The Litespeed plugin for WordPress is a relatively new player in the world of caching plugins. Nevertheless, it offers a lot of features, and especially if your web host also uses LiteSpeed on the server – like we do with our GO and Business packages – you can achieve even greater speed improvements!

The basic Total Cache rules for your Litespeed Cache settings.

  1. Always test your site in a different browser after changing any setting preferably one you never use to log into your site.
    Do you always log into your site with Chrome? Then use, for example, Firefox (ideally in incognito/private mode) to test your site. (And make sure to clear your WordPress caches first.)
  2. Merging and minifying CSS and JavaScript can sometimes be quite aggressive, which may cause your Customizer not to work the first time (refresh the page and it should work, or disable the feature if needed).
  3. Never enable page caching for logged-in users.
  4. Settings may vary between websites.
    An export of a “standard set” of settings won’t necessarily work everywhere right away.

Achieve the fastest performance gains for your visitors, with as few settings as possible and maximum stability.

Go to the Cache menu and enable Caching.
To be safe, disable “Cache Logged-in Users” and “Cache Login Page.” Also turn off Private Cache.
If you don’t use a separate theme specifically for mobile, then disable “Cache Mobile” as well.
Why? If you’re using a responsive theme, the HTML content sent to the browser is identical. Otherwise, mobile users would unnecessarily have to wait for a separate mobile cache file to be generated.

Using Varnish? Great! Go to the TTL tab and make sure the Public Cache TTL and Front Page TTL values are set high. The 404 and 500 status codes are cached for 1 hour (3600 seconds) by default — you can reduce that to 300 seconds. Also don’t forget to go to the Browser tab and enable Browser Cache there.

The next step

Consider whether you want to show “stale content.” At the moment, this is poorly translated as “server musty” – in other words, do you want to serve (potentially outdated) cached data to your visitors while the cache is being rebuilt in the background? By default, I recommend leaving this option off.

In the Cache, Advanced tab, enable Instant Click. This feature allows the browser to preload a page in the background on a “mouseover” event when a user hovers over a link.

CDN settings? Usually, they’re not strictly necessary. However, a CDN is included by default with our Business Hosting and NVMe Hosting (non-LiteSpeed). If you’re not currently using a CDN, the best thing you can do for your images is to make sure they’re loaded in the size they’re actually displayed at (or close to it). We’ve described this in more detail [here]. A next step would be to use an optimization service like Smush.it or our QUICK service.

In the Crawler > General Settings tab, enable the crawler. Also, double-check that your sitemap URL is correct in the Sitemap Settings tab.

Go even further

The “Page Optimization” section contains many additional options. Be very careful – test thoroughly in an incognito browser to ensure your site doesn’t break.

Here are the super-tight optimization settings – note: sometimes you’ll need to refresh wp-admin or the Customizer if you don’t see proper CSS styling.
It’s very possible your site may look strange or stop working correctly. In that case, identify which CSS or JS setting is causing the issue – unfortunately, it’s a matter of trial and error; there’s no universal guide.

CSS Settings Tab: Enable Minify CSS, Enable Combine CSS, Enable Unique CSS File, Enable HTTP2 Push if your server supports it. For advanced users: enable Load CSS Asynchronously and Generate Critical CSS

JS Settings Tab: Enable Minify JS, Enable Combine JS, Enable Defer JS Loading, Enable HTTP2 Push (same as for CSS), Enable Exclude jQuery

Optimization Settings Tab: Enable Minify HTML, Enable Remove Comments, Enable Remove Query Strings, Optionally enable Remove WordPress Emojis

Media Settings Tab: Enable Lazy Load Images, Use a default responsive SVG placeholder

The other tabs can be left with their default settings.

Using WooCommerce?

As a precaution, add the following two cookies under Cache > Exclude > Do Not Cache Cookies: woocommerce_cart_hash; woocommerce_items_in_cart

More insights with QUIC.cloud

In the plugin dashboard under General Settings, request a free Domain Key.
This will give you access to a graphical dashboard with useful metrics like PageSpeed.
Alternatively, you can skip this and just use our widget in wp-admin for performance insights.

Alternatives to LiteSpeed Cache

  • WP Fastest Cache – Fast (via .htaccess) and simple.
  • Integrates with ManagedWPHosting (automatic settings, Varnish cache flush).
  • WP Super Cache – Page cache only (HTML).
  • Cachify – Page cache only (HTML).
  • JCH Optimize – Focuses on combining CSS/JS and also supports HTML minification.
  • WP-FFPC or Batcache – For those more technically inclined. Page cache only (HTML).
  • WP Rocket – A full-featured caching solution.
  • Integrates with ManagedWPHosting (automatic settings, Varnish cache flush).W3 Total Cache – Another complete caching solution.
  • Also integrates with ManagedWPHosting (automatic settings, Varnish cache flush).