Best W3 Total Cache Settings for WordPress: Ideal Setup to Pass Core Web Vitals [2025]

Learn how to install and configure W3 Total Cache (W3TC) WordPress plugin with the best settings to pass Core Web Vitals, boost pagespeed, and improve overall website performance.

Are you looking for the best way to configure the W3 Total Cache WordPress plugin? If so, keep reading this article. We will show you the ideal settings for the best performance.

By improving the speed of your website, you can reduce the bounce rate and improve the user experience. With the help of a caching plugin like W3 Total Cache, you can boost the website’s speed with minimal hassle. However, you must always have the best W3 Total Cache plugin settings to achieve the best results.

In this blog post, I will show you the best W3 Total Cache plugin settings to help you achieve the maximum performance score!

Before we get into the article’s core, let’s review W3 Total Cache and its features.

W3 Total Cache: An Introduction

W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is a freemium WordPress caching plugin developed by BoldGrid. More than a million websites are using the Lite version of W3 Total Cache to enhance their website’s speed.

The plugin will seamlessly work with any hosting environment, such as shared hosting, VPS hosting, cloud hosting, or a dedicated server.

Besides the compatibility, some of the features of W3 Total Cache are:

  • CDN integration
  • Mobile cache support
  • Minification
  • AMP support
  • SSL support
  • Static file optimization
  • WP-CLI support

And so on.

In a nutshell, W3 Total Cache offers the most unique caching techniques an online store or individual needs.

How to Install W3 Total Cache

You can install W3 Total Cache directly from the WordPress admin dashboard or by uploading the plugin .zip files.

On your WordPress admin panel, first, go to Plugins > Add New and search for W3 Total Cache, then install and activate it.

activate w3 total cache
Activate W3 Total Cache

If you have the premium version of the W3 Total Cache plugin, install the premium plugin file manually and obtain the license from the BoldGrid account.

Best W3 Total Cache Settings
Best W3 Total Cache Settings

Best W3 Total Cache Settings for WordPress: The Ideal Setup to Pass Core Web Vitals

W3 Total Cache comes with some default settings.

You must change the default settings to ensure the plugin works seamlessly with the website, and you’ll get the full potential.

In this W3 Total Cache setup guide, I will show you how to tweak these options to achieve the best WordPress or WooCommerce performance scores.

However, the best settings will always be according to your server configuration. If you find any issues, enable debug mode in the settings.

  • Dashboard
  • Feature showcase
  • General settings
  • Page cache
  • Minify
  • Database cache
  • Object cache
  • Browser cache
  • Cache groups
  • CDN
  • User experience

Let’s get started.

1. Dashboard

Here, you will see an overview of the plugin.

w3tc dashboard
W3TC Dashboard

You will see information on the enabled modules, account details (free or premium), image-related data, etc.

You will not see any configuration options on this page, so skip it.

2. Feature Showcase

This section will show you all the available premium and free modules. This page does not have cache options or configuration settings.

feature showcase
Feature Showcase

3. General Settings

Under the General settings, you can see all the major customizations. Here is how you can tweak them for the best performance:

