The ultimate WordPress performance stack
Hosting, caching layers, CDN, image and script strategy: what to use, what to skip and what each choice costs. WordCamp Canada 2025.
The Ultimate WordPress Performance Stack: Tools, Tactics & Tradeoffs is my session from WordCamp Canada 2025, on October 16, 2025. It walks through the full WordPress performance stack, layer by layer: hosting, caching layers, CDN, and image and script strategy. For each layer the talk answers three questions: what to use, what to skip and what each choice costs you. The point is to make decisions in the right order, because a faster plugin cannot fix a slow server, and a CDN cannot fix uncached HTML.
Where I gave this talk
| Date | Event | Session | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| October 16, 2025 | WordCamp Canada 2025 | The Ultimate WordPress Performance Stack: Tools, Tactics & Tradeoffs | Official session page |
There is no recording linked here yet. The official session page has the description and the schedule details.
What the talk covers
The talk goes through the stack in the order a request travels, from the server to the browser.
| Layer | What it decides | Typical trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting and PHP | How fast WordPress can build a page when nothing is cached | Managed hosting limits what you can change; a VPS gives control and adds maintenance |
| Page cache | Whether most visitors get ready HTML instead of running PHP | Logged-in users, carts and personalized pages bypass it |
| Object cache | How many database queries repeat on uncached requests | A persistent cache like Redis needs memory and monitoring |
| CDN and edge | How close the files, and sometimes the HTML, are to the visitor | Caching HTML at the edge needs careful purge rules |
| Images | How many bytes the largest elements cost | Modern formats and sizes need a workflow, not just a plugin |
| Scripts and CSS | How much the browser has to run before the page is usable | Aggressive delay and removal can break features and hurt INP |
Each layer comes with what to measure on your own site, because the right answer depends on the site. A brochure site and a WooCommerce store with thousands of logged-in customers need different stacks.
Who it is for
WordPress developers, agencies and site owners who have tried caching plugins and optimization settings and want a framework for deciding what matters. It assumes you know what a plugin and a hosting plan are, but not server administration.
Related articles and guides
The written version of this approach is in how to speed up WordPress. For the caching layers, read page cache, object cache and edge cache: which one you actually need and Redis object cache for WordPress. The server side is in TTFB in WordPress. If you want this applied to your site, see WordPress performance consulting, and for the rest of my sessions, the talks page.