Are you looking for the best Perfmatters settings to deliver the ideal results? If you are, I have got you covered. In this tutorial, I will explain the ideal Perfmatters settings and configurations I use on my site with popular caching plugins.
If you want to improve Google PageSpeed Insights scores and optimize Core Web Vitals with Perfmatters, this guide covers step-by-step WordPress performance optimization tips.
Optimizing your WordPress website for better speed is not optional. Speed optimization is mandatory since it affects the overall user experience and ranking. Apart from choosing a good hosting provider and a lightweight theme, a performance improvement plugin can help you with the task.
In my experience, Perfmatters is one of the lightweight and easy-to-use performance plugins you can use to take your website’s speed to the next level.
☲ Table of Contents
- Why I Use Perfmatters with Caching Plugins
- Best Perfmatters Settings for WordPress Speed
- What is Perfmatters?
- Best Perfmatters Setup to Improve PageSpeed: Recommended Configuration
- Perfmatters Configuration with Popular 3 Caching Plugins
- Pros & Cons of Using Perfmatters
- Frequently Asked Questions
- How Do Cache Plugins Like WP Rocket Compare to Perfmatters?
- Why Should You Monitor PageSpeed Insights for Perfmatters Tweaks?
- What Are CDN URLs in Perfmatters and How Do They Help?
- Can Perfmatters Optimize the WordPress Admin Dashboard?
- Should I Use Perfmatters with WP Fastest Cache or LiteSpeed Cache?
- How Does Perfmatters Help Improve Google Core Web Vitals Scores?
- What Are the Best Perfmatters Settings for WordPress Speed?
- Will Perfmatters Help my Core Web Vitals Scores?
- Conclusion
Why I Use Perfmatters with Caching Plugins
I use Perfmatters on every website I build for myself or my clients. On this blog — technumero.com, I am using it for a few things that help me improve the overall optimization of my WordPress site. The Perfmatters plugin complements caching plugins like FlyingPress with its unique features that go beyond traditional caching capabilities.
Perfmatters works seamlessly alongside caching plugins without conflicts. While caching plugins handle page cache, the plugin tackles underlying performance issues by eliminating unnecessary code. This means you can use both together for maximum optimization.
Here are the core features I use on my site:
1. Script Manager
The most powerful feature in Perfmatters. It shows every script loading on your site and lets you disable them per-page or site-wide.
For example, Contact Form 7 loads everywhere by default, but you can restrict it to only your contact page, reducing unnecessary HTTP requests.
In my case, I am restricting Happy Forms files to contact pages only.
2. Bloat Removal
WordPress loads many unnecessary features by default. I use Perfmatters to remove this bloat from my site. In my experience, the plugin works more comprehensively than its alternatives:
- Disable pingbacks, trackbacks, and password strength meters.
- Remove WooCommerce cart fragments that slow performance.
- Control Heartbeat API to reduce server load.
- Only load Google Maps where actually needed.
3. Preloading
While caching plugins offer basic preloading, Perfmatters provides sophisticated preloading capabilities that directly improve Core Web Vitals.
- It automatically preloads 2-3 above-the-fold critical images while excluding them from lazy loading.
- It can preload fonts, CSS, JavaScript, and other critical assets as per your optimization needs.
- The plugin allows you to preload hero images, which can significantly improve Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) scores.
- Preloading moves critical resources to the top of the loading waterfall chart, telling the browser these assets have priority to help improve the CWV score.
4. Hosting Google Analytics Locally
Hosting Google Analytics locally addresses a major performance issue that caching plugins can’t resolve.
- It reduces external requests that contribute to slower page loads.
- Removes the browser caching warnings for the Google Analytics script, often flagged by PageSpeed Insights.
- You also have the option to use Minimal Analytics JS (2.2 KB) for essential tracking or the more comprehensive Google Analytics 4 (104 KB) to access full features.
- By hosting the GA script locally, you also effortlessly ensure GDPR compliance.
Before using the Perfmatters plugin, you should have a clear idea of why you need it.
The key is avoiding feature duplication with your caching plugin.
If your caching plugin handles lazy loading better, disable that in Perfmatters and focus on its unique capabilities like Script Manager and local analytics hosting.
This approach lets me utilize the comprehensive page caching from the caching plugin and deep performance optimization from Perfmatters, resulting in faster loading times across all devices.
Wondering which Perfmatters setup will give you the maximum benefits? Let’s discuss below.
Best Perfmatters Settings for WordPress Speed
- Enable: Disable Emojis, Dashicons, Embeds, XML-RPC, jQuery Migrate (unless needed), Hide WP Version, Remove RSD/Shortlink, Remove RSS Feed Links, Self-Pingbacks, REST API Links.
- JavaScript: Defer & Delay JS (except critical scripts), Minify JS.
- CSS: Remove unused CSS (File method), Minify CSS.
- Preload: 2–3 above-the-fold images, critical files.
- Lazy Load: Images, iFrames, Videos, CSS backgrounds.
- Fonts: Host Google Fonts locally, Display Swap on.
- Analytics: Host GA locally, use Minimal script.
- Script Manager: Use it to disable unused scripts per page. For example, the social sharing buttons scripts can be disabled on the homepage if you aren’t using sharing buttons there. Same with contact form plugins
- For (WP Rocket / FlyingPress / LiteSpeed Cache) third-party caching plugin users: Avoid duplicate features (see details below).
In later sections of this post, I will walk you through what is the best Perfmatters configuration for page speed with examples.
This way, you can improve the overall page loading speed of your site and optimize the delivery of images, and get a better Google Pagespeed Insights score, which leads to an improved Core Web Vitals score, such as Interaction to Next Paint.
But before going further, let’s see what Perfmatters is and how it helps with speed optimization.
What is Perfmatters?