  • Preview mode: Enable. When configuring the plugin, you should use the preview mode. This will help you try different options without breaking your website. When you finish the configuration, you can disable the preview mode.
preview mode enabled
Preview mode enabled
  • Page cache: Enable. This is the whole point of the caching plugin. Once you have enabled this option, the website’s page caching feature will be activated.
  • Page cache method: It depends. You can choose a cache method based on your web hosting type. For example, if you use a shared hosting plan, any DISK cache methods are ideal. The Opcode cache method would be more environmentally feasible when using a VPS.
basic settings
Basic Settings
  • Minify: Enable. Minification can help you optimize your static files. Enable this option to compress your CSS, JS, and HTML files. However, I will show you further minification optimizations later in this article.
  • Minify mode: Auto. The auto mode is ideal for most websites. If it is causing issues, you can switch to manual mode.
  • Minify cache method: Disk. Disk is the preferred cache minification cache method.
  • HTML minifier: Minify (default). You do not need to change the method. By default, the plugin comes with the ideal option.
  • JS minifier: JSMin (default). As we did with the HTML minifier, you do not need to switch to the JS minifier. The default option is the best one in most cases.
  • CSS minifier: Minify (default). The default option is the best.
basic minification settings
Basic minification settings
  • Opcode cache: Opcode: Zend Opcache. If you can’t see this option, log in to your cPanel account and check the PHP extensions. Once you have enabled the Opcache extension, this option will be enabled.
opcode cache settings
Opcode Cache Settings
  • Database cache: Enable. To optimize the database queries, you should enable this option. We highly recommend optimizing the database query for maximum performance.
  • Database cache method: It depends. Based on your preferences and hosting environments, test them individually and pick an option.
database cache
Database cache
  • Object cache: It depends. You can enable or disable the caching of objects based on your preferences. Sometimes, this can slow down the website, so you must test it before enabling it.
  • Object cache method: It depends. If you can enable the Object cache feature, choose a caching method based on the hosting environment.
object cache settings
Object cache settings
  • Browser cache: Enable. Browser cache will help you serve the web pages quickly by storing the files in the visitor’s browser. So, this should be enabled. From here, you can change the browser caching behavior, cache control policy, etc.
browser cache
Browser cache
  • CDN: It depends. You should enable this function using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) with a custom CDN URL.
  • CDN type: Optional. Choose the type of CDN here (if you are using any).
cdn settings
CDN settings
  • Enable reverse proxy caching via Varnish: It depends. When you are using Varnish, add the Varnish IP addresses here.
reverse proxy settings
Reverse proxy settings
  • Lazy load images: Enable. When you use W3 Total Cache to lazy load images, you do not need to use a dedicated plugin for lazy loading of images.
  • Disable emoji: Enable. Emojis can slow down your website, so disable them and use Unicode instead. Unicode is optimized for speed and performance.
  • Disable wp-embed script: It depends. You can disable the wp-embed script if you do not embed YouTube videos into articles or pages.
  • Disable jquery-migrate on the front end: It depends. You should test it to see the impact. Based on the results, enable or disable the feature.
user experience settings
User Experience Settings
  • License: Optional. If you have purchased the premium version of the W3 Total Cache plugin, you can enter the license key here to unlock every feature.
license key
License Key
  • Verify rewrite rules: Enable. This feature is enabled by default. It will notify you if there is a server configuration error.
  • Enable file locking: Disable. This feature is not required.
  • Optimize disk-enhanced page and Minify disk caching for NFS: Disable. Do not need this one either.
  • Fix document root path: Disable. This needs no attention. Leave it disabled.
  • Anonymously tracking usage to improve product quality: It depends. Sharing usage helps developers in enhancing features and fixing bugs, but this may slightly raise your server’s CPU usage.
Miscellaneous settings
Miscellaneous settings
webp converter
WebP Converter
  • Import/export settings: Don’t use. Use this for importing or exporting W3TC settings between websites, but it’s unnecessary for configuration.
import configuration
Import/Export Configuration

4. Page Cache

You can ensure the website loads quickly with the proper page cache settings. There are several basic page cache and advanced page caching options available, which will help you build up the cache with max potential.

