Caching plugins are a great way to speed up your WordPress site. However, if not configured properly, they can lead to unexpected results. That includes slowing down your backend.
For instance, W3 Total Cache is one of the most popular caching plugins for WordPress. It’s free, supports plenty of caching options, does JS and CSS minification, integrates with a CDN, and is used by 1+ million websites.
W3 Total Cache features the following cache options:
- Page Cache.
- Opcode Cache.
- Database Cache.
- Object Cache.
- Browser Cache.
- Fragment Cache.
Having a lot of options is confusing, especially to beginners who don’t understand what each type of caching does.
Object and database caching speed up the website by reducing the number of database queries, but they do so at the cost of offloading the work to the server’s memory.
Ideally, this shouldn’t pose a problem if your hosting server is smart or powerful enough. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with every hosting provider.
In that scenario, you need to depend on a third-party caching plugin such as W3 Total Cache. Its simple settings make it super easy to enable all types of cache with just a single click.
In the W3 Total Cache → General Settings panel, disable object cache and/or database cache. Then check whether you see any improvements in your admin panel’s responsiveness.
Experimenting with the cache isn’t as simple as ticking or unpicking options in your plugin settings. You should also check whether your site works properly after making the changes and flushing your old cache.
