How to Use Breeze Basic Options for WordPress Caching

Breeze is a powerful caching plugin designed by Cloudways to improve the performance of your WordPress site.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the Basic Options Tab of the Breeze plugin.

You’ll learn how to enable caching, optimize images and videos using lazy loading, and manage other important features, all without needing any technical background.

TL;DR? Read the summary of this article:

Enable Page Cache – Turn on Breeze’s page caching to speed up site delivery by serving static HTML instead of dynamically generating pages on each visit.
Enable GZIP Compression – Use GZIP to reduce file sizes sent over the network, improving load times for users.
Browser Cache Settings – Set expiration headers (e.g., a month or more) for static assets like CSS, JS, and images to reduce repeat requests.
Minify CSS & JS – Activate basic minification to remove unnecessary characters like whitespace and comments, shrinking file size without altering functionality.
Database Cleanup – Use Breeze’s options to delete post revisions, trashed posts, auto-drafts, and expired transients to optimize database performance.

Note: This guide is perfect for beginners looking to speed up their WordPress websites using Breeze.

Table of Contents:

How to Use the Basic Options Tab?

How to Use the Basic Options Tab?

The Basic Options tab in the Breeze plugin lets you quickly enable caching and lazy loading to improve your website's speed and performance.

Here’s a quick video tutorial that walks you through how to use Breeze Basic Options to enable caching and improve your WordPress site speed:

In this article, we’ll help you configure Breeze easily, even if you're not a tech expert.

How to Access Breeze Settings?

Log into your WordPress Admin Panel or click on the top bar menu.
Go to Settings > Breeze from the left-hand menu.
You’ll now see different tabs — click on Basic Options to get started.

Enable Cache System

Caching helps your site load faster by storing frequently accessed content. Here's how to turn it on:

In the Basic Options tab, check the box next to Cache System.
Click Save Changes.

How to Confirm It’s Working:

Visit your website.
Right-click anywhere on the page and choose View Page Source.
Look for a line in the code like:

If you see it, caching is working!

Enable Lazy Load for Images

Lazy loading speeds up your site by loading images only when visitors scroll to them.

In the Basic Options tab, check the box for Lazy Load Images.
Save changes.

What Happens Behind the Scenes:

Breeze replaces each image with a lightweight placeholder.
When a user scrolls down, the original image loads only when it becomes visible.
Breeze uses smart coding to load the right image size for different screen types (desktop, mobile, etc.).

How to Confirm?

View your page source and search for terms like data-breeze, data-brsrcset, or data-brsizes.

The following attributes replace the original attributes:
- data-breeze = src
- data-brsrcset = data-srcset
- data-brsizes = data- sizes

View the Page Source to confirm lazy loading:

Simple images will show attributes like data-breeze="src", replacing the original src attribute.

Images with multiple sizes, using attributes like data-brsrcset and data-brsizes, will also be adjusted based on the screen’s resolution.

As the page is scrolled, the videos load. You can follow the network tab.

Important: There is no need for preview images as the videos load by lazy load right before they come into the viewport.

Enable Lazy Load for Videos and Iframes

Videos can take up a lot of bandwidth. Breeze helps load them only when needed — just before the user sees them.

Check the Lazy Load for iframes and Videos box.
Save changes.

Supported Video Platforms:

Lazy load will apply only to iframes from the following video hosts:

YouTube
Vimeo
DailyMotion
Facebook
Amazon S3
Wistia
BrightCove
Cincopa
Twitch
BitChute
MySpace
TikTok

Important: Breeze avoids lazy loading of all iframes by default to prevent breaking non-video embeds.

These can be found in /breeze/inc/class-breeze-lazy-load.php.

Users can add/remove any of the allowed URLs by using a filter:

$allowed_iframes_url = apply_filters( 'breeze_iframe_lazy_load_list', array(
					'youtube.com',
					'dailymotion.com/embed/video',
					'facebook.com/plugins/video.php',
					'player.vimeo.com',
					'fast.wistia.net/embed/',
					'players.brightcove.net',
					's3.amazonaws.com',
					'cincopa.com/media',
					'twitch.tv',
					'bitchute.com',
					'media.myspace.com/play/video',
					'tiktok.com/embed',
				) );

Lazy load for videos:

<video>
  <source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4">
</video>

Video source code would not be triggered. Only videos with the src attribute are the use case we cover as follows:

< video src=”video.webm” type=”video/webm” controls >
< /video >

Cross-origin Safe Links

For security reasons, links that open in a new tab (target="_blank") should include rel="noopener noreferrer".

How Breeze Helps?

Breeze automatically scans for external links that don’t have these values and updates them safely.

For Instance:

<a href="https://www.example.com" target="_blank">Visit Site</a>

Breeze will change it to:

<a href="https://www.example.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Visit Site</a>

Note: If you’re using the WordPress Editor, this is usually handled for you. But Breeze ensures that any custom links are also secured properly.

<a href="https://www.example.com" target="_blank">external link {must have rel noopener noreferrer}</a><br/>
<a href="https://www.example2.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> No Opener {no change needed here , already has noopener}</a><br/>
<a href="#stuff" target="_blank">link is actually a #ID {this should be ignored}</a><br/>
<a href="#" target="_blank">link is actually a # {this should be ignored}</a><br/>
<a href="https://www.example3.com" target="_blank" rel="has-a-rel-value-already" >external link other rel {should have the current rel with "noopener noreferrer" extra values}</a><br/>