10 important things about Breeze WordPress cache plugin (Review)
The Breeze caching plugin is simple and effective. I use it to power BloggingTools and it does a good job. Here some important features you should know.
The Breeze WordPress cache plugin is a cache plugin developed by Cloudways for WordPress users. The plugin is simple and effective. It has proven to improve the speed of websites, especially the ones hosted on Cloudways.
One thing that is very important to any website or blog is speed. A fast website can help improve search engine position, it can reduce bounce rate and it can also increase conversion rate.
In WordPress, a major speed hack is caching. Caching helps make content readily available to website visitors without need to make a repeated request to the server.
When it comes to caching in WordPress, there are too many options. In this post I will review the Breeze WordPress cache plugin and tell you the best configurations to use.
Is Breeze a good and effective caching plugin?
Well, Breeze is the caching plugin powering BloggingTools. It is a very effective plugin.
When setting up BloggingTools and another blog, I have tried many caching plugins. Free and premium plugins. I have tried WP Rocket, W3 total cache, free and premium version of WP fastest cache. But Breeze outperforms all of them.
For the records, Breeze is a free plugin. But it has outperform all the premium and free plugins I have tried with my highest grossing website. Website is hosted on Cloudways, same company behind Breeze too.
For any website I have hosted on Cloudways, Breeze has proven to be the most effective caching plugin. I have hosted up to 4 websites on Cloudways.
It works flawlessly with varnish cache which gives optimum performance.
Let’s see how effective Breeze is. I am using the live site of BloggingTools for this test.
This is how this website performs without Breeze on Google PageSpeed Insight, GTMetrix and Pingdom
From the above test, here is how BloggingTools Perform without Breeze plugin.
On Google PageSpeed Insight:
- Score: 100
On GTmetrix:
- PageSpeed Score: 98% (A)
- YSlow score: 94% (A)
- Fully Loaded Time: 1.6 seconds
- Total page size: 205KB
- Requests: 20
On Pingdom:
- Performance grade: 85 (B)
- Page Size: 263.8KB
- Load time: 202ms
- Requests: 24
Now that we have seen how this site performed without the Breeze plugin, let’s see how it performs with Breeze plugin activated.
This is how it performs with Breeze activated.
From the above, this is how BloggingTools perform with Breeze.
On Google PageSpeed Insight:
- Score: 100
On GTMetrix:
- PageSpeed Score: 98% (A)
- YSlow score: 95% (A)
- Fully Loaded Time: 1.5 sceonds
- Total page size: 205KB
- Requests: 19
On Pingdom:
- Performance grade: 89 (B)
- Page Size: 263.0KB
- Load time: 139ms
- Requests: 23
As you can see from the above, apart from Google PageSpeed Insight which is at 100% for both tests, the website load time and overall performance improved very much with Breeze plugin activated.
I have tried some caching plugins that ended up slowing the load time and performance!
If you are wondering how BloggingTools load so fast without a caching plugin, I am hosting it with a very fast web host known as Cloudways. You can try them for free! I also use a very fast and lightweight WordPress theme known as GeneratePress
10 important things about Breeze WordPress plugin
Here are 10 important things about Breeze WordPress cache plugin by Cloudways:
1. It is the fastest caching plugin for websites hosted on Cloudways
If your website is hosted on Cloudways, Breeze gives the fastest performance more than any other caching plugin that I have tried. Even though it is a free plugin, it out performs WP Rocket and premium version of WP fastest cache.
If you host your website with Cloudways, Breeze should be your number one option for caching.
2. It is very easy to use
Unlike other plugin that are very complicated to use with too many settings, Breeze is surprisingly very easy to use.
There are only very few setting you need to check after activating the plugin. The rest is handled by the plugin without you needing to experiment on the best configuration.
You do not need to waste your time and energy. It is very easy and simple.
3. Varnish cache support
Varnish cache is a very fast website accelerator. It can greatly improve the performance and speed of any website. Breeze plugin works very well with Varnish. If your web host have varnish, you do not have to worry about purging varnish every time you publish a post or make changes, you can do it with Breeze.
If you are using Cloudways, the plugin comes pre-installed with Varnish. You do not have to do a thing.
4. Breeze is compatible with WordPress Multisite
Breeze is fully compatible with WordPress Multisite with no need for extra configuration. Straight out of the box.
5. Breeze is WooCommerce compatible
If you are using WooCommerce, there are no worries as Breeze is WooCommerce compatible out of the box. There is no special configuration needed!
6. CDN support
Breeze plugin supports CDN integration. It freely allows images, CSS and JS files to be served via CDN.
7. The minification is not good enough
Breeze has an option to minify HTML, CSS and JS. This option seems to be very problematic. Use with caution. For most of my sites using Breeze, I use Autoptimize for minification while Breeze does the caching. But for BloggingTools, the minification seems to work fine.
8. Gzip Compression
With Breeze, you can enable Gzip Compression with just a click. This is a wonderful thing as it can speed up your site.
9. Database optimization
With Breeze plugin, you can easily optimize your database. You can clean up post revisions, auto drafted content, trackbacks and pingbacks, transient options and more.
10. Breeze cache plugin is 100% free
The Plugin is 100% free! Unlike most caching plugin that offer a free version with limited features, you only get best features when you purchase premium option. Breeze is 100% free! There is no premium version or add on.
How to install Breeze WordPress cache plugin
To install the plugin, go to plugins on your WordPress dashboard, then click on Add New. Type Breeze on the search box and wait for it to appear. Install it and activate it.
Once installed and activated, everything is set! To access plugin settings, click on settings on your dashboard, then click on Breeze.
Best settings for Breeze WordPress cache plugin
There are not many features to fine tune. Breeze is very easy to set up.
Here are the ideal set up:
- Activate cache system
- Purge cache after 1440
- Use minification with caution. If any issues, unselect minification and clear cache
- Enable Gzip compression
- Enable browser cache
- Do not enable cache for logged in users
On the Advanced Tab, if you enabled minification, you should also enable group files for CSS and JS
That is all! Every other part leave as it is unless you know what you are doing.
Below are the settings BloggingTools is using.
Conclusion
Breeze is a very fast and effective plugin, and it is free. If well used, it can outperform most premium caching plugins.
From all indication, Breeze works better when used with Cloudways. You can try Cloudways for free.
Also read:
How to make WordPress very fast
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