A fast-loading website is essential for providing a seamless user experience and boosting your site's search engine rankings.
Installing a WordPress caching plugin is one of the most effective ways to optimize performance, as it serves pre-generated static HTML files to your visitors rather than processing complex database queries on every page request.
This guide will take you through the steps of installing the Breeze cache plugin on your WordPress website.
Note:
Caching is the process of storing your frequently used website's data in memory temporarily so that it can load faster for your visitors when the same resource is requested the next time.
What is Breeze?
Breeze is a free, user-friendly, simple yet powerful WordPress caching plugin developed by Cloudways. It aims to optimize your WordPress website and reduce the load time of the web pages to create a good user experience.
A fast website can help improve search engine position, reduce bounce rate, and increase conversion rate. It is an easy-to-use plugin and supports Content Delivery Network (CDN) integration and Varnish cache.
It is the default WordPress caching plugin at Cloudways; however, it is also available in the WordPress plugin repository to be used with another hosting provider.
You can unlock the true potential of the Breeze plugin with Cloudways hosting as there are unique integrations and Varnish support.
Benefits and Features of Breeze
Breeze plugin offers top-notch caching performance and is fully equipped with the best features set, including:
Full-page caching. Saves a finished copy of each page for faster delivery.
Varnish auto purge. Clears the server cache whenever you publish content.
Gzip compression. Shrinks site files so pages reach visitors faster.
Browser caching. Lets returning visitors reuse files stored in their browser.
Lazy loading. Loads images and videos only as visitors scroll toward them.
Cache preloading. Warms up to 30 chosen pages after every cache clear.
Cached page parts refresh. Updates single blocks, like a mini-cart, on cached pages (beta).
Heartbeat control. Slows WordPress background admin requests to free server capacity.
Database cleanup. Removes drafts, transients, revisions, and spam with one click.
Never-cache rules. Keeps pages like cart and checkout live and uncached.
Breeze Compatibility
Breeze is built considering the needs of Cloudways customers; therefore, it is 100% compatible with the Cloudways Platform. Moreover, It is fully compatible with WordPress, WooCommerce, and Multisite applications.
It comes pre-installed with Cloudways-optimized WordPress, WooCommerce, and Multisite applications. By default, it is activated and configured with default settings. However, Breeze settings are highly customizable, but the default settings also work best and provide optimal performance.
How to Install Breeze Plugin
To reiterate, the Breeze plugin is pre-installed with Cloudways-optimized WordPress, WooCommerce, and Multisite applications. Here's the process of installing the Breeze plugin from scratch.
Important:
While Breeze is recommended as the primary caching plugin, you can use it alongside other caching solutions like FlyingPress by disabling Breeze's caching features. This allows Breeze to manage functionalities like Cloudflare cache purging without conflicts.
Prerequisites
Here are a few prerequisites before installing Breeze.
WordPress application version 6 or higher.
Log in to your WordPress application using your credentials. If you are on Cloudways, your application login credentials are available on the Cloudways Platform
Steps to Install Breeze WordPress Cache Plugin
Go to Plugins > Add New.
Search for the Breeze plugin.
Next, click Install Now.
Finally, click Activate.
That's it! The Breeze plugin is successfully installed and activated.
Breeze Recommended Settings
Here are the recommended settings of the Breeze plugin to unlock its full potential. These recommended settings are automatically enabled when you install the Breeze plugin.
Cache System
Gzip Compression
Browser Cache
For more in-depth information about these recommended settings, please read about configuring the Breeze plugin.
You can also watch the following video to learn how to install Breeze WordPress Cache on Cloudways.
Important:
While Breeze is recommended as the primary caching plugin, you can use it alongside other caching solutions like FlyingPress by disabling Breeze's caching features. This allows Breeze to manage functionalities like Cloudflare cache purging without conflicts.
Is the Breeze Plugin Required If I Only Want to Use Varnish?
While it's not strictly necessary to use the Breeze plugin to enable Varnish caching, doing so significantly improves cache management. Without Breeze—or a similar plugin—Varnish doesn’t automatically detect content changes on your site.
This means Varnish may continue to serve stale content until its Time-to-Live (TTL) expires (default is 4 hours) or until the cache is manually purged.
Breeze offers built-in integration with Varnish and ensures only the relevant cache is purged when needed. For example, Breeze automatically purges Varnish cache when you:
Create, update, or delete posts or pages
Activate or deactivate plugins or themes
Manually trigger a purge from the Breeze dashboard
So, while not mandatory, using Breeze alongside Varnish results in a more dynamic and efficient caching setup.
That's it! We hope this article was helpful.