Here are the steps to the page cache settings I recommend:

4.1 General

  • Cache posts page: Enabled. You should enable this if you use a separate page for your blog posts.
  • Don’t cache the front page: Disabled. Do not enable this. You need to cache your homepage always.
  • Cache feeds: sites, categories, tags, comments: Enabled. It is recommended that you enable this function.
  • Handle XML mime type: Optional. You should test it before enabling or disabling it.
  • Cache SSL requests: Enabled. Enable the cache SSL option when using the HTTPS protocol on the website. This will cache SSL pages on your website, which is ideal for HTTPS protocol users.
  • Cache URIs with query string variables: Disabled. By default, you do not need to activate cache URIs with the query string option.
  • Cache 404 pages: Optional. You should test the HTTP response code before turning this option on or off.
  • Don’t cache pages for logged-in users: Enabled.
page cache general
Page Cache – General settings
  • Cache Alias Hostnames: Disabled. You do not need this feature when accessing the content from the same website.
alias
Page Cache – Alias

4.2 Cache Preload

  • Automatically Prime the Page Cache: It depends. This can increase CPU usage, so test whether it’s good for your website.
  • Update interval: 1200. This is the wait time for the plugin to create the next set of cached pages.
  • Pages per interval: 10. The number of pages to create during the process. 10 is ideal.
  • Sitemap URL: Custom. You should enter your sitemap URL in this place.
  • Preload cache upon publishing a post: Enable. When you enable this, the plugin will preload the cache after you publish a blog post.
  • Preload cache upon updating a post: Enable. You should enable this function too.
cache preload
Page Cache – Cache preload

4.3 Purge Policy: Page Cache

Here are the things you need to enable:

  • Front page
  • Posts page
  • Post page
  • Blog feed

Besides these, you should also select the rss2 feed type. You do not need to change any other settings.

Once you are done with these, you can move forward.

purge pages
Page Cache – Purge pages

4.4 REST API

It is a premium feature. However, you do not need to cache the REST API. So, you can leave it as it is.

4.5 Advanced

These additional settings are specific to individual sites. So, I don’t have recommended settings, but here’s what works on most websites:

  • Late initialization: Premium feature.
  • Late caching: Premium feature.
  • Compatibility mode: it depends. If you have started to experience any conflicts on the website after using W3 Total Cache, enable this function.
  • Charset: It depends. It will not be a huge problem, so you can configure it as you like.
  • Reject HEAD requests: Premium feature.
  • Maximum lifetime of cache objects: 3600.
advanced settings
Page Cache Advanced settings

You do not need to change anything else. The default values are great for the website.

5. Minify

Minification will remove all the unwanted spaces and comments from CSS files and other static files.

To compress the static files for the best performance, configure the caching mechanism like this:

  • Rewrite URL Structure: On. You should always enable this function.
  • Disable minify for logged-in users: Disabled. You can enable or disable caching based on user roles. Minified files aren’t needed for logged-in users, but for a dynamic website like membership sites, you should enable this for better performance and faster page load times.
  • Minify error notification: Admin notifications. If there are any modification errors, you will get a notification. You can also enable email notifications if you are running a huge website.
minify general
Minify Settings – General
  • HTML minify settings: Enable.
    • Inline CSS modification: Enable.
    • Inline JS modification: Enable.
    • Don’t minify feeds: Enable.
    • Line break removal: I suggest you test this optional optimization to find the ideal setting for your site. It removes line breaks from CSS files to optimize them.
    • Ignored Comment stems: Optional. You should enter all your HTML tags, which don’t need any modification. You should enter one tag per line.
html minification
HTML Minification
  • JS Minify settings: Enabled. You should optimize the JavaScript files for better performance.
    • Minify method: Minify only.
    • Minify engine settings: Depends. You should test both options to find the ideal optimization for your website.
    • Preserved comment removal: Enabled. This option lets you remove comments from your CSS files, speeding up the loading process.
    • Line break removal: Disabled. It is not recommended, but you can test it on your website.
    • HTTP/2 push: Depends. Test to see if it has any impact on the website’s speed.
js settings
Minify Settings for JS minification
  • CSS minify settings: Enabled. CSS minify settings will allow you to optimize the CSS files on your website. The minified version of CSS files will help you get maximum performance.
    • Minify method: Minify only. This is the ideal minification method for you.
    • Minify engine settings: Depends. You can choose the correct configuration to choose the JS minification method here.
    • @import handling: Process. Processing is the ideal option in this situation.
    • HTTP/2 push: Depends. You must test this option to see the impact and choose the optimal settings.
css minify
Minify Settings for CSS

Scroll down for advanced minify options. You should only use these advanced settings to troubleshoot if any configuration breaks your website.