Perfmatters is a lightweight WordPress performance optimization plugin designed to speed up your website by eliminating unnecessary code, optimizing database performance, and fine-tuning how your site loads assets.
If you have been in the blogging and WordPress ecosystem for a while, you probably know Perfmatters. The plugin is the brainchild of Brian Jackson, who created it with his brother Brett Jackson under forgemedia LLC.
Brian is a well-known blogger who mostly writes on WordPress performance and its optimization on his blog woorkup.com and is the former CMO at Kinsta.
Perfmatters is one of the most popular plugins for WordPress optimization, offering excellent features that most bloggers and WooCommerce store owners feel are useful. Some of the key features of Perfmatters are:
- Limiting post revisions
- Hosting Google Fonts locally
- Locally hosting Google Analytics code
- Modifying the WordPress heartbeat
- Image optimization for better image delivery
- Disabling emoji, dashicons, and embeds
- WooCommerce optimization
And more.
In a nutshell, Perfmatters comes with excellent performance optimization options along with a few essential security options as well, which no other browser cache plugins in the market offer. So, it is an ideal solution for performance optimization.
Regarding the pricing, Perfmatters has no free version. Hence, you can’t download it from the WordPress plugin repository.
Their plan starts at $24.95 a year for a single-site license. When you are just beginning, the single-site license would be ideal. Their top-tier subscription will let you use the plugin on unlimited sites.
Now you know what Perfmatters is. Next, let’s explore what are the ideal settings for Perfmatters to optimize WordPress.
Best Perfmatters Setup to Improve PageSpeed: Recommended Configuration

The Perfmatters plugin has an easy-to-use dashboard, which you can see under the WordPress settings section.

As you can see in the screenshot, the plugin has options such as:
- General
- JavaScript
- CSS
- Preloading
- Lazy Loading
- Fonts
- CDN
- Analytics
- Code
- Tools
- Database
Let’s start with the General settings, how to set up Perfmatters, and configure each option for maximum performance.
General Settings
This is the main configuration page of Perfmatters. Here is what they have to offer and how you should customize it.

