Free WordPress plugin
WCKD Fast Pages
A deliberately small full-page cache. Visitors get finished HTML before WordPress even loads, typically 20 to 30 times faster. Edits clear it automatically. Removing it can never break your site.
Version 1.4.1 · WordPress 6.0+ · PHP 7.4+ · GPL, free forever
How it works
The first visit to a page saves its finished HTML, along with a ready-made compressed copy. A tiny drop-in serves that copy on every visit after, before WordPress boots: no PHP, no database, no theme render. Visitors arriving from ads and email links get the same instant copy.
Saving any post, page, menu, or setting clears the cache instantly, and each copy is used for at most 12 hours before it is quietly rebuilt, so nothing ever goes stale. Press Cache All and every page rebuilds in the background.
Logged-in users, previews, real query strings, search, feeds, and POST requests always bypass. Editors always see the live site.
The dashboard
- Your speedup measured on your own server, not our marketing claim.
- Every page listed with its cache status, age, and size. Refresh one right now, or mark it to always render live.
- One Cache All button. Two settings in plain English. Nothing to configure wrong.
Fail-safe by design
Deactivate it, delete the folder over FTP, half-remove it mid-crash: it steps aside and your site renders normally. Uninstall removes every trace, including its one line in wp-config.php. Four readable files, no build step, no external services. Respects DONOTCACHEPAGE, with WP-CLI for status, purge, and warm.
Who it is for
Brochure sites, organizations, and portfolios: sites with no logged-in visitors, where every page can be served as a finished copy. It is not designed for WooCommerce or membership sites; those need the big caching suites, and we would rather tell you than surprise you. WCKD Marketing installs it on every site we ship. That is why it exists.
Frequently asked questions
No. Saving any post, page, menu, or site option clears the cache immediately; pages are saved again on their next visit, or all at once with "Cache All". Each saved copy is also used for at most 12 hours. The first visit after that quietly rebuilds it, so pages that change on their own (like event schedules) stay current even if nobody edits anything. There is no scheduled rebuilding and no wasted server work: a page nobody visits is never rebuilt. Developers can tune the window with the WCKD_FAST_PAGES_TTL constant.
It is not designed for sites where visitors log in or see personalized content. Logged-in users always bypass the cache, so the site keeps working, but those visitors gain no speedup.
The site simply becomes a normal WordPress site again. Every removal path, including deleting the plugin folder by FTP, is fail-safe.
No. There are no external services, no accounts, and no tracking. Every request the plugin makes is your site talking to itself.
Pretty permalinks (any structure other than plain ?p=123) are required; the settings page tells you if they are off. Subdirectory installs work. Multisite networks are not yet supported.
Changelog
1.4.1
- Visitors arriving through ads and email links (utm tags and click ids) are now served the instant copy instead of a slow fresh build. Tracking is unaffected.
- Every page is compressed once when saved; browsers that accept gzip get the ready-made copy, cutting per-visit server work and transfer size.
- The "Update Cache" button is now "Cache All".
- WP-CLI commands: wp fast-pages status, purge, and warm.
1.4.0
- Update Cache now runs in the background. You can leave the page and it keeps going.
- A progress bar on the settings page shows how many pages are done.
- Full support for sites installed in a subdirectory.
- The page list now covers every public post type on the site, and pages that redirect elsewhere are labelled instead of showing as not cached.
- A clear notice when the site uses plain permalinks, which cannot be cached.
- Uninstall now removes every option and scheduled task the plugin created.
1.3.0
- Speed banner with median-of-three measurement.
- "Update Cache" one-click rebuild, one-hour pause, full-site page inventory with per-page purge.
- Settings page with TTL and path exclusions; config mirrored to the drop-in.
1.1.0
- Fail-safe handshake: drop-in serves only while the plugin is present and active.
- Drop-in version sync; uninstall removes every trace including the WP_CACHE define.
1.0.0
- Initial release: disk-based full-page cache with pre-WordPress serving and automatic purge on edit.