How to speed up your WordPress site: caching, WebP, Redis, CDN (2026)

Most WordPress sites can drop TTFB from 3+ seconds to under 1 second with 4-5 changes. This guide is what actually moves the needle, in order of impact. Everything works on any Hostiger VPS; the LiteSpeed and Redis parts come pre-configured on Hostiger Managed WordPress.

Baseline benchmark

Test at gtmetrix.com and webpagetest.org before starting. Record TTFB, LCP, and total page weight. My reference site started at:

TTFB: 3.2s
LCP: 5.8s
Page weight: 4.1 MB

1. Full-page caching with LiteSpeed Cache (biggest win)

If your host runs LiteSpeed (Hostiger web/WordPress hosting does), install the free LiteSpeed Cache plugin. It stores whole rendered pages so PHP+MySQL never run for cache-hit requests.

Enable in plugin settings:

Cache → Enable Cache
Cache → Cache Logged-in Users: OFF (unless membership site)
Cache → Purge Rules → Auto Purge Rules For Publish/Update: ON

Alternative on nginx/Apache: WP Rocket ($59/year), W3 Total Cache (free), or FastCGI cache at nginx level.

After LSCache: TTFB 3.2s → 0.4s

2. WebP image conversion

WebP images are 25-35% smaller than JPEG at identical quality. LiteSpeed Cache has built-in conversion under Image Optimization. For non-LiteSpeed: use ShortPixel or Imagify plugin.

Page weight: 4.1 MB → 2.6 MB

3. Redis object cache

Redis caches expensive database queries in RAM. Install on the VPS:

apt install redis-server php-redis -y
systemctl enable --now redis

Then install the Redis Object Cache plugin, activate, and click Enable Object Cache.

Complex admin pages: 4× faster

4. Enable PHP OPcache

Compiled PHP bytecode cached in RAM. Usually already on, but verify:

php -i | grep opcache.enable
# Should show: opcache.enable => On

If off, add to /etc/php/8.3/fpm/php.ini:

opcache.enable=1
opcache.memory_consumption=256
opcache.max_accelerated_files=20000
opcache.revalidate_freq=60

Then systemctl restart php8.3-fpm.

5. Cloudflare CDN (free tier is enough)

Point your DNS through Cloudflare. Enable:

Auto Minify (JS, CSS, HTML)
Brotli compression
Rocket Loader (test carefully — can break JS libraries)
Cache Level: Standard

Global TTFB drops 40-60% for out-of-region visitors.

Final benchmark

TTFB: 3.2s → 0.6s
LCP: 5.8s → 1.4s
Page weight: 4.1 MB → 1.9 MB

What we didn't cover

Advanced: HTTP/3, database query optimization with Query Monitor plugin, lazy-loading heavy plugins on non-relevant pages with Perfmatters. Diminishing returns after the 5 steps above.