- Disable Emojis: Enable – Turn this feature on. This will turn off a tiny JS file. If your caching plugin enables this feature, turn it off inside the Perfmatters settings.
- Disable Dashicons: Enable – Disabling Dashicons is another excellent way to improve the website’s speed. However, sometimes, it can break the website. If you are experiencing any technical issues, you can disable the dashicons individually using the Script Manager (we will talk about the Script Manager later in this article).
- Disable Embeds: Enable – While you paste a YouTube URL or Twitter post into the WordPress editor, it will be converted to an embed. If this feature is not necessary for your site, you can enable this option.
- Disable XML-RPC: Enable – It is terrible for both speed and security in most cases. You don’t need XML-RPC if you post to your WordPress site from a browser and not from a weblog client. Turning off the XML-RPC option would be one of the great things you should do.
- Remove jQuery Migrate: Enable – If you are a fan of page builders (that use jQuery) and using them to create stunning designs, disable this option. Otherwise, enable it so you can get better speed and performance. Removing unnecessary scripts will help you with the speed score.
- Hide WP Version: Enable – You should enable this feature to improve your website’s security. Once you have hidden the version of the WordPress CMS you use, you can prevent targeted attacks.
- Remove RSD Link: Enable – To remove the RSD (Really Simple Discovery) Link tag from WordPress code.
- Remove Shortlink: Enable – If you use the permalink structure post-name and do not use WordPress-generated shortlinks in any form, enable this.
- Disable RSS Feeds: Disable – RSS feeds are useful for blogs, so you do not need to disable the RSS feed. But not all WordPress sites are blogs, and many WordPress sites don’t have blog pages. These sites without a blog page can disable RSS Feeds.
- Remove RSS Feed Links: Enable – You can remove unnecessary RSS feed links for pages, comments, tags, etc. by enabling this option.
- Disable Self-Pingbacks: Enable – You can disable the self-pingbacks through this setting.
- Disable REST API: Disabled When Logged Out – The best option is optimized for the website’s speed and security. If the method mentioned above is causing errors, you can use the Disable for Non-Admins feature.
- Remove REST API Links: Enable – Enabling this option will remove the code utilized for REST API calls by developers to interact with WordPress remotely. Not used in most cases, so remove REST API Links by enabling this option.
- Disable Google Maps: Disable – Leave this disabled if your site relies on Google Maps functionality. But if your theme or plugins load Maps scripts unnecessarily, enabling this will block those extra JavaScript resources, reduce load time, and improve website speed test scores.
- Disable Password Strength Meter: Enable – Removing the password strength meter is an excellent way to reduce the server load.
- Disable Comments: Disable – Keep comments enabled if you value user interaction. But for single-page sites or to reduce spam, enable this to remove comment-related JavaScript resources. Alternatively, use lazy load comments to keep the feature while improving performance and website speed test scores.
- Remove Comment URLs: Enable – People usually use comments for spamming. So, remove the comment URL field to keep your blog or website clean.
- Add Blank Favicon: Disable – If your website already has a favicon, no need to enable it. Otherwise, enable it to avoid missing favicon error.
- Remove Global Styles: Enable – You can remove unminified inline code related to duotone filters from the WordPress core by enabling this option.
- Separate Block Style: Enable – When enabled, you can load core block styles only when they are needed.
- Disable Heartbeat: Only Allow When Editing Posts/Pages – This is the recommended setting by the Perfmatters team.
- Heartbeat Frequency: 60 Seconds – We highly recommend using 60 seconds instead of the default value of 15 seconds.
- Limit Post Revisions: 3 or 4 – It may be helpful to restore the old version of blog posts or pages.
- Autosave Interval: 5 minutes – Instead of keeping 1 minute, make it 5 minutes.
- Custom Login URL: Add a unique URL – To improve security, you can add a custom login URL. If you use a custom login URL, you can choose the behavior of the default login URL as one of these: displaying a custom message, 404 page template, Home URL, or Local redirect.
- WooCommerce Options: Under WooCommerce optimizations, you see options to Disable Scripts, Cart Fragmentation, Status Meta Box, and Widgets. You may choose to disable these as per your WooCommerce setup and need.
Once you have completed configuring this, move to the next step.
JavaScript
JavaScript is one of the main components that can slow down a website. Here, with the proper Perfmatters JavaScript optimization, you can easily speed up the loading of JS files.
Here are the recommended settings you should follow:
- Defer
- Defer JavaScript: Enable – It can fix render-blocking JavaScript.
- Include inline scripts: Enable – Recommended for most websites.
- Include jQuery: Depends – Sometimes, enabling this will break the website. So, test it before enabling it. If you are unsure, keep it disabled.
- Exclude from Deferral: Add JS exclusion files. For example,
script1.js
(one per line).

