Good news for WordPress site owners: an official plugin to optimize web performance is available now. It is called: Performance Lab. The plugin is initially offered in beta version to allow users to test it and provide the necessary feedback.
Although plugins already exist in this area, the “WordPress Performance” team in charge of the project, explains that the extension is deployed with a completely different objective: “it is a collection of “functionality projects” related to performance for the core of WordPress”.
What are the benefits for developers and end users? Performance Lab’s approach removes the burden of tracking multiple plugins. It also reduces maintenance and encourages collaboration between developers.
How to test the Performance Lab plugin
Do you want to test this new plugin? You can download or install it directly from your WordPress dashboard. This extension is available in French.
You then find the plugin settings in the Settings section of your back office, as you can see below. WordPress clarifies on this subject: “the performance modules of the plugin can be activated individually in the plugin settings, so that they can be tested in isolation or in combination”.
4 modules integrated in a single plugin
The beta version of the plugin includes 4 modules:
- WebP Uploads: Creates WebP versions for new JPEG image uploads, if the server supports it.
- WebP Support: Adds a WebP support check.
- Persistent Object Cache Health Check: Checks site health and may suggest caching to speed up your website speed.
- Audit Enqueued Assets (Experimental): Adds CSS and JS asset checking (auditing).
To learn more, you can check out the official WordPress blog post.