6. Database Cache

You do not need to modify the database caching. The basic settings are enough to optimize the server resources for the best database caching.

7. Object Cache

You do not need to modify the object cache settings like the database cache settings. Settings like garbage collection interval and, default lifetime of the cache can be seen here.

Since you do not need to change this section, let’s move to the next section.

8. Browser Cache

The browser cache configuration page will display all the browser caching functions, and from here, you can tweak all the browser caching behavior.

Next, I will show you the optimal browser cache settings, which will help you choose the right cache behavior. Follow these steps:

  • Set Last-Modified header: Enabled. The developer recommends enabling the last-modified header.
  • Set expires header: Enabled. Enable this for everything other than HTML and XML.
  • Set cache control header: Enabled. This will tell the browser to cache files.
  • Set entity tag (ETag): Enabled. By enabling this option, you can save bandwidth.
  • Set W3 Total Cache header: Enabled. To identify the optimized files, you should enable this option.
  • Enable gzip or Brotli compression: It depends. If you can use Brotli, use that. It is better than gzip. Read our complete guide on Gzip / Brotil optimization. Conduct a Gzip test to know if your site is already configured for it or not.
browser cache fiorst half settings
Browser Cache – First Half settings
  • Prevent caching of objects after settings change: Enabled. It is recommended that you keep this enabled to ensure the browser reloads assets with new cache files.
  • Remove query strings from static resources: Disabled. Disable this query string option to ensure the files are being delivered correctly. Removing query strings is also recommended if you’re not serving any dynamic content.
  • Prevent caching exception list: It depends. Add the list here to prevent it from query string caching (if you have one).
  • Don’t set cookies for static files: Enabled. It is ideal for optimizing the uncompressed traffic.
  • Do not process 404 errors for static objects with WordPress: Disabled. Enabling this can increase the server load. So, we do not need this static object option enabled.
  • 404 error exception list: It depends. You can leave this blank. Or keep the default options.
  • Rewrite URL structure of objects: Disabled. You do not need to use it.
browser caching second half
Browser Caching – Second half settings

From there, you can also configure a few settings related to the security headers.

9. Cache Groups

You can use the User Agent Groups to display a mobile theme for mobile users. Similarly, you can also customize the site version for different referrers.

The three main options available are:

  • User Agent Groups
  • Referrer Groups
  • Cookie Groups

If you need to create individual caching buckets, you can use this feature. These are for advanced users, so I would suggest you leave them.

This would work on most servers, including dedicated servers.

10. CDN

If you use a CDN provider (different from Cloudflare) like Bunny.net, you must configure this section in W3 Total Cache settings.

The CDN option will only appear if you check the General Settings section.

cdn settings general
CDN Settings

Select your CDN type, then set up a custom domain. Now, enter your hostname in the CDN settings.

If you use the Bunny CDN, you should also use their in-house plugin. The CDN settings have several configuration options that you can customize.

cdn settings
CDN Settings

Customize preferences and clear both the plugin’s cache and pull zone. Validate file delivery from the CDN using Google PageSpeed Insights to check site speed.

You can also use other site speed testing tools to measure the performance.