- Delay
- Delay JavaScript: Enable – This option delays JavaScript code and gives you optimal performance. When you use third-party advertising networks like Google AdSense or Media.net ads, I highly recommend delaying the JavaScript execution. The feature will also help you with Google Maps optimization.
- Delay behavior: Delay all Scripts – Delays non-critical JavaScript resources until user interaction. Great for reducing load time and improving website speed test results. Exclude only essential scripts if something breaks.
- Quick Exclusions: If you need to exclude specific theme JS files from the delaying, use this function.
- Excluded from Delay: Add JS exclusion files from Delay. For example, script1.js (one per line).
- Delay timeout: Enable – Enabling this option will load the delayed script after 10 seconds if no user interaction has been detected.
- Disable Click Delay: Depends – If you are excluding scripts manually, you should try this function. This prevents the first click from being delayed until the JS files are fully loaded.
- Enable FastClick: Enabled – This will load the FastClick library locally to deal with any compatibility issues that can occur. This mainly happened with iOS devices. Until a fix for this bug is found, let’s keep this function enabled.

If you choose to delay only specific scripts, use this as a reference:
ga( '
ga('
google-analytics.com/analytics.js
analytics.js
gtagv4.js
analytics-minimal.js
/gtm.js
/gtag/js
gtag(
/gtm-
adsbygoogle.js
fbevents.js
fbq(
/busting/facebook-tracking/
- Minify
- Minify JavaScript: Enable – This will remove unwanted characters and whitespace from the JavaScript code. You must enable this to optimize your JavaScript library code.
- Excluded from Minification: If you need to exclude specific scripts from the minification process, use this option. This is a valuable function, as minifying some JavaScript files can break the website’s functionality.
- Clear Minified JS: This will remove all the minified JS files the plugin has generated so far. So, if you need to generate a fresh set of minified JS files, hit it and wait a bit.

CSS
Besides JavaScript, CSS can also add extra loading time to the website. With Perfmatters’ CSS optimization techniques, you can speed up your website.
Here is how you can do it.

- Remove unused CSS: Enable – To optimize the website, you should remove unused CSS. Most WordPress caching plugins like WP Rocket come with this feature. But instead of using WP Rocket’s CSS removing feature, I recommend using Perfmatters. On the other hand, if you use FlyingPress, it is okay. You can use FlyingPress’s unused CSS removing option.
- Used CSS method: File – The file method is better if you care about the user experience.
- Stylesheet behavior: Remove – Removing is the ideal option. But sometimes, it can break your website. So, ensure the website runs fine on the front end after finalizing the settings.
- Exclude Stylesheets: Add CSS exclusion files. Example- pluginname-style.css.
- Exclude Selectors: Add CSS exclusion selectors by adding the element ID, class name, etc. Example- (#id, .class).
- CDN URL: If you are using a dedicated image CDN or regular content delivery network provider, enter the URL here. Otherwise, you can leave it blank.
- Clear unused CSS: If you have made changes to the styling and are not able to see the change, use this feature to remove all existing unused CSS generated by Perfmatters. As you remove the cache files to see changes. This is one of the best CSS cache features in the plugin.
- Minify CSS: Enable – As we did before for the JavaScript file optimization, you can also minify the CSS files. This will reduce the size of the CSS files by removing unnecessary whitespace and characters.
- Excluded from Minification: Depends – Adding minification to specific theme CSS files will cause your website’s design to break. So, if you are seeing any conflicts, exclude specific CSS from minification instead of minifying every single XCSS file available on the website.
- Clear Minified CSS: Depends – After making any changes to the website’s design, clear the minified CSS. This will generate a fresh set of minified CSS (clear the cache too).
Due to performance issues, the Perfmatters team removed the HTML minification. It appears that HTML minification negatively impacts the performance scores. However, if you still want to use this feature to minify HTML, you should be using a cache solution like W3 Total Cache.
Preloading
Here are the preloading settings I use and recommend:

