I've been buried deep in writing the lessons for my Cloudflare for WordPress course for the past couple of weeks. The deeper I dive into Cloudflare, the greater the set of options to integrate becomes.
The hardest part is almost not writing the lessons, but more about deciding what to include and what not to include 😮
Learn how Object Caching into WordPress performance:
https://withinwp.com/courses/make-wordpress-fast/
Object caching is not page caching. Page caching stores finished HTML where as Object caching stores reusable results.
This can be Options, Menus, Metadata, Query results, or Computed values. And this is important because not every request can be page cached.
You see, Logged-in users still need performance, WooCommerce carts still need performance and Dashboards still very much need performance. And it's in these places that object caching earns its place.
Your WordPress site can be slow before PHP runs. That is the part many builders miss. Before WordPress wakes up, the browser may already be dealing with:
- DNS lookup.
- TLS negotiation.
- HTTP version.
- Connection setup.
- CDN routing.
- Cache rules.
Performance is not just a WordPress problem, it is a stack problem. It's one of the core tenants of my Make WordPress Fast course. Learn the whole system:
https://withinwp.com/courses/make-wordpress-fast/
Yesterday it was 37ºC here in the Netherlands, and lots of people complained about how hot it was.
But I'm a survivor of the 2015 #WCEU in Sevilla, which recorded 47ºC, so I, like a champion, just shrugged it off yesterday.
Plugin count is not a performance metric. One plugin might barely participate in a request.
Another might hook early, load assets everywhere, query the database globally, inflate autoload, and trigger background API calls.
Both count as “one plugin.”
The real question is not how many plugins you have. The real question is what work they add, when they add it, and where that work runs.
Learn to diagnose plugin cost properly:
https://withinwp.com/courses/make-wordpress-fast/
Performance regressions rarely announce themselves dramatically.
They slowly creep in…
Like a plugin update that adds scripts, a theme change that adds wrappers, or a marketing tool that adds cookies, or a checkout extension that adds background jobs.
Monitoring is how you catch erosion before users feel it.
Learn how long-term WordPress performance control is built in my Make WordPress Fast course:
https://withinwp.com/courses/make-wordpress-fast/
Did you know that WordPress' cron, WP-Cron, is not real cron?
It is WordPress simulating scheduled tasks through page requests.
That means background work can be triggered while users are loading pages. On small sites, that may be fine. On larger sites, it blends user-facing work with background work.
That creates unpredictability. Real server cron separates the workload.
Learn why timing matters inside my Make WordPress Fast course:
https://withinwp.com/courses/make-wordpress-fast/
“WordPress is slow” is not a diagnosis. It usually means something in the stack is doing too much work.
Weak hosting.
Poor cacheability.
Slow database queries.
Bloated frontend output.
Plugins running too early.
The browser doing too much.
WordPress is rarely the whole problem. The implementation is.
Learn the full stack approach:
https://withinwp.com/courses/make-wordpress-fast/
I've been busy preparing my Cloudflare for WordPress course and revisited a note I had saved about an AI-related Cloudflare announcement that seemed trivial.
But I don't think it is trivial. I think it is/was the beginning of something big, so I wrote about it: https://remkusdevries.com/cloudflare-is-quietly-building-the-agent-cloud/
Cloudflare is quietly building the agent cloud
https://remkusdevries.com/cloudflare-is-quietly-building-the-agent-cloud/
Performance is not just how fast work runs, it is also when work happens.
If background jobs run during user requests, users may pay the cost.
If that work runs separately, the user-facing request stays cleaner.
This is why workload isolation matters.
Not because it sounds technical.
Because it makes performance more predictable.
Learn performance engineering for WordPress:
https://withinwp.com/courses/make-wordpress-fast/
I have an idea about The WordPress Conference We Need Next:
https://remkusdevries.com/the-wordpress-conference-we-need-next/
The WordPress Conference We Need Next
https://remkusdevries.com/the-wordpress-conference-we-need-next/
The award for best #WCEU booth goes to @Patchstack this year.
We've been super busy improving Scanfully this year, so I thought it'd be good to highlight how the last four releases help you keep your WordPress sites as healthy as can be.
https://remkusdevries.com/four-big-upgrades-that-make-scanfully-more-useful/
Four Big Upgrades That Make Scanfully More Useful
https://remkusdevries.com/four-big-upgrades-that-make-scanfully-more-useful/
Scanfully now tracks DNS records across multiple resolvers, detects DNS drift, checks propagation, watches CAA and DNSSEC, and connects DNS changes to email authentication health.
We’re excited to ship our next monitoring service: DNS Monitoring.
No more guessing what changed.
Lots o
Built for WordPress sites where DNS, SSL, uptime, CDN behavior, and email delivery are all connected.
Plus, tons of other improvements. Check them out here:
https://scanfully.com/dns-monitoring-is-now-available-in-scanfully-1-10/