Swift Performance, the plugin with which I have managed to load my web in less than 2 seconds, which I had never managed to achieve with any other cache plugin.

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I used to use SiteGround SuperCacher, Hummingbird or even WP Rocket, which is considered one of the best cache plugins for WordPress.

And yes, they are all quite good, but with Swift Performance I've literally blown it, because it has been installed with the default settings, and get a pretty remarkable improvement over WP Rocket.

My web now loads between 1.5 - 2 seconds, depending on the page. Long articles with a lot of content (images, videos ...) usually reach those 2 seconds.

Evidently, these results are also due to a good hosting (Siteground) and a good choice of plugins and template.

Swift Performance: Main features

Let's see some of its main features:

• Freemium plugin. You can get the free version in the WordPress repository.
• Compatible with WooCommerce, WPML, bbPress, Cloudflare and Varnish
• Minify and combine CSS and JS
• Database optimization: clean up all that garbage that is generated throughout the time on the web.
• Plugin Organizer: prevents plugins from being loaded where they are not needed (I explain it below).
• Compatible with multisite websites.
• Image Optimization: with backup with the possibility of restoring originals (only paid plan).
• Lazy loader: for images and iframes.

Some of the features are only in the paid version, but the most important ones are included in its free version.

It’s not just a cache plugin

In addition to the typical options offered by cache plugins like CSS and Javascript optimization, Swift Performance has some other interesting features.

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Plugin Organizer

This is a very interesting feature because it excludes that the scripts of certain plugins are loaded throughout the web making them load only where they are needed.

An example could be the contact form plugins scripts. It does not make sense to load the contact form plugin for the whole web if you only have the contact form in a section of the web.

Well, with the Plugin Organizer you can do exactly that. That way you can improve the WPO by making them just run where they are needed.

You have this functionality in the free version, which is great.

Image Optimizer

As you already know, web image optimization greatly influences the loading speed of a page. Swift Performance also covers that need, although only in its paid version.

Keep in mind that to optimize images it is necessary to consume resources from your server or from an external one (which you have to pay), so it is normal that this functionality is only for those who have purchased the plugin.*

In case you buy the pro version you can save yourself from using another image optimization plugin.

Some features of this functionality:

It allows you to optimize the images one by one or massively
Save the copy of the original and allow its restoration individually or massively
Optimize images in JPEG and PNG format
You can choose the level of weight reduction so that the images don't look bad.
Another interesting thing is that you can exclude certain images from your website so they do not load with Lazy loading (in case you have it activated).

*We personally use Smush (free version) to optimize our web images, and it works great together with Swift.

Database Optimizer

It’s important to do a basic database cleaning every other time to erase metadata, revisions and other data that is generated as you create and modify the content of your web.

With Swift Performance you can erase all this data and even program an automatic deletion periodically.

Note: As always in this type of tasks, it is important to make a copy of the database.

Swift Performance Step by Step Installation and Setup

Read this article if you want to know how to make your website load in less than 2 seconds with Swift Performance.

We have created a step by step guide, giving you all the necessary tips and tricks to improve your speed performance on WordPress. We explain how to setup CDN Cloudfare, find and exclude JS and CSS strings from being merge, organize your plugins and much more.

Swift Performance, final opinion

It's a plugin that has surprised me a lot because I've achieved load times and brutal Google Page Speed ​​results, which I had not achieved with any other cache plugin without breaking the web.

I find Swift Performance a serious competitor to any cache plugin, both free and paid.

What’s wrong with it?

As it is a relatively new plugin and is in the process of growth, there is not much documentation either on external websites or on its own website.

They have described what different functionalities do, but there are no detailed tutorials on their configuration.

Thanks to the funds raised with the promotion of lifetime licenses, they will surely be able to give more importance to the development and maintenance of the plugin.

Be careful if you use AMP: it can cause problems indexing AMP pages.

Just go to Settings -> Caching -> Exclude URL and add /amp/. Once you do this, delete your cache.

You do not have to clear the entire cache, you can delete the cache of a specific page and do the test. If you see that everything is ok, then empty the rest of the cache. That way you will spend fewer server resources (this is important if you have a large website with a lot of content)

You can do the test from Google Search Console from the following URL:

https://search.google.com/test/amp

In general, it seems a great plugin. I recommend you try it and tell me if you have managed to improve the loading times of your website.

I hope this review about Swift Performance has been useful for you and if you have any questions, you can leave it in the comments.