Consistently publishing content is no more sufficient to run a WordPress site. At this point, it needs lot of optimizations to get good ranking in Google and drive organic traffic. This is important as advertisers and affiliate owners love sites getting organic traffic. On other hand you can’t afford paid traffic from Google Ads and other sources for a simple information blog. WP Rocket and Perfmatters are popular performance optimization plugins for WordPress that you can count for improving your site. In this article, we will compare WP Rocket Vs Perfmatters to make sure you understand the purpose of these plugins before making a purchase decision.
WP Rocket Vs Perfmatters
WordPress performance optimization has different dimensions. However, many users do not understand this and make a mistake when purchasing premium plugins. To be frank, comparing WP Rocket and Perfmatters is meaningless as the purpose of these two plugins are completely different.
- WP Rocket – ultimate caching plugins with simplified user interface.
- Perfmatters – optimization plugin for removing bloats and unnecessary resources from your site.
However, both plugins offer some features in common which could be the point of confusion for users planning to purchase.
WP Rocket in Detail
WP Rocket became most popular by simplifying the caching settings for common users. Earlier days (or even now with many plugins like W3 Total Cache), you have to through hundreds of settings to enable caching on your site. However, WP Rocket offers a single settings page where you can navigate through few tabs and toggle the options.
The plugin will automatically enable page level and browser caching once activated on your site. You can enable additional mobile caching, critical CSS generation, removing unused CSS, preloading, database optimization, lazy loading and add exclusion rules. Following are some of the add-ons available with the plugin.
- WebP caching (free) – if you have a WebP generation plugin, then you can use this option to cache those images with WP Rocket.
- Sucuri (free) – synchronize Sucuri cache and WP Rocket.
- Cloudflare (free) – integrate Cloudflare and WP Rocket caching.
- Rocket CDN (paid) – premium RocketCDN account needed.
- Image Compression (paid) – additional Imagify premium account needed.
Perfmatters in Detail
This plugin offers similar simplified features like WP Rocket for entirely different purposes. You can disable unnecessary items loaded in WordPress like feed, emoji, embed script, WLM script, RSD links, REST API, etc. You can also use lazy loading, Google Font optimization, preloading and enable CDN rewrite. Perfmatters does not offer any caching features for page level and browser caching.
The plugin also offers following additional features:
- You can defer JS, delay JS and use Script Manager to remove unnecessary resources loaded by your theme and plugins on each page.
- Insert code in header, footer and body sections.
- Preload, prefetch, DNS prefetch and preconnect resources.
- Remove WooCommerce stylesheets, scripts, blocks, widgets and meta boxes.
- Host Google Fonts and Analytics locally on your server.
Pricing Plans for WP Rocket and Perfmatters
Both are premium plugins and there are no free versions available for testing. Therefore, the only option is to purchase a license from the developer’s website. In fact, that is the reason we have written this article so that you can make right decision before making a purchase.
- You can get WP Rocket single license for $49 to use on a single site. it comes with 100% money back guarantee for 14 days with 1 year free support and updates. The cost will be $99 for 3 sites and $249 for unlimited usage. You can get 10% discount on the price by subscribing to their newsletter.
- Perfmatters is available for $24.95 for single site license, $54.95 for 3 sites and $124.95 for unlimited sites. It also comes with 30 days money back guarantee with one year free support and updates. There is also 10% discount available with Perfmatters plugin.
