugin is easy to install and error-free. It has a wide array of performance optimization features, including file-based caching, deferred script loading, code minification, media lazy loading, and much more.

The plugin relies on server-side caching, offering a different approach than WP Rocket. But it doesn’t cover extensive web performance features like WP Rocket does. 

If you’re hosting on SiteGround, you can also utilize bonus features like WebP conversion, image compression, and dynamic/object caching for more fine-tuned control and reduced initial loading times.

Considering that it costs $0 to install and comes with an uncomplicated interface, SiteGround Speed Optimizer is the perfect WP Rocket alternative for users requiring simple caching and basic speed improvements on their SiteGround-hosted website.

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8. WP Fastest Cache

WP Fastest Cache is the go-to freemium caching plugin for millions of WordPress website owners.

Like most performance plugins on the market, WP Fastest cache comes with code minification, image compression, database cleanup, and WebP conversion. All of these contribute towards making your site faster and speedier. 

Additionally, the plugin offers a built-in CDN to load heavy resources from the nearest servers. You also get the flexibility to choose and integrate CDNs that best suit your website’s needs.

For e-commerce sites using WooCommerce, WP Fastest Cache automatically configures caching exceptions for cart and checkout pages. It also caches widgets and mobile versions of your website separately—something that WP Rocket lacks. 

In terms of price, WP Fastest Cache is in the same league as the majority of caching plugins. However, its feature-rich free version and dedicated features for eCommerce sites make it a worthy alternative to WP Rocket.

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9. Autoptimize

Autoptimize is a great performance plugin for one particular task: optimizing code files. 

It matches WP Rocket in some areas, like boosting Core Web Vitals, and offers basic tools like CSS and JS minification in its free plan. Autoptimize also handles tasks like image lazy loading, deferring script files, and optimizing Google fonts quite well.

While all of these optimizations can bring a noticeable improvement to your site’s performance, Autoptimize still lacks file caching and a CDN. 

You can easily integrate third-party content delivery networks like KeyCDN or Speed Booster. Or, you can also purchase Autoptimize Pro to fill all of the missing gaps and unlock bonus add-ons.

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10. Swift Performance Lite

Swift Performance Lite is a useful caching plugin for newbie WordPress users on a budget.

It boasts automatic configuration with over 200+ different settings. The plugin utilizes advanced algorithms for URL identification and manages cache lifespan automatically.

Besides proxy caching and dynamic content loading (which is compatible with WooCommerce, bbPress, Cloudflare, etc.), Swift Performance also supports critical font loading and a plugin optimizer that switches on/off plugins on certain pages to boost their loading speed.

When it comes to image optimization, Swift Performance includes an unlimited, free image optimizer and adopts a WebP-first approach. Coupled with optimization for dynamically added iframes, these functions put it one level above WP Rocket in terms of optimization.

Swift Performance subscriptions are priced almost the same as WP Rocket, with the paid version offering advanced options like AI-powered caching and even more control over configuration. 

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Final Verdict on WP Rocket Alternatives

That brings us to the end of our list of WP Rocket alternatives.

While none of these cache enabler plugins offer perfection, you’re likely to find features in these alternatives that WP Rocket doesn’t offer.

For example, WP Optimize excels in database management and image optimization, whereas NitroPack specializes in Core Web Vitals optimization. 

Take advantage of these free and premium plugins, and consider using them in combination with WP Rocket and good practices like browser caching to boost your website’s performance even further.

Want to explore more tools to accelerate your site speed even further? Check out our list of the 13 Best WordPress Speed Optimization Services To Help Your Web Vitals.

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