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Optimizing WordPress Sites with Autoptimize

Published on June 11, 2021 | Updated on December 17, 2023

Autoptimize is a plugin installed over a million sites that does an excellent job optimizing the CSS, JS and HTML of your site.

I have installed the plugin several times and I could never fall in love with it because of the design and because I didn’t really need it .

The other reason I thought that using Autoptimize would be a good idea is because I am using full page caching all the time via CloudFlare or Ezoic Cloud Caching.

Autoptimize Results

I know there are better ways to test the benefits of autoptimize but I prefer to give a try in a site that it is already working to see if it is worth using it.

The post using for this test has five requests;

PostHTML
Block Library StylesCSS
Main CSSGeneratePress
Menu PlusGeneratePress
Main JSGeneratePress

These were the results I got using nothing but CloudFlare Full Page Caching, PerfMatters and common sense speed optimization practices.

GTMetrix Results without Autoptimize

These are the results of each one of those requests using GTMetrix and not using Autoptimize

PostHTML9.1 KB47 ms
Block Library StylesCSS8.2 KB20.1 ms
Main CSSGeneratePress4.6 KB17 ms
Menu PlusGeneratePress848 B18.7 ms
Main JSGeneratePress1.9 KB17.7 ms

This is the GTMetrix score with a few more details

  • Time to first byte: 46 ms
  • Onload time: 103 ms
  • FCP: 168 ms
  • LCP:168 ms
  • TTI: 168 ms
  • FLT: 168 ms

I tested this several time and I got different numbers, these are the most important ones

RequestsOnload TimeFully Loaded Time
24.6 KB115 ms173 ms
24.6 KB122 ms135 ms
24.7 KB98 ms176 ms

As you see,I get different results every time I run a test . The HTML is 9.1 KB in each test.

GTMetrix Results with Autoptimize

I decided to inline all CSS from the and make sure the only JS file is not render blocking.

PostHTML20.2 KB64.2 ms
Main JSGeneratePress1.9 KB11.6 ms
  • Time to first byte: 63 ms
  • Onload time: 108 ms
  • FCP: 125 ms
  • LCP:125 ms
  • TTI: 125 ms
  • FLT: 125 ms

Now I am saving 2 KB but my HTML has grown in size but I knew that beforehand.

I am using CloudFlare Full Page Caching so everything is served from CloudFlare servers anyways.

Requests have been reduced to 2 and no render blocking messages in Google PageSpeed Insights.

I will keep learning more about Autoptimize and what it can do.

Manuel Campos

Manuel Campos

I am José Manuel. I am writing about things I know and things that I am learning about WordPress. I hope you find the content of this blog useful.

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