Comparison of WP Rocket Vs Perfmatters Features
The below table will help you understand the features offered by both WP Rocket and Perfmatters plugins.
| Feature | WP Rocket | Perfmatters |
|---|---|---|
| Add Blank Favicon | No | Yes |
| Caching | Yes | No |
| CDN | CDN rewrite | CDN rewrite |
| Change Login URL | No | Yes |
| Combine CSS | Yes | No |
| Compress Image | No | No |
| Control Heartbeat API | Yes | Yes |
| Database cleanup | Yes | Yes |
| Defer JavaScript | Yes | Yes |
| Delay JavaScript | Yes | Yes |
| Disable Comments and Comment Author Link | No | Yes |
| Disable Embeds | No | Yes |
| Disable Emoji | Yes | Yes |
| Disable Google Maps | No | Yes |
| Disable Password Strength Checker | No | Yes |
| Disable REST API | No | Yes |
| Disable Shortlink | No | Yes |
| Disable WooCommerce Resources | No | Yes |
| Disable XMLRPC | No | Yes |
| DNS Prefetch | Yes | Yes |
| Generate Critical Path CSS | Yes | No |
| Insert Code in Header, Footer and Body | No | Yes |
| Lazy Loading | Yes | Yes |
| Limit Revisions and Autosaves | No | Yes |
| Local Google Analytics | No | Yes |
| Local Google Fonts | No | Yes |
| Minify CSS | Yes | No |
| Minify JS | Yes | No |
| Minify JS | Yes | No |
| Preconnecting | Yes | Yes |
| Prefetch URLs | Yes | Yes |
| Preloading | Yes, Based on Sitemap | Manual |
| Remove Dashicons | No | Yes |
| Remove Feeds | No | Yes |
| Remove Google Fonts | No | Yes |
| Remove RSD Links | No | Yes |
| Remove Self Pingbacks | No | Yes |
| Remove Unused CSS | Yes | Manual |
| Remove WP Version | No | Yes |
| Script Manager | No | Manual |
As you see, Perfmatters is ideal for removing unnecessary codes from your site while caching is the primary purpose of WP Rocket plugin.
Plugin Support
Both developers offer high quality documentation on their site that you can read before raising tickets. Since the user interface is simple with both plugins, you may not need much support from the settings perspective. However, WP Rocket can create problem as with any caching plugin as it may not sync well with your theme or other plugins. You may need immediate help with WP Rocket as the plugin can break your site.
- WP Rocket – earlier days, you can raise ticket right from WordPress admin section. However, now you have to login to your account and navigate to their help center and raise a ticket. Though they claim a day for response, it may take multiple days for getting response from them. In our opinion, this is below average support compared to the previous situation and nature of the plugin. With staggered release approach, it can easily break your site with no way to login from the frontend. Learn how to disable the plugin with FTP or File Manager before you activate or update instead of relying on their support.
- Perfmatters – Similar to WP Rocket, you have to login with your account and raise a ticket in Perfmatters. You will get straight forward answers though it will also take few days’ time. This is a nominal time as the plugin will not break your site. Even delay JS feature needs careful testing, you can simply disable from the frontend if it causes problem.
Which Plugin to Purchase?
The answer depends on the situation:
- Need caching and optimization plugin – you have to purchase both the plugins in this case as they work together. Removing plenty of bloat along with superior caching will load your site instantly. However, you have to make sure disabling common features in one of the plugin’s settings to avoid overlapping.
- Already have caching and need only bloat removal – if you are already using server level caching or other plugin, then only Perfmatters is sufficient for you. For example, SG Optimizer with SiteGround or Breeze with Cloudways can do better caching than WP Rocket as the plugins are native to the hosting company.
- Only need caching and not optimization – in this case, you only need to use WP Rocket. This is ideal when you use lightweight themes like Astra or GeneratePress with no heavy plugins like WooCommerce.
Alternatives for WP Rocket and Perfmatters
We recommend using one of these plugins or both for better optimization and getting good speed score in Google PageSpeed Score. For example, you can delay JavaScript (option available in both plugins) to avoid render blocking and make total blocking time to zero. This will skyrocket your score as total blocking time has 30% weightage on the score calculation. However, if you are not having yearly budget for premium plugins then you can consider the followings:
- WP Rocket – W3 Total Cache or W3 Super Cache.
- Perfmatters – Asset CleanUp, Clearfy and Pre*Party Resources Hint
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