By skyforbes 
In this detailed WP Rocket review, I’m going to tell you about the WP Rocket premium caching plugin for WordPress, my experience with WP Rocket, and whether or not it’s really worth it.
One of the main factors that can affect your search engine ranking, bounce rate, blog traffic, and all-around user experience for your site visitors is site speed. It’s safe to say that fast site speed is crucial for blogs. And where site speed is crucial for blogs, a good caching plugin is crucial for site speed.
If you’re looking to start your own blog or are already in the blogging world, you’ve most likely heard of the premium WP Rocket caching plugin. That’s probably why you’re here – to find out if it lives up to all the hype and is really worth the cost (am I right?).
I thought the same thing myself and decided to find out what WP Rocket was all about by giving the plugin a try with my WordPress blog. Let me help you out with my WP Rocket review and give you all the details you need to know about the WP Rocket plugin.
Get your FREE Ultimate Blogging Tools Checklist!
Enter your info below to get the Checklist delivered right to your inbox.
By signing up, you are subscribing to the Next Destination Unknown Nation email newsletter. But you can unsubscribe at any time. See the Privacy Policy for more info.
What is WP Rocket?
WP Rocket is a popular caching and performance optimization plugin for speeding up WordPress sites. What is caching you ask? I’m going to let WP Rocket explain caching in their article here: A Caching Plugin is Critical to Your WordPress Site.
One of the most important things you can do to improve your site speed is to use a good caching plugin. That’s where WP Rocket comes in. It’s recognized by many as the most powerful caching plugin on the market.
The purpose of WP Rocket is to optimize your WordPress site, making it blazing fast. And it does that as a simple WordPress plugin featuring an easy-to-use interface and straightforward set-up. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to use WP Rocket! They make it easy for everyone.
WP Rocket Features
What makes WP Rocket the best caching plugin out there? According to WP Rocket, the plugin “integrates all the latest features in terms of performance: lazy loading of images, deferred loading of JavaScript, minification of HTML code, concatenation and minification of CSS and JavaScript files.”
And that’s not all it does. But rather than go through all of WP Rocket’s features one-by-one, here’s a chart breaking them down:
You can see how WP Rocket stacks up against a few of the other leading caching plugins. Visit WP Rocket’s Features page and hover over the question marks to the right of each feature to get the specifics on it.
You may also like: How to Drastically Improve Your WordPress Site Speed
WP Rocket Pricing
WP Rocket is a premium plugin, so there is a cost for it. But the price is simple and, most importantly, affordable starting at just $49 for 1 website with a year of support and updates. That’s a great price!
Plus, your WP Rocket license will automatically renew at a 30% discount after one year. I love a good discount! If you don’t want it to automatically renew though, you can easily disable the auto-renewal option in your account.
My Experience with WP Rocket
For months, I struggled with my site speed. It wasn’t something I had really thought about until I read something about the importance of site speed and actually ran site speed tests on this site. Then I couldn’t NOT think about my site speed. My results were downright embarrassing!
I was mortified! 🤦♀️I let it go for a while. After all, there are a ton of things to do for blogging, and it was at the bottom of my to-do list. But it kept nagging at me (and depressing me). I did some research about the importance of site speed, and WP Rocket kept coming up.
There are a lot of positive reviews about the WP Rocket caching plugin, and people seem to love it. But it costs $49, so I had to ask myself… Is WP Rocket really worth it? When you start out blogging, it’s hard to justify spending money when you’re not making much (if any).
After an internal struggle with spending even more money on my blog, I realized I needed to invest in my blog if I want to be a serious blogger. You gotta spend money to make money, right?
So I gave in and purchased the premium WP Rocket caching plugin. Even though it was just a small investment at $49, I wondered if it was going to be a waste of money and if it was really going to make that big of a difference?
I’m a pretty tough critic and wasn’t going to go easy on my WP Rocket review. Luckily, the plugin integrated well with my hosting provider, their caching plugin, and my WordPress theme. And it was very easy to install and set-up the plugin.
