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Best Free WordPress Plugins for Making Sites Fast

15 plugins compared · Updated August 2026 · Performance & Speed

All 15 Free only Premium only 9

Choosing a WordPress plugin for making sites fast comes down to a few things: whether it is still actively maintained, whether real users rate it well, and whether it does the specific job you need without dragging the rest of the site down.

We ranked 15 plugins using our WPScore, which weighs the user rating (adjusted for how many people actually rated it), how many sites run it, how recently it was updated, and which WordPress version it is tested against. 15 of them have enough public data to be scored; the rest are listed below the ranked block, clearly marked, rather than being given a number we cannot justify.

How this list is funded. Some links here earn us a commission if you buy. It costs you nothing extra, and it does not move anything up the list — the order comes from the WPScore, which is calculated from public ratings, install counts and update history. See the method.

At a glance

  1. 1. WP-Optimize Best overall 95/100
  2. 2. LiteSpeed Cache 94/100
  3. 3. EWWW Image Optimizer 94/100
  4. 4. Smush 93/100
  5. 5. Converter for Media 93/100
  6. 6. Autoptimize 92/100
  7. 7. W3 Total Cache 91/100
  8. 8. Super Page Cache 91/100
  9. 9. Redis Object Cache 90/100
  10. 10. OMGF 90/100
  11. 11. Advanced Database Cleaner 90/100
  12. 12. Asset CleanUp: Page Speed Booster 90/100
  13. 13. Imagify Image Optimization: Optimize Images 89/100
  14. 14. WP Super Cache 89/100
  15. 15. WP Fastest Cache 89/100
1 WP-Optimize
Best overall Free by David Anderson / Team Updraft

WP-Optimize

Get caching and more with this powerful cache plugin. Cache, optimize images, clean your database and minify for maximum performance.

4.8★
from 2,606 ratings
1M+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
95

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
2 LiteSpeed Cache
Free by LiteSpeed Technologies

LiteSpeed Cache

All-in-one unbeatable acceleration & PageSpeed improvement: caching, image/CSS/JS optimization...

4.8★
from 2,764 ratings
7M+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.0.4
94

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
3 EWWW Image Optimizer
Free by Shane Bishop

EWWW Image Optimizer

Comprehensive image optimization with WebP, AVIF, Lazy Load, and more. Optimize images automatically for Faster Sites and Happy Visitors.

4.8★
from 1,838 ratings
1M+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
94

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
4 Smush
Free by WPMU DEV - Your All-in-One WordPress Platform

Smush

Compress and optimize images, enable lazy load, serve WebP & AVIF, and speed up your site with a global image CDN.

4.8★
from 6,051 ratings
1M+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
93

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
5 Converter for Media
Free by Mateusz Gbiorczyk

Converter for Media

Speed up your website by using our WebP & AVIF Converter. Optimize images and serve WebP and AVIF images instead of standard formats!

4.9★
from 1,097 ratings
500k+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
93

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
6 Autoptimize
Free by Optimizing Matters

Autoptimize

Autoptimize speeds up your website by optimizing JS, CSS, images (incl. lazy-load), HTML and Google Fonts, asyncing JS, removing emoji cruft and more.

4.7★
from 1,428 ratings
800k+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
92

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
7 W3 Total Cache
Free by BoldGrid

W3 Total Cache

Search Engine (SEO) & Performance Optimization (WPO) via caching. Integrated caching: CDN, Page, Minify, Object, Fragment, Database support.

4.4★
from 5,420 ratings
900k+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
91

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
8 Super Page Cache
Free by Optimole

Super Page Cache

Boost PageSpeed, SEO, and Core Web Vitals with full page caching, JS/CSS optimization, media optimization, and Cloudflare CDN.

4.8★
from 506 ratings
70k+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
91

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
9 Redis Object Cache
Free by Till Krüss

Redis Object Cache

A persistent object cache backend powered by Redis®¹. Supports Predis, PhpRedis, Relay, replication, sentinels, clustering and WP-CLI.

4.5★
from 176 ratings
500k+
active installs
Updated
May 2026
Tested to
WP 7.0.4
90

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
10 OMGF
Free by Daan van den Bergh

OMGF

The original Google Fonts self-hosting plugin. Automagically caches your fonts locally — no configuration (or brains) required!

4.7★
from 212 ratings
300k+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.0.4
90

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
11 Advanced Database Cleaner
Free by Younes JFR.

Advanced Database Cleaner

Clean database by deleting orphaned data such as 'revisions', 'expired transients', optimize database and more...

4.9★
from 1,950 ratings
100k+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
90

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
14 WP Super Cache
Free by Automattic

WP Super Cache

A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files.

4.3★
from 1,345 ratings
1M+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
89

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org