- Preload critical images: 2-3 images – Use this to preload above the fold images that appear immediately when the page loads. Depending on your layout, preloading 2–3 key images can improve perceived speed and reduce layout shift.
- Preload: Add Custom File URLs – Use this to preload fonts, CSS, images, or other critical cache files during page load. Preloading key assets helps reduce render-blocking resources and improve user-perceived speed. You can also target specific devices (desktop or mobile).
- Cloudflare Early Hints (BETA): Enable – This is best for FCP and LCP optimization. To enable early hints, log in to your Cloudflare account and go to Speed> Optimization. There, you can see the early hints function. Enable it there and also here for optimal Perfmatters settings.
- Fetch Priority: High – For large contentful HTML attributes to improve LCP score.
- Disable Core Fetch: Enable – WordPress CMS itself will add a fetchpriority property to custom elements, which can sometimes be incorrect. By enabling this function, you can remove the feature added by WordPress.
- Speculative Loading Mode: Prerender – By default, WordPress comes with prefetch. So, we need to change it to prerender.
- Eagerness: Moderate – This is how aggressively the loading will behave.
- Preconnect: Enter the Domain Names – You can add the CDN and third-party custom font URLs in this field. Most caching plugins like WP Rocket come with this feature. So, use only one tool for domain pre-connecting.
- DNS prefetch: Enter the Domain Names – If your website calls third-party domains for files such as Google Ads or Media.net ads, you should add these domains to the DNS prefetching option.
Lazy Loading
Lazy Loading is an excellent way to improve the load time of images. I have enabled the lazy load images option on all of my websites. Here are the settings I recommend:

- Images: Enable – This activates lazy loading for all images, which improves image optimization and reduces initial page weight. It also supports lazy load background images and can work alongside image compression tools for faster load times.
- iFrames and Videos: Enable – Apart from images, you can also enable lazy loading for images and iFrames. Highly recommended, so turn it on.
- YouTube preview Thumbnails: Enable – Instead of displaying the YouTube media player, we can replace it with a preview thumbnail. It is a best practice to get the optimal performance.
- Exclude from Lazy Loading: Optional – If you need to exclude specific images from lazy loading, use this option. You can enter the file’s name (one per line) to exclude it from lazy loading.
- Threshold: 0px – For a better scrolling experience, use 0px as the threshold.
- DOM Monitoring: Disable – If you are not using infinite scrolling, disable it.
- Add Missing Image Dimensions: Disable – Most WordPress caching plugins can automatically add missing image dimensions. Hence, you can disable this option in Perfmatters settings. If your cache plugin doesn’t come with this feature and you need to add the correct image dimensions, enable it.
- Fade in: Enable – It is an effect you see while the images are loading up. It is highly recommended.
- CSS Background Images: Enable – To lazy load CSS background images in page builders like Elementor, GenerateBlocks, Divi, Oxygen, Beaver Builder, etc.
- Background Selectors: Depends – Add a unique selector ID or class of CSS background image to lazy load it.
To further optimize your images, consider using WebP images instead of PNG or JPG. Since Perfmatters doesn’t offer this function, you have to use a plugin like EWWW Image Optimizer, ShortPixel Adaptive Images, or WebP Express. On the other hand, if you are using an image compression plugin like ShortPixel, that plugin offers WebP conversion too. WebP compatibility won’t be an issue with Perfmatters.
Fonts
You should optimize the font delivery to improve the website’s loading time. With the help of Perfmatters’ font optimization options, you can speed up the website.
Here is how you can configure the Perfmatters font settings:

- Local Google Fonts: Enable – Fetching Google Fonts from the external server will result in additional HTTP requests and can affect performance. Enable this feature to host all the Google Fonts you use inside your server or a CDN. This way, you can reduce the server load.
- Display Swap: Enable – To add the
font-display: swap
property to your CSS, enable this option. Adding this CSS property will help you improve the Core Web Vitals. - Print Method: Inline – To optimize the website for Core Web Vitals such as FCP and LCP, you should choose the inline print method. This will also eliminate every render-blocking resource issue.
- Limit Subsets: Enable – If your website is in English, Latin will be selected by default. On the other hand, choose the subset according to your site’s language and save the settings. This will significantly reduce the CSS font size.
- CDN URL: Optional – If you use a CDN for your website and the fonts are served through the CDN, enter the URL here. This is an optional setting. If you do not have a dedicated CDN path, leave this setting empty.
- Clear Local Fonts: Optional – This option removes all the existing fonts and stylesheets from your local server. You do not need to use this feature often. When there are any issues with the fonts or stylesheets, I recommend clearing the local fonts.
- Disable Local Fonts: Optional – If you are not using Google Fonts on your website and using system fonts for maximum performance, you can disable Google Fonts through the Perfmatters settings. Remember, enabling this option will disable Google Fonts from your entire website. I recommend keeping this feature disabled.
CDN
Let’s move to the CDN section. CDN settings are easy to configure and won’t take much time. Here are the settings you need to configure.

- Enable CDN Rewrite: Depends – If you use a CDN on your website, enable this option. It also works out of the box with Bunny CDN, Cloudflare Enterprise, or Cloudflare APO; you only need to configure it.
- CDN URL: Enter the URL – In this space, enter the URL of the CDN.
- Included Directories: Mention the Folders – If you need to add custom folders to the CDN, use this field. By default, the Perfmatters plugin will add
wp-contents
andwp-includes
to the included directories list. If you do not have any custom folders to include, leave this setting empty. - CDN Exclusions: Mention File Extensions – This option excludes specific file types from CDN. You can add .php and .xml in the field.
Analytics
Google Analytics is a great tool to understand your visitors’ behavior and how they interact with your website. Here are the ideal Perfmatters settings to optimize the Google Analytics integration.

- Enable Local Analytics: Enable – This is the main configuration option you need to enable. Enabling this will help you host Google Analytics locally on your server, reducing third-party HTTP requests.
- Tracking ID: Enter Your Unique ID – Once you have enabled the local Analytics feature, enter your tracking ID here. This is how you can host Analytics locally on your server.
- Tracking Code Position: Header – Do you want to improve your website’s loading times? You can load the analytics script in the header or footer. The placement won’t affect the tracking.
- Script Type: Google Analytics 4 (Default) – For those who want to use/monitor all features, but that comes at a bigger script size. I recommend using Google Analytics 4 Minimal for better page speed. It is a smaller and optimized script that offers page views, users, locations, devices, traffic sources, and real-time tracking.
- Track Logged-in Admins: Disable – When you log in as an admin, you will be visiting multiple pages in the front end. Keeping it disabled will help you get more accurate data (focusing only on third-party visitors).
- Use MonsterInsights: Optional – If you use the MonsterInsights plugin to host Google Analytics locally, enable this option. Otherwise, keep it disabled.
- Enable AMP Support: Disable – I won’t recommend using AMP. So, turn it off. You can enable this option if you are using AMP on your website.
Code
Sometimes, we need to add a bit of code snippet to the header/body, or footer of the website. What people usually do is edit the child theme’s header or footer file to add the specific code or use a dedicated plugin.
Well, with Perfmatters, you can easily add custom codes to your WordPress or WooCommerce website with ease.

Paste the snippet where you need to insert it and save the changes.
Tools
Here, you can see all the extra options available in the plugin.

- Plugin
- Script Manager: Enable – Highly recommended for optimal performance. Using the script manager function, you can enable/disable custom scripts in specific pages (we’ll look at it below)
- Show Advanced Options: Enable – This enables advanced options in Pertmatters. Use with caution.
- Disable for Logged-in Users: Enable – Enable this to disable Pertmattes for logged-in users.
- Hide Admin Bar Menu: Enable – Enabling this will hide the Perfmatters menu from the admin bar.
- Accessibility Mode: Depends – Useful for people who use a screen reader or are visually impaired.
- Settings
- Clean Uninstall: Enabled – If you uninstall Perfmatters after enabling this option, all Perfmatters options data will be removed from the database of your site.
- Restore Default Options: Optional – Reset Perfmatters options to default values.
- Purge Meta Options: Depends – Permanently delete existing Pertmatter meta options from your database. If you need to start the optimization from scratch, purge the data.
- Export/Import Settings: Depends – Use this to export and import Pertmatters settings.
Script Manager
Script manager is a powerful feature. It allows you to individually disable scripts and CSS per post/page basis. Enable the script manager setting to selectively disable scripts/CSS added by themes and plugins on specific posts/pages.
You can easily remove unwanted code from loading on individual posts/pages of the website using this option.