Afterward, I held my breath as I re-ran the site speed test for my website. It felt like time stood still as I waited for the results to appear. When the scores finally showed up, I couldn’t believe my eyes… SUCCESS! My site speed had improved drastically!
Site Speed Results Before & After WP Rocket
I’m a sucker for before and after pics. They’re a fabulous way to compare and display dramatic results. And the results I got with WP Rocket are definitely dramatic!
As soon as I installed and activated the WP Rocket plugin (before changing any settings), there was an immediate increase in site loading speed! I was instantly SOLD on WP Rocket!
I used the following site speed tests to get an overall idea of my site’s loading speeds and performance scores:
Here are my results before WP Rocket and right after I installed and activated the plugin but prior to updating the settings:
GTmetrix (look at the Fully Loaded Time)
BEFORE WP Rocket
AFTER WP Rocket
Google PageSpeed Insights (look at the Score and Speed Index)
BEFORE WP Rocket
AFTER WP Rocket
Pingdom (look at the Load Time)
BEFORE WP Rocket
AFTER WP Rocket
So right out of the package, WP Rocket already made a HUGE difference in my site speed! Plus, it’s super easy to set-up with no complex configurations required. It’s a breeze for anyone to use without needing to know any programming.
Then by doing the following additional steps, things got even better! Here’s what I did:
- Scaled-down some of my image sizes as recommended by my GTmetrix site speed test results
That’s it! For the exact steps I took to get these results with WP Rocket, check out this post. Here are my final site speed results:
GTmetrix BEFORE
GTmetrix AFTER
Google PageSpeed Insights BEFORE
Google PageSpeed Insights AFTER
Pingdom BEFORE
Pingdom AFTER
To be honest, I don’t know all the technical details or how WP Rocket works exactly. But I do know that it works! And that’s all that really matters when it comes down to it.
You may also like: The 60+ Best Blogging Tools You Need to Make You a Successful Blogger
Is WP Rocket Really Worth It?
After giving WP Rocket a go, I just have to say… BEST. DECISION. EVER!
You saw the before and after screenshots of my site speed results after installing WP Rocket and making a few tweaks, right? Such a dramatic improvement!
And it works great with my hosting provider, their caching plugin, and my WordPress theme. In fact, pairing WP Rocket with my hosting plan and their caching plugin optimized my site speed even more. So there’s that. All major benefits of WP Rocket!
So you wanna know… is WP Rocket really worth it?
HECK YES!!! I’m thrilled with my results and absolutely LOVE WP Rocket! I highly recommend using the caching plugin to speed up your site!
And just check out all the 5-star reviews for WP Rocket on Trustpilot from other people who also love the plugin and gave a glowing WP Rocket review.
Still not convinced? Give WP Rocket a try yourself. If you’re not dazzled with your results, you’ve got 14 days to get a refund with WP Rocket’s 100% No-Risk Money Back Guarantee. So there’s no risk!
Wrapping Up the WP Rocket Review
Let’s recap this WP Rocket review… If you have a self-hosted WordPress site, you need a great caching plugin for optimum site speed and performance. And the absolute best caching plugin out there is WP Rocket!
Trust me. After using WP Rocket and seeing how much (and how quickly) it improved my site speed, I’m a believer. Every WordPress blog should be using the WP Rocket plugin in my opinion.
Get the exact settings I used with WP Rocket to take my site from pitifully slow to crazy fast HERE!
Yes, WP Rocket costs money. But to run a successful blog, you’re going to have to spend some cash and invest in your blog. WP Rocket is 100% worth the minimal investment. Give it a go. You won’t be disappointed!
CLICK HERE to get WP Rocket and improve your site speed, search engine ranking, and more!
Wanna know all 70+ blogging tools I use to run my self-hosted WordPress blog? Grab your FREE Ultimate Blogging Tools Checklist!