WordPress Plug-Ins that Slow Your Site Down

One of the more pressing issues in WordPress development is website speed in general.  Google has made it very clear that website speed is something they value very much when determining where your site gets ranked. So there exists a dichotomy of wanting a fast website but one with bells and whistles as well.

The simple fact is that plug-ins slow your site down. But which plug-ins are the worst offenders? In this article I am going to display what I found when I disabled all of  my plug-ins and then reactivated them one-by-one. I used Google’s speed test to determine results. Remember, there are two separate speed tests, one for mobile and one for desktop.

I activated the plug-ins one-by-one starting with the ones I know don’t affect website speed all that much first. I activate the heavier plug-ins last.

All Non-Structure (essential in design) related Plug-ins disabled (Base Test):

Mobile 82% (Good)
Desktop 99% (Excellent)

After Enabling the Following Plug-ins:

Disable Comments and Auto-Generated Emails Plug-In

Mobile 81% (good)
Desktop 98% (excellent)

Login No Captcha reCAPTCHA (Google)

Mobile 88% (good)
Desktop 99% (excellent)

GA Google Analytics

Mobile 87% (Good)
Desktop 98% (Excellent)

Classic Widgets (allows management of widgets in old format)

Mobile 87% (Good)
Desktop 98% (Excellent)

Meta Tag Manager 

Mobile 85% (Good)
Desktop 97% (Excellent)

Poll & Poll Maker Plug-Ins (allows you to publish polls)

Mobile 82% (Good)
Desktop 99% (Excellent)

TablePress (allows you to create dynamic tables in content)

Mobile 79% (Good)
Desktop 88% (Good)

Really Simple SSL

Mobile 79% (Good)
Desktop 86% (Good)

One-Signal Push Notifications

Mobile 79% (Good)
Desktop 86% (Good)

Powered Minifier (Minifies CSS and JavaScript)

Mobile 84% (Good)
Desktop 88% (Good)

Simple Site Map Page

Mobile 74% (Fair)
Desktop 88% (Good)

WordFence

Mobile 81% (Good)
Desktop 84% (Good)

Jetpack

Mobile 72% (Fair)
Desktop 95% (Excellent)

Askimet

Mobile 79% (Good)
Desktop 86% (Good)

Word Fence

Mobile 79% (Good)
Desktop 81% (Good)

ACEIDE

Mobile 82%
Desktop 85%

Worst Offenders

List of the plug-ins which significantly slowed down website loading time:

Coupon & Discount Code Reveal Button

Mobile 74% (Fair)
Desktop 83% (Good)

WP Forms Lite

Mobile 68% (Fair)
Desktop 95% (Excellent)

PopUp Maker

Mobile 65% (Fair)
Desktop 80% (Good)

Conclusion

This may seem like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to the layperson but to anyone who has added/deleted plug-ins in an effort to speed up their site knows how pertinent this information really is.

The use of plug-ins is a balancing act which means you should use the plug-ins you only absolutely need or risk slowing down your website and affecting your Google ranking.