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Free Plugin by José Miguel v1.4.10

Optimum Gravatar Cache

It stores optimized copies of gravatars locally, reducing the total number of requests. This will speed up site loading and consequently improve the u …

Optimum Gravatar Cache

The facts

Rating
5★ from 3
Active installs
100+
Price
Free
Last updated
7 Feb 2024
Added
Oct 2017
Requires WP
4.7
Tested up to
WP 6.4.10
Downloads
8,985

Our analysis

AI-assisted

Optimum Gravatar Cache is a WordPress plugin that creates a local cache of optimized gravatars. It resizes avatars to the dimensions used on your site and optimizes the images to reduce their size, improving page load times.

The plugin works with the WordPress get_avatar() function and BuddyPress bp_member_avatar() function, ensuring compatibility with various themes and plugins. It dynamically builds the cache in the background, serving cached avatars when available and periodically checking for updates to user gravatars.

Best for: This plugin suits WordPress site owners looking to improve performance by optimising avatar loading.

What it does well

  • Creates a local cache of gravatars
  • Optimizes avatar sizes and reduces file sizes
  • Works with standard WordPress and BuddyPress functions
  • Dynamically builds the cache in the background
  • Reduces the number of requests per page

Where it falls short

  • Limited information on compatibility with specific themes or plugins
  • No details on user support or documentation

Verdict

Optimum Gravatar Cache offers a straightforward solution for managing gravatars efficiently, but users may need to consider compatibility and support options.

From the developer

José Miguel's own description of Optimum Gravatar Cache, lightly tidied.

Optimum Gravatar Cache allows you to create a local cache with optimized copies of gravatars. The optimization is accomplished by resizing the avatars to the sizes used on your site, in addition to optimizing the images internally. Optimizations are performed to minimize the size of each avatar served by the plugin.

The plugin uses WordPress CRON to perform heavier tasks. Avatars are resized in the background. Avatars are optimized internally in the background. Except in certain cases where it is necessary to resize the avatars in the page request.

The plugin handles all your site’s gravatar as long as the wordpress get_avatar() function or buddypress bp_member_avatar() function is used. Works with plugins, themes, etc.

The plugin allows you to customize the avatar by default. This avatar is served whenever the user / visitor does not have a custom gravatar. This greatly reduces the number of requests made by your page, improving the user experience. Besides allowing to frame the avatar by default with the theme of your site.

The plugin, after being configured and activated, starts by serving gravatar for all. And it begins to create the cache dynamically in the background with the sizes being collected by the requests, as well as those configured on the plug-in page. When the avatar already exists in the cache, the plugin serves the avatar in cache. The plugin periodically checks to see if the user updated their gravatar on gravatar.com if yes is updated locally. This way, keeping an updated cache.

The plugin intends the following:

  • Work with the gravatars locally, cache;
  • Reduce the number of requests per page, thus reducing the total time required to load all files. This is achieved because most users do not have a custom gravatar, and for those, only one file needs to be downloaded;
  • Optimize all avatars by reducing their size and transfer time again.

Please if you find any bugs of any kind please contact me so that I can solve it as soon as possible.

Languages

  • English en_GB (@willstockstech)
  • Portuguese pt_PT (@jomisica)

Help translate this plugin into your language

Dependencies

This plugin depends on the following PHP modules:

  • php-gd or php-imagick (So that it can resize the avatars)
  • php-curl (So that it can communicate with the gravatar using the same connection to update several avatars)

The plugin also depends on WordPress CRON to be able to solve the heaviest tasks in the background.

Read the full description on the official page →

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