After enabling it, go to the website’s front end. You will see a new option called Script Manager on the top bar.

Enable the display dependencies and test mode once you have opened the Script Manager settings.

Now, you can control JavaScript/CSS loading on individual posts/pages. For example, I have installed the Social Snap sharing plugin. Since I only display the sharing buttons inside blog posts, I can eliminate the JS/CSS code from everywhere else.

Similarly, you can configure your WordPress website and optimize the JavaScript/CSS loading. Now, if you scroll to the bottom, you can see all the plugin that uses jQuery.

jQuery is known for slowing down the website. Look for lightweight alternatives if you have many plugins that rely on jQuery. By using these optimization techniques, you can eliminate unnecessary features and improve the website’s loading times.
Next is the database configuration.
Database Settings
Perfmatters has various database optimization settings. With the plugin, you can optimize your site’s database for different options.

Here are the settings I recommend:
- Scan Database: Scan Now – Upon clicking this, you will be shown the areas where database optimization can be done. For example, there might be several post revisions, post auto-drafts, spam comments, etc.
- You need to enable what things in the database that you want to optimize. Accordingly, you can enable: Post Revisions, Post Auto-Drafts, Trashed Posts, Spam Comments, Expired Transients, All Transients, and Tables.
- Optimize Database: Optimize Now – Click to optimize database. It is a reversible process, so be aware of what you’re dealing with.
- Scheduled Optimization: Use this option to schedule database optimization at a set period automatically.
That’s it!
If you use these settings on your website, you can spot a quick improvement in the overall website’s performance.
Perfmatters Configuration with Popular 3 Caching Plugins
Below, you’ll find the best configuration for Perfmatters with caching plugins like WP Rocket, FlyingPress, and LiteSpeed Cache, ensuring maximum website speed and improved Core Web Vitals.
The caching plugins I am going to use are:
Caching Plugin | Perfmatters Features to Disable | Unique Perfmatters Features to Use |
---|---|---|
WP Rocket | Emojis, Heartbeat Control, Defer/Delay JS, Remove unused CSS, Preloading, Lazy loading, Font-display swap, Database optimization | Script Manager, Preload CSS/JS/files, Host Google Fonts/Analytics locally |
FlyingPress | Emojis, Delay/Defer JS, Remove unused CSS, Preloading/Lazy loading images & CSS backgrounds | Script Manager, Preload CSS/JS/files, Host Analytics locally |
LiteSpeed Cache | Emojis, Delay/Defer JS, Remove unused CSS, DNS prefetch, Lazy loading/images/iFrames, Database optimization | Script Manager, CSS backgrounds, Preload CSS/JS/files |
Let’s see how to configure the plugin for the best results without any further ado.
Configure Perfmatters with WP Rocket
While using it with WP Rocket, the Perfmatters duplicate options you can disable are:
- Disable emojis
- Heartbeat Control
- Defer JS
- Delay JS
- Remove unused CSS
- Links preloading
- Preconnect
- DNS prefetch
- Lazy loading for images, videos, and iframes
- Adding missing image dimensions
- Font-display: swap
- Database optimization
Instead, use these Perfmatters options:
- Every other option other than heartbeat control and emojis
- Script manager
- Preloading CSS
- Preloading JS
- Preloading every other file
- CSS background images
- Hosting Google Fonts locally
- Hosting Google Analytics locally
Configure Perfmatters with FlyingPress
While you use FlyingPress, disable these Perfmatters options:
- Emojis
- Delay JS
- Defer JS
- Remove unused CSS
- Links preloading
- Lazy loading images, videos, or iFrames
- Preloading critical images
- CSS background images
- Add missing image dimensions
- Preconnect CDN URL
- Database optimization
- Hosting Google Fonts locally
- Font-display: swap
Next, use these Perfmatters options:
- Every other option in the General settings
- Script manager
- CSS preloading
- JS preloading
