WordPress Speed Acceleration is an add-on for your hosting account that adds an object cache to a WordPress site, held in memory on the server.
What WordPress does without it
WordPress builds most pages from the database every time somebody asks for one. The same queries, for your menus, your settings, your product data, are run again and again for every visitor. Nothing is wrong with that, it is simply how WordPress works, and it is where a great deal of the time spent building a page goes.
What the add-on changes
An object cache keeps the results of those database queries in memory on the server, so the same work is not repeated. The next request that needs the same answer gets it from memory instead of asking the database again.
It runs on the hosting itself rather than as a plugin you have to configure, and it is switched on for one site at a time.
This is not the same as a caching plugin
Most caching plugins store finished pages. That works very well for a page that every visitor sees identically, and if you already run one you should keep it.
An object cache works underneath that, on the database queries themselves. That matters because it reaches the pages a page cache cannot store:
- A customer who is logged in
- A basket and a checkout
- A member or account area
- Search results
- Anything else that differs from one visitor to the next
So the two do different jobs. If you run a caching plugin for page caching, this adds something it is not doing rather than repeating it.
Where it helps most, and where it helps least
The sites that gain most are the busy and the personalised: a WooCommerce shop, a membership site, a forum, anything where visitors log in or where pages are built for one person rather than for everyone.
A small brochure site may see very little difference. If almost all of your traffic is anonymous visitors reading the same few pages, those pages are already being served from cache before they reach WordPress at all, and there is not much left for an object cache to improve.
It replaces an existing object cache, it does not sit on top of one
A WordPress site can only have one object cache. If yours already has object caching switched on, that has to be turned off before this can be enabled. The usual cases are:
- W3 Total Cache with its Object Cache feature enabled. The rest of the plugin can stay; only object caching needs to be switched off.
- A Redis or Memcached object cache plugin you have installed yourself. That needs removing, because we install and manage our own.
- Any custom object-cache.php file in your wp-content folder.
If you are not sure whether that applies to your site, ask us and we will look before you order.
One other incompatibility is worth naming: the PHP security module snuffleupagus cannot be used on the same account. It is not enabled on any of our accounts by default, so this will only affect you if you have specifically asked for it.
What happens when you order it
You choose the website it applies to when you order, and we do the rest. Nothing is required from you.
Switching it on takes a few minutes rather than being instant, because the Redis extension has to be prepared for your account first. Once that is done we enable the cache on the site you named. Two things are added to your WordPress installation: the Redis Object Cache plugin, and an object-cache.php file in your wp-content folder. Both are part of the service and should be left alone.
It does not change how your site looks, how you edit it, or how you log in.
Points worth knowing
- It is WordPress only. It cannot be used on a CubeCart, Joomla or plain HTML site.
- It covers one site. If you have several WordPress sites with us, each needs its own.
- It can be turned off again at any time, and your site returns to working exactly as it did before.
- It is not a substitute for a slow site being slow for other reasons. A heavy theme, a large number of plugins or an overloaded database will still be heavy afterwards. If your site is slow and you are not sure why, ask us to look rather than assuming this is the answer.
If you would like it on one of your sites, or you would like us to tell you whether it would help yours before you decide, open a ticket and we will take a look.
