Accelerate-WP Even Faster!
We have taken the speed of AccelerateWP and pushed it even further. WordPress pages that used to take 3 to 6 seconds to load now come back in as little as 0.15 seconds. That’s a 95-97% improvement in response time across our entire shared hosting fleet.
Why WordPress Sites Are Slow (And What We Did About It)
Every time someone visits a WordPress site, the server normally has to go through a whole process:
- Receive the request through the web server
- Fire up PHP
- Load all of WordPress, your theme, and your plugins
- Run a bunch of database queries
- Build the HTML for the page
- Send it back to the visitor
On a shared hosting server, that whole cycle takes anywhere from 1 to 6 seconds depending on how complex the site is. That’s a long wait for your visitors, and Google factors that into your search rankings too.
How We Fixed It: Three Layers of Speed
We rolled out a layered caching system that cuts out almost all of that processing for your visitors.
Layer 1: AccelerateWP with Redis
AccelerateWP (powered by WP Rocket, one of the most well-known WordPress caching plugins) saves a static HTML copy of each page on your site. Instead of rebuilding the page from scratch every time someone visits, the server just grabs the saved copy.
Redis object caching adds another boost by keeping database results in memory. When WordPress does need to build a fresh page, Redis handles the database side so the server doesn’t have to hit the disk for every query.
This alone brought most sites down from 2-6 seconds to about 0.2-0.7 seconds. Pretty good, but we wanted to go further.
Layer 2: Nginx Static File Serving
Here’s where it gets really good. Even with AccelerateWP’s page cache, the request still goes through Apache and PHP. PHP opens the cached file, reads it, and sends it back. It’s fast, but there’s still overhead in that process.
We built a custom integration that lets Nginx (our front-end web server) look for WP Rocket’s cached HTML files directly on disk. If the file is there, Nginx sends it straight to the visitor without ever touching Apache or PHP. If the file isn’t there (because you just updated your content), Nginx hands the request off to Apache like normal, WordPress builds a fresh page, and WP Rocket saves a new copy for next time.
The result? Server processing time dropped to basically zero. That 0.15 second response time in our benchmarks is almost entirely just the TLS handshake (the encrypted connection setup). The actual time the server spends finding and sending your page is just a few milliseconds.
Layer 3: Cloudflare Edge Caching
For sites using Cloudflare, we’ve set up optimized rules that cache your pages across Cloudflare’s global network. That means visitors in Tokyo, London, or anywhere else get your content from a server near them, cutting down on distance-related delays.
No Stale Content, Ever
The most important part of any caching system is what happens when you update your site. Nobody wants to publish a blog post and have visitors still seeing the old version an hour later.
Our system doesn’t have that problem. Here’s how it works:
When you publish or update something in WordPress, WP Rocket automatically deletes the cached files for the pages that changed. As soon as those files are gone, Nginx can’t serve them anymore, so the next request goes through to Apache. WordPress builds the fresh page, WP Rocket saves a new cache file, and every visitor after that gets the updated version at full speed.
It’s instant, automatic, and you don’t have to do anything.
We tested this live:
| Step | Response Time | What Happened |
|---|---|---|
| Cached page served | 0.15s | Nginx served static HTML |
| Cache cleared | 3.9s | Went through Apache/PHP |
| Page regenerated | WP Rocket saved new cache file | |
| Next visitor | 0.14s | Nginx served fresh HTML |
The Numbers
Here’s what we measured across real customer websites:
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Average response time | 2-6 sec | 0.15 sec |
| With Cloudflare | 2-6 sec | 0.04 sec |
| Server processing time | 2-6 sec | ~0 sec |
| Sites optimized | 152 | |
| Servers upgraded | 5 |
What This Means For You
If your website is on one of our shared hosting plans, these improvements are already active. AccelerateWP is free and included with every WordPress hosting account.
Not sure if your site has AccelerateWP turned on? Log into your cPanel dashboard and look for the AccelerateWP section, or just drop our support team a message and we’ll check for you.
Faster websites mean happier visitors, better Google rankings, fewer people bouncing away, and more conversions. We’re always working to make your WordPress site as fast as it can be, without you having to do a thing.
Got questions about your site’s speed? We’re here 24/7.
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Customer service pride with over thirty years of experience in customer care for companies such as Microsoft, Boeing, and AT&T Wireless. Our staff also hold several certifications including CCNP (Cisco Certified Network Professional), RedHat, Dell Certifications, MCSE, Network+, MCP+I and A+ and most importantly many years of experience in the hosting industry.
Global presence with servers in data centers all around the world in state-of-the-art facilities in Seattle WA, Houston TX, New York NY, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Headquarters is located in Seattle, WA USA.
Orientated towards value and we vow to exceed our competitors in price and overall customer experience.
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