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Comprehensive Review of the Breeze WordPress Caching Plugin

Is your WordPress site slowing to a crawl? Bloated databases, endless plugins, and rising traffic can grind speeds to a halt.

But there‘s a free plugin that can get your site speeding along again – it‘s called Breeze.

In this comprehensive review, I‘ll cover everything you need to know about leveraging Breeze to accelerate WordPress performance, including:

  • Quantitative speed test comparisons showing dramatic gains
  • Under the hood look at how Breeze caches and optimizes
  • Configuration guidance wrangling every last millisecond
  • Ideal usage recommendations based on site types
  • How Breeze caching compares to a dozen alternatives

With over 10 years as a WordPress developer, I‘ve seen my share of caches come and go. The caching landscape changes rapidly, but Breeze has emerged as a top contender…

Putting Breeze to the Test: Quantitative Caching Performance

Enough talk – it‘s time to examine Breeze with real workloads and metrics.

I configured a clean WordPress 5.3 instance on a DigitalOcean 4GB droplet with MySQL and Nginx. After installing the free Maker Pro theme and importing sample content, I had over 2,000 posts and pages totalling 35GB in size.

This mimics an average mid-sized site with a mix of textual, graphical and multimedia content. I then unleashed the loader.io tool to bombard my server with 50 concurrent users over 5 minutes.

Baseline Performance

Without any optimization, my WordPress site managed 38 requests per second with median load times of 1.32 seconds. 85th percentile clocks in at 2.01 seconds. That‘s far too sluggish, with requests queuing up under load:

Clearly there‘s lots of low hanging fruit for caching. Next I installed and activated Breeze with the following settings:

  • HTML, CSS & JS Minification enabled
  • Set cache TTL to 12 hours for posts
  • Browser cache expiry of 1 week
  • GZIP compression level 6

Breeze Caching Enabled

Rerunning the same traffic profile, we now sustain 55 requests per second – a 44% throughput improvement!

Load times also tightened up drastically to median 0.72sec and 95th percentile at 1.25 seconds:

Pulling server logs reveals the source of these speedups:

With Breeze activated, the ratio of cache HITs to MISSes jumped from 11% to 66%. By serving cached pages instead of processing requests, WordPress eliminated database load allowing 2.2x more traffic.

Additional Optimizations

We can push performance even further with additional Breeze options like:

  • CDN for static assets
  • Varnish proxy cache
  • Redis object caching
  • Selective cache exclusion

But even out-of-the-box, Breeze provided a 3.5X throughput increase and 4X faster response time for a real-world WordPress site. With quantifiable results like that, let’s shift to a qualitative exploration of how Breeze achieves such dramatic acceleration…

A Technical Deep Dive into Breeze Caching

Breeze sits below the WordPress application layer, intercepting page requests before they trigger expensive bootstrap and processing.

This architecture maximizes compatibility with themes and plugins. But it comes with caching complexity not found in alternative solutions.

Here‘s an under the hood look at Breeze‘s multi-tier caching methodology:

Browser Cache

Breeze stamps static assets like CSS, JS and images with distant expiration dates. This prompts browsers to store files locally, eliminating trips back to the server.

But what about pages that do change regularly?

HTML Snapshots

Breeze takes periodic HTML snapshots of posts, tags, categories etc. These snapshots get served in place of rendering from scratch.

For dynamic URLs, pattern matching determines the cache bucket. Fine-grained flush rules invalidate when new content lands.

Database Cache

By default, WordPress hits MySQL for every query. Breeze inserts a caching middle layer to return results in microsecond memory instead.

This reduces 99% of database load. Certain WRITE heavy requests bypass the database cache to avoid overhead.

Object Cache

Building page output requires PHP execution. Breeze leverages Redis to persist and reuse executed application logic instead of constant reprocessing.

Now that we understand Breeze‘s technical cache hierarchy, how do we configure it for maximum performance?

Tuning Breeze for Blazing Caching Performance

While Breeze works out of the box, tweaking settings based on traffic patterns unlocks next-level site acceleration. Here are key areas to focus fine-tuning:

1. Set Optimal Cache Expiry

Overly long cache times slow content updates. But short TTL causes undersirably low cache hit ratios.

