Performance Tweaks
by Rick Hoekman on WordPress.org
Simple but effective performance tweaks for WordPress—now with a polished, tabbed settings UI.
Features are grouped like your workflow: Scripts & Assets, Network, Security, Performance & Admin, and Database.
Scripts & Assets
- Contact Form 7 Smart Loader — Only loads CF7 assets on pages with a form.
 - CF7 reCAPTCHA Smart Loader — Dequeues reCAPTCHA when no CF7 form is present.
 - Disable Advanced Custom Fields on Frontend — Stops ACF assets from loading on the frontend.
 - Emoji Unloader — Removes Emoji CSS and JavaScript.
 - Defer JavaScript — Adds defer attribute to eligible scripts.
 - Async JavaScript — Adds async attribute to eligible scripts.
 - Async/Defer Exclude Handles — A textarea to exclude script handles from async/defer.
 - Remove Query Strings — Strips ?ver= from CSS/JS URLs to improve CDN caching.
 - Block CSS Smart Loader (classic themes) — Dequeues block CSS on singular pages without blocks.
 - Separate Core Block CSS (WP 5.8+) — Opt-in to load only the CSS for blocks used on the page.
 - Disable Dashicons for Visitors — Removes dashicons for non-logged-in users.
 - Disable jQuery Migrate (frontend) — Drops jquery-migrate from frontend dependencies.
 - Boost Hero Image (fetchpriority) — Adds fetchpriority=”high” to the first content image on singular pages.
 - Lazy‑load iframes in Content — Ensures iframes in post content use loading=”lazy”.
 - WooCommerce Smart Loader — Loads WC CSS/JS only on WooCommerce pages (shop, product, cart, checkout, account).
 
Network
- DNS Single Post Prefetch — Prefetch homepage on singular pages to speed return navigation (HTTP/2).
 - Resource Hints Hosts — Add domains for dns-prefetch and preconnect (one per line).
 - Google Fonts Preconnect — Adds preconnect hints for fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com.
 
Security
- Disable XML-RPC — Blocks the XML-RPC endpoint unless you need it.
 - Disable WP Embeds / oEmbed — Removes discovery links and wp-embed script.
 - Head Cleanup — Removes RSD, WLW, generator, shortlink, and extra feed links.
 
Performance & Admin
- Disable WordPress Heartbeat (Frontend) — Keep editor autosave, reduce frontend pings.
 - Heartbeat Interval — Set between 15–120 seconds.
 - WP‑Cron Guidance — Advisory copy to move cron to a real system cron.
 
Database
- Limit Post Revisions — Define WP_POST_REVISIONS to 5.
 - Autosave Interval (advisory) — Suggest a wp-config constant.
 - Empty Trash Days (advisory) — Suggest a wp-config constant.
 
UI/UX
- Tabbed settings with keyboard navigation and ARIA roles.
 - Card layout, helpful tooltips, and consistent spacing.
 - Sticky save bar with “unsaved changes” hint.
 - “Reset all settings” link (with nonce) to clear options without uninstalling.
 
Active installations10+
Weekly downloads
45+1025.00%
Version0.7.3
Last updated9/19/2025
WordPress version6.0
Tested up to6.8.2
PHP version8.0
Tags
Optimizepagespeedperformancespeed