WordPress Caching Comparision – W3 Total Cache vs. WP Super Cache vs. WP Cache

June 11, 2010 by ajones Articles

Updated June 14. Added results for W3 Total Cache using Disk Enhanced caching only at the request of Frederick Townes, author of W3 Total Cache. I ran tests with both “gzip” and “gzip and deflate” settings.

I’ve seen a lot of discussion lately about the various WordPress caching plugins. Here’s a quick comparison using Apache Bench. First some background on the test platform.

This is a 512mb VPS from prgmr.com

Fresh install of Ubuntu 10.04

NginX, PHP, MySQL installed via APT (PHP 5.3.2-1ubuntu4.2ppa3~lucid1 (FPM/FastCGI), NginX 0.7.65, MySQL (5.1.41-3ubuntu12.3))

WordPress 2.9.2, standard Kubrick theme, nginx Compatibility plug-in installed.

Plugin Versions:

WP-Cache 2.12
WP Super Cache 0.9.9
W3 Total Cache 0.8.5.2

The following command line was used. The -c and -n flags were modified during different runs as illustrated below.

ab -k -n XXX -c XXX http://testingserver/wordpress/2010/06/hello-world/

-n flag is the total number of requests (this is 1000 unless noted)

-c flag is for the number of concurrent requests

The Results

Click for full version

There was no -n 10000 -c 250 run for WordPress with no cache, as it would’ve taken very long and no further information would be gained.. Updated

Raw Data

50 Concurrent Requests


cache method	time taken	total transferred	html transferred	req/sec	transfer rate
none	42.631	7025688	6786210	23.46	160.94
wp-cache	9.567	7157000	6872000	104.53	730.58
wp super cache (half on)	7.636	7184084	6905065	130.96	918.8
wp super cache (full)	7.411	7180000	6901000	134.93	946.07
w3 total cache (quick)	8.228	6427618	6039371	121.53	762.84
w3 total cache (APC for all)	8.384	6554037	6087793	119.28	763.44
w3 total cache (DE only)	7.787	7419504	7032408	128.41	930.43
w3 total cache (DE only gzip+deflate)	7.518	7393440	7008630	133.01	960.33

100 Concurrent Requests


cache method	time taken	total transferred	html transferred	req/sec	transfer rate
none	41.277	7025688	6786210	24.23	166.22
wp-cache	7.942	7229988	6940603	125.91	888.98
wp super cache (half on)	4.711	7353500	7063600	212.28	1524.42
wp super cache (full)	4.598	7316282	7013904	217.49	1553.89
w3 total cache (quick)	4.619	6483320	6090890	216.5	1370.77
w3 total cache (APC for all)	5.326	6571413	6103337	187.76	1204.91
w3 total cache (DE only)	5.213	7467288	7076001	191.83	1398.88
w3 total cache (DE only gzip+deflate)	4.503	7458600	7068075	222.07	1617.52

250 Concurrent Requests


cache method	time taken	total transferred	html transferred	req/sec	transfer rate
none	45.112	6694982	6459715	22.17	144.93
wp-cache	5.001	7370444	7067664	199.95	1439.19
wp super cache (half on)	4.782	7479736	7181764	209.11	1527.41
wp super cache (full)	3.436	7513840	7197120	291.02	2135.43
w3 total cache (quick)	5.341	6384178	5999741	187.24	1167.33
w3 total cache (APC for all)	7.17	6579256	6110264	139.46	896.05
w3 total cache (DE only)	4.648	7532448	7135446	215.14	1582.52
w3 total cache (DE only gzip+deflate)	5.265	7462944	7072038	189.93	1384.21

250 Concurrent Requests – 10000 Total Requests


cache method	time taken	total transferred	html transferred	req/sec	transfer rate
none	384.545	64628053	62311067	26	164.12
wp-cache	34.552	71599548	68748013	289.42	2023.66
wp super cache (half on)	29.075	72047348	69241705	343.94	2419.91
wp super cache (full)	28.534	72337968	69365832	350.46	2475.77
w3 total cache (quick)	42.432	63564752	59751704	235.67	1462.91
w3 total cache (APC for all)	43.688	64968473	60366489	228.9	1452.25
w3 total cache (DE only gzip)	42.674	73695480	69868335	234.34	1686.48
w3 total cache (DE only gzip+deflate)	42.391	73612944	69793038	235.9	1695.81