11. User Experience

The final setting you have is user experience. Here are the steps on how you can configure it:

  • Process HTML image tags: Enbled. You should always enable this.
  • Process background images: Enabled. Enable this one, too.
  • Exclude words: Depends. To improve the performance, you should avoid the above-the-fold images from lazy loading. So, add the words here.
  • Threshold: Optional. Use this function to offer a smooth, lazy loading experience. A 100 would be ideal.
  • Script embed method: Async. This is the default option, and it is okay.
user experience
User Experience Settings – Lazy Loading

Available Extensions for W3 Total Cache

To enhance the plugin’s features, look into the extensions available. Here are some of the popular extensions you can use with W3 Total Cache:

  • Fragment Cache
  • Cloudflare
  • AMP
  • Genesis Framework
  • WPML
  • Yoast SEO
  • New Relic

W3 Total Cache Documentation

If you need help with setting up the plugin or understanding a specific feature, you can check the W3 Total Cache documentation.

w3tc docs
W3TC Docs

The development team has arranged the docs into multiple sub-sections, such as:

  • Dashboard
  • Page cache
  • Minify
  • opCode cache

And so on.

Most guides can be found there. However, contact customer support if you can’t see a unique article or configuration. They would be happy to help you with the task.

W3 Total Cache Pro Pricing

Upgrade to a premium plan if you need more features and enhance the caching ability.

Here are the plans available for W3 Total Cache Premium.

w3tc pricing
W3TC Pricing
  • 1 Website License – $99 a year
  • 5 Website License – $350 a year
  • 10 Website License – $500 a year
  • Bulk Licenses – Custom Pricing

What are the Alternatives to W3 Total Cache Plugin?

  • WP Super Cache: A popular and beginner-friendly caching plugin that generates static HTML files to serve cached versions of your website, reducing server load and improving load times.
  • FlyingPress: FlyingPress is a robust caching plugin that enhances website performance. It offers an array of features including CSS/JS minification, HTML compression, and lazy loading to improve load times. It can also delay JavaScript execution, boosting speed further.
  • Perfmatters: Perfmatters is a lightweight tool designed to boost performance by disabling non-essential WordPress features and managing scripts to load only on specific pages. While not a traditional caching plugin, it complements caching solutions like W3 Total Cache, enhancing site speed and efficiency through fine-tuning.
  • WP Rocket: Known for its user-friendly interface and comprehensive features, WP Rocket offers caching, image optimization, and various performance enhancements to speed up your WordPress site.
  • LiteSpeed Cache: Designed to work exclusively with the LiteSpeed web server, this plugin provides advanced caching options and optimization features, including image optimization and database cleaning.

Frequently Asked Questions

Now, let’s look at some frequently asked questions regarding this topic and the cache features offered by W3 Total Cache.

Why You Should Use a WordPress Caching Plugin

A caching plugin will help you optimize the website’s speed and reduce bandwidth usage. You can use it for asset minification (reducing file size) and other ways to reduce CPU resources and REST API caching, the website will feel so much faster. Since its compatibility with plugins won’t cause any issues, using the right tool to optimize the speed is ideal.

Does W3 Total Cache Support CDNs?

Yes. The W3 Total Cache plugin can be integrated with CDN providers like Bunny.net and Cloudflare. The integration process is smooth, and you do not need to deal with technical issues.

Does W3 Total Cache Minify Static Files?

Yes. The plugin has multiple minify modes and can minify static assets such as HTML, CSS, and JS. There are advanced options available, too.

Can We Use Perfmatters With This Plugin?

Yes. You can solve the missing optimizations by combining Perfmatters with W3 Total Cache. We highly recommend this.

Which Is Better – W3 Total Cache or WP Rocket?

Both W3TC and WP Rocket are awesome tools to improve load speeds and response time. With these plugins, you can easily add browser caching to your website, run a quick compatibility check, and optimize the external files, too. The cache features are excellent. You can pick one based on your requirements.

Will W3 Total Cache work with Multisite Network?

Yes. The plugin is compatible with a multisite network. So, if you have a multisite network and are looking for a caching plugin, W3 Total Cache would be an ideal fit.

Why You Should Use W3 Total Cache GZIP?