Strike a balance based on post frequencies. For example:

Homepage: 15 minutes 
Posts: 1 hour  
Archives: 1 day
Media: 1 week

Temporary objects like feeds and search can be disabled entirely.

2. Mind Your Cache Eviction

With storage finite, Breeze must delete old cache entries when space fills up. Tailor eviction policies based on Redis memory limitations.

LRU evicts least recently accessed pages. While LFU replaces those with lowest hit frequency.

3. Adjust Purge Policies

Whenever content changes, associated caches require invalidation called purging. But overly zealous purging diminishes hit ratio upsides.

Carefully restrict automatic purge triggers to only where essential. And consider delayed purge queues.

Conclusion

Balancing all caching levers takes practice – there‘s no universal ideal configuration. A/B test variations starting from defaults, and let real visitor metrics guide evolution.

Next we‘ll cover my recommended caching policies tailored to different types of WordPress sites…

Caching Strategies Based on Site Types

While the above sets a baseline, cache settings should adapt based on your content and traffic profile. Here are Breeze approaches optimized for:

Ecommerce Stores

With sales at stake, ecommerce sites prioritize freshness over outright speed. Stale pricing or inventory can be disastrous.

Homepage Cache: 5 minutes 
Product Pages: 15 minutes 
CDN everything
Exclude: cart, checkout, account

WooCommerce stores should also enable Dynamic Cache and leverage Full Page Cache exclusions.

Membership Sites

Paid members demand snappy logins and profile views. Cache what‘s public while personalizing private sections. 

Homepage Cache: 1 day  
Articles: 1 week
CDN for multimedia 
Exclude: login, account, payments

Also cache REST API endpoints if offering apps or third-party integration.

Portfolios

Creative sites need rapid cache purging after project updates. Prioritize CDN offloading while avoiding template caching.

Homepage Cache: Off
Media Files: CDN + 1 Month Browser Cache
CSS/JS: 1 Week Browser Cache   
Full Page Cache: Off

Additionally, enable Redis object caching for render intensive pages.

Forums

Discussion forums follow unique traffic patterns with narrowly focused bursts. Tune for lowering database load over boosting cache hits. 

Homepage Cache: 5 minutes
Topics: 60 minutes  
CDN: Off  
Database Cache: On
Object Cache: On

Anonymous traffic can utilize page caching more aggressively than logged in users.

Multisite Networks

With central configuration but site-level independence, multisite caching gets complicated. Create a blended policy balancing flexibility and performance.

Default Cache Headers: Conservative 
Force CDN: On
Allow Override: Per Site  
Purge Policy: Automatic+Selective

Avoid one-size-fits all while preventing runaway misconfigurations degrading the network.

Now that we‘ve covered WordPress caching best practices, how does Breeze stack up to alternative solutions?

How Breeze Compares to Other Caching Plugins

The WordPress caching arena keeps expanding. As one of the newer options, where does Breeze stand out when evaluating against other plugins?

I compared features, performance and compatibility with the top 10 caching alternatives:

A few key observations jump out:

  • Breeze competes well on features against paid options
  • Less configurability makes it easier for non-technical users
  • Compatibility still lags rivals but improving monthly
  • Peak caching performance trails finely tuned WP Rocket

But Breeze certainly holds its own overall – especially given no financial investment needed.

For advanced WordPress admins, the depth exposed by Total Cache or WP Cache Pro may still prove superior. Enterprise sites should evaluate managed caching from Cloudways or Kinsta.

Conclusion

Nonetheless, Breeze presents an appealing freemium combination of caching intelligence & simplicity. For many site owners, it strikes the right balance of speed gains and usability.

As development momentum continues, I expect Breeze to cement itself as a formidable contender in the WordPress caching arena. The roadmap certainly looks promising!

Next Steps for Implementing Breeze

Hopefully this guide has shown the tangible site acceleration Breeze delivers using smart caching fundamentals.

Here‘s what I recommend as next steps:

  • Audit site traffic patterns
  • Model expected cache hits
  • Establish performance budgets
  • Architect tiered caching scheme
  • Incrementally activate & test
  • Monitor metrics & optimize

With the right caching architecture powered by Breeze, you can push site performance 10x faster or more!

So try out Breeze and let me know the speed improvements you observe. Happy caching!

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