Loadless saves each finished page as a file and hands it to the next visitor before WordPress, PHP or the database wake up. Then it fixes the things PageSpeed keeps flagging: render-blocking scripts, unminified files, images without sizes, third-party tags. One plugin, one payment.
Works on shared hosting, Apache, LiteSpeed and Nginx. WooCommerce-aware. Nothing phones home.
Most speed plugins are a long list of switches. These are the ones that move the numbers.
A drop-in runs before WordPress and sends the cached file straight away. On Apache and LiteSpeed the server serves it without PHP. Gzip copies, ETags, a separate mobile cache when a theme needs it, and query-string handling that ignores tracking parameters.
Minified CSS and JS, deferred scripts, delayed third-party tags until interaction, combined files when you want them, Google Fonts fixed, images given their sizes and lazy-loaded, YouTube embeds replaced with a 20 KB thumbnail until clicked.
After a purge, Loadless walks your sitemap in small background batches. Publishing a post purges only the pages that changed, then re-warms them. Revisions, transients and spam get swept on a schedule.
Loadless cannot make a 4 MB hero image small, cannot rewrite a theme that loads forty stylesheets, and does not generate critical CSS or remove unused CSS, which need an external service and break sites more often than they help. It will make the same site load dramatically faster on the same host. If PageSpeed still complains about images after that, an image plugin is the next step, and we will say so on the dashboard.
WP Rocket is $59 a year for one site and $299 a year for unlimited, with no free version. Loadless has a free version that already caches, and Pro is a one-time payment for the sites you choose.
GPL. Also on WordPress.org.
30-day refund, no questions asked. Terms.
| Plugin | 1 site | Multiple sites | Renews |
|---|---|---|---|
| WP Rocket | $59 / yr | $119 (3) · $299 (unlimited) / yr | Yearly |
| FlyingPress | $60 / yr | $150 (5) · $250 (50) / yr | Yearly |
| Perfmatters | $25 / yr | $55 (3) · $125 (unlimited) / yr, no page cache | Yearly |
| Loadless Pro | $29 once (2 sites) | $49 (10) · $99 (unlimited) once | Never |
The defaults are the safe ones: nothing is combined, nothing is delayed, jQuery is never deferred, and the JavaScript minifier only removes comments and whitespace, never code. Turn on the aggressive options one at a time and add a file name to the exclusion box if something misbehaves.
Yes. Cart, checkout and account pages are never cached, and the cache is bypassed the moment a visitor has something in their cart.
Host caches vary a lot and rarely touch your CSS, JavaScript or images. Loadless caches at the origin and fixes the front end; a host or CDN cache in front of it just gets faster answers. If your host runs LiteSpeed Cache or Nginx FastCGI cache, run one page cache only, but keep Loadless for the file and media optimisations.
Everything works through the PHP drop-in, which still skips WordPress entirely. For the last few milliseconds, the Tools tab gives you a snippet so Nginx serves the files itself.
They employ a team and a support desk on subscription revenue. We built one plugin well, sell it once, and answer email. If you need their critical CSS service or their agency dashboard, buy WP Rocket. Most sites need neither.
Download the zip, then in WordPress go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the zip and click Install, then Activate. Loadless sets up the drop-in, wp-config flag and server rules itself and shows a status card confirming each one. Pro features switch on when you paste your licence key on the Licence tab.