{"id":35758,"date":"2019-07-11T18:53:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T18:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/authorityhacker.com\/?p=35758"},"modified":"2024-05-15T11:56:19","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T11:56:19","slug":"slow-wordpress-plugins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.authorityhacker.com\/slow-wordpress-plugins\/","title":{"rendered":"Which Plugin is Slowing Down Wordpress? A Step by step guide to finding & eliminating your website’s speed bottlenecks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Let me guess \u2013 you\u2019re here because your site is crawling along…but you\u2019re not sure which plugin is slowing down Wordpress?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve come to the right place for answers because we\u2019ve been there too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see, people typically believe that if you reduce the number of plugins on a site, then you limit the number of potential problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s more nuanced than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It isn\u2019t always to do with the number of plugins<\/i> you\u2019re using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, it\u2019s often because some of your plugins weren\u2019t coded to a high standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or any standard, for that matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, there are lots of blogs running dozens of plugins without any degradation in performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A great example of this is Pippins Plugins<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Pippins<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

It reportedly uses 81 different plugins, but its GTmetrix<\/a> score looks like this:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"\/<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

 So, the truth is that a single plugin could be the root cause of all your speed woes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how can you tell which plugin is the rotten apple out of the bunch?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How To Find Slow WordPress Plugins<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are a number of different ways you can approach the problem of tracking down a misbehaving plugin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These solutions range from high-end monitoring apps to a more DIY approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But let\u2019s start at the top and work our way downward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Relic APM<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

New Relic Application Performance Monitoring<\/a> is a high-end solution for monitoring site performance.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"New<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The thing is that New Relic APM is more suited to support teams or massive e-commerce sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re running a handful of affiliate sites, then this is the equivalent of using a sledgehammer to open a walnut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their most basic package costs $25 per month, and their pricing also depends on what type of hosting you\u2019re using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Relic APM is interesting, but ultimately way too powerful for what we\u2019re trying to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Query Monitor<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first thing you need to know about Query Monitor is that it\u2019s free, so…yay!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This plugin is the brainchild of John Blackbourn, an actual WordPress guru<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Query<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Query Monitor is a full-service debugging tool for WordPress users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue in using it is finding exactly what data relates to your plugins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the above example, we captured a slow query from the \u201cForce HTTPS\u201d plugin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this was a coincidence \u2013 we could just as easily have missed this error because it was transitory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As powerful as Query Monitor<\/a> is, the data it presents isn\u2019t easy to interpret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are tons of additional add-ons to help you make more sense of the data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that kind of defeats the purpose of what you\u2019re trying to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s at this point you\u2019ll arrive at the same conclusion we did – there\u2019s no easy way to find slow plugins because:<\/p>\n\n\n\n