- Every other file preloading
- Hosting Analytics locally
- Econnect third-party fonts
Configure Perfmatters with LiteSpeed Cache
If you are on a LiteSpeed server and using the LiteSpeed cache plugin, disable these Perfmatters options:
- Disable emojis
- Delay JS
- Defer JS
- Remove unused CSS
- DNS prefetch
- Lazy loading images, videos, and iframes
- Add missing image dimensions
- Links preloading
- Preconnecting Google fonts
- Excluding above-the-fold images from lazy loading
- Database optimization
- Hosting Google Fonts and Analytics locally
- Font-display: swap
Now, you can enable these options and improve the speed:
- Script manager
- CSS background images
- Preload CSS
- Preload JS
- Preload any other files
- All the other general settings (except duplicate options)
Pros & Cons of Using Perfmatters
Pros
- Easy-to-use interface for deep performance tweaks
- Compatible with all top caching plugins
- Powerful Script Manager for granular control
- Direct impact on Core Web Vitals
Cons
- No built-in page caching
- Some features can overlap with caching plugins; needs careful setup
Frequently Asked Questions
Now, let’s see some of the frequently asked questions regarding this topic.
How Do Cache Plugins Like WP Rocket Compare to Perfmatters?
Cache plugins such as WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, WP Fastest Cache, and SiteGround Optimizer handle full-page caching, while Perfmatters focuses on script optimization and performance tweaks. Using them together can help lower server response time and improve loading metrics.
Why Should You Monitor PageSpeed Insights for Perfmatters Tweaks?
PageSpeed Insights is essential for tracking how Perfmatters settings affect performance. It gives real-time feedback on metrics like Largest Contentful Paint, Cumulative Layout Shift, and Interaction to Next Paint, which are part of Google Core Web Vitals.
What Are CDN URLs in Perfmatters and How Do They Help?
CDN integration in Perfmatters allows you to rewrite static asset URLs with CDN URLs. This helps deliver your JavaScript resources, CSS, and images faster by reducing latency and offloading your origin server.
Can Perfmatters Optimize the WordPress Admin Dashboard?
Perfmatters includes specific options to disable unnecessary scripts and plugins within the WordPress admin dashboard, which improves back-end speed and reduces clutter for administrators.
Should I Use Perfmatters with WP Fastest Cache or LiteSpeed Cache?
Yes, Perfmatters works great alongside other caching tools like WP Fastest Cache or LiteSpeed Cache. While those manage browser caching and page-level cache, Perfmatters optimizes code loading for faster user experiences.
How Does Perfmatters Help Improve Google Core Web Vitals Scores?
By disabling unused scripts, optimizing JavaScript resources, reducing layout shifts, and improving time to interaction, Perfmatters contributes to better scores in Google Core Web Vitals, including LCP, CLS, and INP.
What Are the Best Perfmatters Settings for WordPress Speed?
Enable all key General tweaks (disable emojis/dashicons/XML-RPC/embeds), defer/delay JS scripts except essentials, remove unused CSS (file method), lazy load images/videos/iFrames/CSS backgrounds, host Google Fonts and Analytics locally.
Will Perfmatters Help my Core Web Vitals Scores?
Yes—by reducing unused code and optimizing delivery of scripts/CSS/images/fonts, it improves LCP, FID/INP, CLS metrics.
Conclusion
Perfmatters is a great WordPress plugin. I use and highly recommend the tool. With the suitable Perfmatters settings, you can seamlessly improve the website’s overall speed.
In this guide, we have explained the ideal Perfmatters configuration options to speed up the overall website. You do not need to use third-party codes for the tasks. With a few mouse clicks, you can improve the page speed.
By following these WordPress performance optimization tips and using the perfect Perfmatters settings, you can significantly improve Google PageSpeed Insights scores and Core Web Vitals.
Have you tweaked your Perfmatters settings?
Let me know in the comments.
Very informative post. Thanks