Top WordPress Plugins That Could Be Dragging Your Site’s Speed Down

You might be surprised to learn that our website loads in under one second, even with multiple plugins installed. The key isn’t simply using fewer plugins; it’s about selecting the right ones.

During our early days with WordPress, we discovered that certain plugins could transform a fast-loading site into a slow and frustrating experience, no matter how reliable your hosting service is.

This issue goes beyond a minor annoyance—it can significantly affect your revenue. Slow websites tend to rank lower on Google, irritate visitors, and potentially cost you thousands in lost income. The plugins responsible for these slowdowns are often the ones you least expect.

After years of testing and optimizing WordPress sites, we’ve pinpointed the most common plugins that negatively impact performance.

In this guide, we will teach you how to identify the plugins that are slowing down your site and what actions you can take to resolve the issue. You’ll discover how to maintain a fast website without compromising on the essential features your business requires.

What Causes Some Plugins to Slow Down Your WordPress Site?

Consider WordPress plugins as similar to apps on your smartphone. Just as certain apps can drain your battery more quickly, some plugins utilize more server resources and can hinder your website’s speed. With over 60,000 plugins available in the WordPress repository, the quality can vary significantly.

Here’s how it works: WordPress plugins operate using PHP code on your web server. Each time a visitor accesses your site, WordPress needs to load all active plugins before the page can be displayed.

A single poorly coded plugin can create a bottleneck that slows down your entire website.

The effects on your business can be significant. Research from Strangeloop (now part of Radware) indicates that just one second of delay can lead to a 7% drop in conversions, an 11% decrease in page views, and a 16% decline in customer satisfaction.

In our fast-paced world, users expect web pages to load in under 3 seconds; otherwise, they are likely to leave.

Through managing thousands of WordPress sites over the years, we’ve discovered that the quality of plugins is more important than their quantity. We’ve witnessed sites operating efficiently with over 30 well-coded plugins, while a single poorly designed plugin can severely hinder performance.

Here are some common reasons why plugins may slow down your website:

• Inefficient database queries:Certain plugins can overwhelm your WordPress database with excessive requests, resulting in server strain and slower response times.
• External resource loading:Plugins that fetch scripts, fonts, or stylesheets from slow third-party servers can greatly increase your page load times.
• Resource-intensive code:Inefficient PHP code can use excessive server memory and processing power, particularly during high traffic times.
• Excessive features:Plugins that include unnecessary features you don’t utilize still load all their code, wasting precious resources.

The good news? Once you pinpoint the problematic plugins, you can discover better alternatives that provide the same functionality without compromising performance. You may even find that some plugins are unnecessary altogether.

Remember that some plugins carry out resource-heavy but essential tasks—such as image optimization, broken link checking, or security scans. Instead of removing these plugins, consider scheduling these tasks during off-peak hours when your site experiences lower traffic.

Before we explore detection methods, ensure all your plugins are updated to their latest versions. Plugin developers frequently release performance enhancements and bug fixes that can help resolve your speed issues.

Ready to investigate? Unfortunately, WordPress doesn’t offer a built-in ‘slow plugin report’, so you’ll need to implement some effective strategies to identify the offenders.

Here’s our recommended approach:

Identifying Plugins That Cause Slow Database Queries

A query monitor can reveal potential performance issues on your website, including slow database queries, by tracking the requests made to the server.

The free Query Monitor plugin can identify potential problems and provide in-depth reports to help you determine which plugins are affecting your site’s speed. We utilize this plugin to enhance page load times on CanadaCreate.

The first step is to install and activate the Query Monitor plugin. For assistance, please refer to our beginner’s guide on installing a WordPress plugin.

Once activated, the plugin will add monitoring tools to the WordPress admin bar.

Next, visit the page you want to analyze on the front end of your website. When you hover over the Query Monitor tools, a menu will appear.

Click on ‘Database Queries’, and additional tools will be displayed at the bottom of the screen.

Next, click on ‘Queries by Component’ to view a table displaying your plugins and components. The ‘Select’ column indicates the number of database queries each plugin executes, while the ‘Time’ column shows the total duration of these queries in seconds.

You can sort the list by clicking on the header of either column. For instance, clicking the Time column will arrange the plugins based on query duration, and clicking it again will bring the slowest plugins to the top of the list.

As a general rule, if a plugin executes more than 20-50 queries or if the queries take longer than half a second to a second, it could indicate a performance issue. However, these are just guidelines; optimizing WordPress performance involves balancing functionality with speed.

You can temporarily disable the slow plugins to check if WordPress performance improves, following the instructions provided later in this article. If you notice an improvement, consider contacting the plugin author for assistance or look for an alternative plugin.

For detailed instructions on how to utilize this plugin, refer to our guide on adding a WordPress query monitor to your site.

Identifying Plugins That Slow Down Resource Loading

When a visitor accesses your website, their browser must download various files to render the webpage. This includes images, stylesheets, scripts, and files requested by plugins.

These files can be hosted internally on your site or sourced from external third-party websites. Each HTTP request contributes to the overall loading time.

Network Performance Report

To determine the loading time of these files, visit a page on your website and utilize your browser’s developer tools. In Google Chrome, navigate to View » Developer » Inspect or simply right-click on the page and choose ‘Inspect’.

Then, select the ‘Network’ tab and refresh the page. As it loads, you’ll see a comprehensive list of all resources necessary to display the page, including both internal and external HTTP requests.

To filter and view only external HTTP requests, use the ‘3rd-party requests’ option.

The ‘Time’ column indicates the loading duration for each resource. You can click the column header to sort the list by loading time, and clicking it again will arrange the slowest files at the top.

