Perfmatters is a WordPress plugin that removes unnecessary resources from being loaded on your web pages. By disabling these unused features, your website will load faster. Less resources = faster website.
My homepage went from a size of 1.8 MB with 33 resources to just 288 KB with only 17 requests with Perfmatters.
In this review of the Perfmatters plugin, I’ll walk you through the settings I use on this website and show you how to optimize the performance of your WordPress website with Perfmatters.
Disable Features and Remove Resources
The plugins and themes that you install on WordPress often include features that you either don’t need or are not using. This results in extra resources being loaded on your web pages.
On the main settings page of the Perfmatters plugin you’ll find a massive list of WordPress optimizations that can be turned on or off with the click of a button. Here are a subset of those features that allow you to eliminate unnecessary and/or unused assets from being loaded on your web pages.
- Disable Emojis
- Disable Embeds
- Remove Query Strings
- Disable XML-RPC
- Remove jQuery Migrate
- Hide WP Version
- Remove wlwmanifest Link
- Remove RSD Link
- Remove Shortlink
- Disable RSS Feeds
- Remove RSS Feed Links
- Disable Self Pingbacks
- Disable REST API
- Remove REST API Links
- Disable Dashicons
- Disable Google Maps
- Disable Google Fonts
- Disable Password Strength Meter
- Disable Comments
- Remove Comment URL
On my website, I have all of these Perfmatters options turned on except for disabling comments and disabling the REST API.
Cut the Fat with Perfmatters Script Manager
I like to say that Perfmatters does a fantastic job of cutting the fat from your web pages. In addition to removing and disabling features that are built into WordPress itself, Perfmatters also allows you to selectively disable additional resources that your theme and plugins might be loading on your web pages. These resources include scripts such as CSS and JavaScript files.
In order to disable scripts on a per post/page basis, the Perfmatters plugin has a Script Manager.
In the screenshot above from the contact page of this website, I used the script manager to disable the Contact Form 7 plugin from being loaded everywhere on my website except the contact page. As you can see in the screenshot below, this saves a total of 16.1 KB of JavaScript and CSS resources from being unnecessarily loaded on pages that don’t need them.
Similarly, I also disabled my syntax highlighting plugin from being loaded on pages that are not blog posts because this is the only place I will ever need to insert code snippets. Again, as you can see in the screenshot below, this saves a total of 134.41 KB of JavaScript and CSS resources from being unnecessarily loaded on pages that don’t need them.
Before & After: Performance Optimization Improvement
By combining the ability to disable and remove unnecessary WordPress features as well as using the script manager to prevent unused resources from being loaded, my homepage went from a size of 1.8 MB with 33 resources to just 288 KB with only 17 requests with Perfmatters.
I have an entire video below which will also walk you through the Perfmatters options I use on my website in addition to showing you in real time the performance boost that Perfmatters gives me.
If you’re interested in optimizing the performance of your WordPress site with Perfmatters, I have an exclusive discount for you. Use code TONYTEACHESTECH for 15% off any Perfmatters license.
Please let me know in the comment if you have any questions. I’ll do my best to help you out.
