WordPress Performance Lab Plugin Official Release

SEO September 30, 2024

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WordPress has announced that its Performance Lab plugin has officially moved out of the Beta testing phase and is now released as version 1.0. This signifies that the Performance plugin is stable, free from infrastructure bugs, and ready for testing performance improvements before their integration into WordPress Core.

The official announcement noted:

"The first stable version 1.0.0 of the Performance Lab plugin has been released. You can download it from the WordPress plugin repository or via GitHub.

The stable release means that the Performance Lab plugin’s infrastructure is now out of beta testing stage."

What is the WordPress Performance Lab Plugin?

In late October 2021, WordPress formed a Performance Team aimed at enhancing WordPress performance. The initial proposal for this team indicated that WordPress was lagging behind its competitors in website performance. This gap was identified as growing wider, with competitors like Wix, Shopify, and Squarespace investing heavily in performance improvements.

"Compared to other platforms (e.g., Wix, Shopify, Squarespace), WordPress is falling behind. Other platforms are on average faster – and becoming increasingly faster – than WordPress websites, and are actively investing in (and marketing) core performance-as-a-feature.

We can see the impact of this investment in the widening gap between the proportion of WordPress sites which achieve ‘good’ Core Web Vitals scores, vs other platforms."

Before the formation of the Performance Team, there was no unified strategy for website performance within WordPress. The creation of the Performance Lab Plugin marks the first product output by this team.

What is the Performance Lab Plugin For?

The plugin allows publishers to test new performance-enhancing features that might be included in future releases of WordPress core. This provides a sneak peek to the community on potential improvements, enabling them to give feedback that helps refine these features before they are included in the main WordPress files.

The official announcement noted:

"The plugin’s primary purpose remains to facilitate beta testing for future WordPress core performance features and enhancements…"

While the plugin aims to boost website performance, it’s essential to remember that these features are previews of what might be included in future WordPress core versions.

Performance Lab Plugin Uses a Modular Interface

The plugin consists of five individual modules, each targeting specific performance improvements. The modular approach lets publishers test only those features they wish to try.

These are the five modules included in the Performance Lab Plugin:

WebP Uploads:
- Converts JPEG images to WebP format upon uploading to the WordPress media library, applicable only in environments that support it.
WebP Support:
- A health check to inform the publisher if their server supports WebP.
Persistent Object Cache Health Check:
- Suggests a persistent object cache for sites with large amounts of data.
Audit Autoloaded Options (Experimental):
- Audits autoloaded data usage, alerting publishers to possible issues.
Audit Enqueued Assets (Experimental):
- Warns publishers about excessive or large enqueued CSS and JavaScript files.

About Experimental Modules

Modules labeled as experimental may not be stable for use in a live production site. Conversely, modules not marked as experimental are tested and safe for use in live environments, although they are used at the publisher’s risk.

The WordPress Performance Lab Plugin page provides the following explanation:

"Per the primary purpose of the plugin, it can mostly be considered a beta testing plugin for the various performance modules it includes.

However, unless a module is explicitly marked as "experimental," it has been tested and established to a degree where it should be okay to use in production. Still, as with every plugin, you are doing so at your own risk."