Files that take longer than half a second to load may indicate a potential issue, although this is merely a guideline.

The Initiator column can help you identify if a plugin is responsible for loading a file, but this can often be ambiguous.

The Coverage Report

The Coverage Report allows you to see which files are being loaded from a plugin’s directory on your site. However, it is not displayed by default.

To enable it, click the three vertical dots in the top right corner and select More tools » Coverage from the dropdown menu.

This will present you with a list of URLs for the resources being loaded.

To locate the files being loaded from your plugin directories, simply filter the list by entering
/plugins/ in the URL filter box. You should see the plugin name in each URL.

You can now sort the list in various ways to identify problematic plugins. For instance, sorting by URL will group all files loaded by each plugin together, or you can sort by Total Bytes or Usage to pinpoint plugins that load large files.

For additional information on this topic, refer to our guide on reducing HTTP requests in WordPress.

Manually Testing the Speed of Each WordPress Plugin

A straightforward and cost-free approach to evaluate your plugins is by deactivating them individually while monitoring your site’s performance. This method is budget-friendly and does not necessitate the installation of additional plugins, although it may require more time and effort compared to other techniques.

Begin by conducting a website speed test. The key speed metric to focus on is the page load time, which is referred to as ‘Load time’ in the Pingdom speed test results.

Next, disable the first plugin and perform the speed test again. If you notice a significant improvement in speed, you’ve identified a problematic plugin.

For optimal accuracy, run each speed test three times and calculate the average results. This approach accounts for variations in internet performance.

Following that, reactivate the previously disabled plugin and deactivate the next one. Then, conduct another speed test and continue this process.

An alternative method is to start by disabling all plugins and then reactivating them one at a time. You should perform a speed test with all plugins turned off, then test again after reactivating each plugin.

While this method can be time-intensive, it is effective in pinpointing which plugin is responsible for slowing down your site when activated.

Bonus: Enhancing Mobile Performance with Google Lighthouse

Google Lighthouse is another valuable tool for boosting WordPress performance. It offers insights into your site’s performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO, although it does not specifically pinpoint slow plugins.

It assists in optimizing Google Core Web Vitals, which are crucial for user experience and SEO.

It can also identify slow and large scripts and resources being loaded, which may indicate plugins that are negatively impacting WordPress performance.

For more information, refer to the section in our WordPress SEO Checklist on preparing your WordPress site for mobile devices.

Utilizing a Professional Site Speed Optimization Service

As you can see, identifying problematic plugins that may be slowing down your website can be quite challenging, especially for those who are not technically inclined.

Consider using our professional Site Speed Optimization Service instead!

Our expert team will create a staging site to thoroughly test your website without affecting its performance. We will identify and resolve issues using the Google Lighthouse report.

Next, we will update your plugins, assess and optimize your plugin usage, enhance your web server, optimize images, and more.

Our site speed optimization service starts at just $699. Reach out to our team today to schedule a complimentary consultation!

Selecting Superior WordPress Plugins

If you’ve realized that some of your plugins are negatively impacting your WordPress site’s speed, you might be wondering how to select better alternatives. Let’s explore some strategies to ensure you find a plugin that meets your needs and is optimized for performance.

Before you begin, we suggest making a list of all the functionalities you require from the plugin. This could simply be a compilation of the key features of the slow plugin you’ve been using, but it’s also a chance to identify areas where that plugin underperformed or provided unnecessary features.

Then, you can start exploring the WordPress Plugin Directory for free plugins that align with your requirements.

Simply enter the main feature you need in the search bar at the top of the page and look for plugins that have a high number of active installations, excellent ratings, and compatibility with the latest version of WordPress.

However, with the vast number of plugins available, this process can be quite time-consuming.

It’s often more effective to use a directory of recommended plugins, such as our WordPress Solution Center. This curated directory features both free and premium WordPress plugins that we have rigorously tested and identified as the most dependable options.

We offer comprehensive reviews complete with screenshots for each plugin, enabling you to weigh the advantages and disadvantages to ensure it meets your specific needs.

You can also explore our Ultimate WordPress Toolkit for Professionals, where we highlight the top plugins across various categories. Many of these plugins are utilized on CanadaCreate, including:

• All in One SEO (AIOSEO), the leading SEO plugin for WordPress
• MonsterInsights, the simplest way to integrate Google Analytics into your WordPress site
• WPForms, the most popular form builder plugin for WordPress
• SeedProd, the top no-code page builder for WordPress
• OptinMonster, the premier conversion optimization software
• Duplicator, the best plugin for WordPress backup and migration

After selecting a plugin, it’s essential to evaluate its effect on your website’s performance. As mentioned earlier, you can conduct a website speed test before and after installing and activating the plugin to ensure it doesn’t negatively impact your site’s speed.

For additional insights, check out our beginner’s guide on selecting the best WordPress plugins.

Expert Resources on WordPress Performance

We hope this tutorial has helped you identify which WordPress plugins may be slowing down your site. You might also find these guides useful for leveraging this information to enhance WordPress performance:

• How We Improve Page Load Speed at CanadaCreate
• Understanding Why WordPress is Slow: Fix It with Our 11 Expert Tips
• The Impact of WordPress Plugins on Your Site’s Load Time (Revealed)
• Using the Plugin Organizer to Enhance Your WordPress Site’s Speed
• How to Disable Certain WordPress Plugins for Mobile Users
• What is the Ideal Number of WordPress Plugins to Install? How Many is Too Many?
• Beginner’s Guide: Selecting the Best WordPress Plugin
• The Comprehensive Guide to Enhancing WordPress Speed and Performance

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