W3 Total Cache’s GZIP compression can decrease the size of your web pages‘ content before it’s sent from the server to the user’s browser. This reduction in data transfer size leads to quicker page load times, which is ideal for optimizing performance.

Why You Should Use W3 Total Cache Preload?

The preload feature is crucial for maintaining an optimal user experience on your website. Preloading pages ensures that content is cached and readily available even before a user requests it, significantly reducing visitor load times.

How to Purge W3 Total Cache (W3TC Clear Cache)?

You should purge the cache after website design or code changes to ensure visitors see the update. You can use the Performance tab in the admin toolbar to clear the cache of W3 Total Cache and generate a new cache. This option also purges custom caching modules.

W3 Total Cache Best Settings – Conclusion

Proper W3 Total Cache plugin settings can boost your website’s speed. In this guide, I have shown you the ideal settings, which will help you improve the caching process and get better loading times.

Following this guide, you can easily score better on Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, etc. Plus, since Google is using website speed as one of the search engine ranking factors, you should always focus on improving the site’s loading performance and reducing the server load.

With the help of cache preload, you can crawl through the sitemap and update the cache with the latest content from the blog feed, and publish events without overloading the server. The cache preloading would come in handy, the cache preloading benefits are top-notch.

You should also try using the Perfmatters plugin and W3 Total Cache. This combo will help you get a better loading speed for your website.

How else would you optimize your website’s performance?

Let us know in the comments.

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Shashank Singh
Shashank is a web addict and amateur blogger. His current interests include blogging, SEO, and WordPress. See his social profiles to know him even better.
Disclaimer: Affiliate links of some product(s) are being used on this page, if you follow the link and make a purchase, we may receive compensation from respective companies. This compensation comes at no additional cost to you.

17 thoughts on “Best W3 Total Cache Settings for WordPress: Ideal Setup to Pass Core Web Vitals [2025]”

  1. Avatar of Zafer Mukeri

    You saved my day with this tutorial buddy. thanks. Any time i use this plugin my website breaks, but after disabling the minify setting, its perfectly working now.
    Thanks again.

    Reply
  2. Avatar of Rushikesh Thawale

    W3 Total Cache is a very helpful plugin.

    Reply
  3. Hey Rushikesh,
    Indeed its a good plugin. But that’s all you want to say.
    Hope you haven’t commented merely mentioning your site URL.

    Reply
  4. Avatar of Manoj

    Excellent. I was facing slow speed issue on one of my blogs. W3TC is my favorite tool for optimization, from the very beginning. I love the plugin as it does a tremendous job to speed up the website. This tutorial will help us to become advanced user & unlock the hidden benefits of W3TC. 

    Thanks for sharing details with screen-captures.

    Reply
    • Hey Manoj,
      I’m glad that you found it useful.
      Thanks for stopping by!

      Reply
  5. Avatar of Ondari

    Hi Shashank Singh,
    A very nice guide. Earlier on I only removed the query strings but still, there was tremendous reduction in loading time. It has now reduced further to 1.6s.

    Reply
    • Hey Ondari,
      Glad that you found it useful.
      Thanks for stopping by!

      Reply
  6. Avatar of Azad Ansari

    It worked for me.
    Thanks, brother!

    Reply
    • Hey Azad,
      Glad that you find it useful.
      Thanks for dropping by!

      Reply
  7. Avatar of Rob Pinto

    Hi Shashank,
    After installing the plug-in and setting everything the way you describe above, my web score remains the same (PageSpeed and GTMetrix both at 89). Also, in GTMetrix, I can see that the score has not increased and the ‘critical’ topics still remain.
    In your opinion, do you think I am doing something wrong or that it is what it is?

    Thank you,

    Rob

    Reply
    • Avatar of Shashank Singh

      Hey Rob,
      That’s really surprising because it helped to improve site performance for so many other readers.
      Share some more detail so that we can have a look what’s going on. Looking forward to listening more from you.
      Thanks for dropping by!

      Reply

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