If you're experiencing a sluggish WooCommerce admin panel, it's time to take action. A slow admin panel can be a major hindrance to your productivity and overall user experience. This guide will provide you with a range of strategies to speed up your WooCommerce backend/dashboard.
Start by deactivating plugins one by one and testing your admin speed after each deactivation. Some plugins can slow down the admin by increasing CPU usage or adding CSS/JS to the frontend. Use tools like Query Monitor to identify your slowest plugins and consider replacing them with more lightweight alternatives.
Cache plugins can automatically clear the entire cache when certain actions are triggered. This can put a strain on your server and slow down both your admin and frontend. Consider disabling automatic cache clearing and setting up a cron job to clear the cache once per day instead.
Redis is an efficient object cache that can significantly improve database performance. We have an article on how to enable this here.
OPcache can enhance PHP performance and CPU utilization, speeding up your admin. In cPanel, you can find it in the PHP Extensions menu.
Disable WooCommerce features you're not using to reduce bloat. The Disable WooCommerce Bloat plugin can help with this, allowing you to disable various features and dashboard items.
Use a plugin like WP-Optimize to deep clean your database. This plugin allows you to delete tables left behind by old plugins and take database backups.
Clearing customer sessions and transients can help if your wp-options table is growing too quickly due to ineffective cron jobs or bots creating sessions.
WP-Cron runs on every page load and schedules automated tasks. Instead of running it on every page load, you can schedule it to run every 90 minutes or so.
We have a guide on this here.
The Heartbeat API can generate a request every 15-60 seconds, which can slow down your admin. Consider disabling it in the frontend and backend, and limiting it in the post editor.
Moving your wp-login page can help protect your admin and stop spam bots from hitting your default login page.
Some plugins, like LiteSpeed Cache, allow you to cache the wp-admin. However, this may result in you seeing expired data, so proceed with caution.
Upgrading to PHP 8 can improve the speed of your admin. Check your PHP version in the WooCommerce server environment and upgrade in your hosting account.
Increasing your memory limit can also speed up your admin. WooCommerce recommends 256MB, but you can increase it to as high as 1GB on our hosting plans.
Page builders can slow down your admin and your website due to the extra CSS/JS they add. Consider removing your page builder and opting for a lightweight theme instead.
Cloudflare's Argo Smart Routing can speed up dynamic requests on both your admin and frontend. It can load assets 30% faster on average.
Use plugins like Query Monitor, WP Hosting Benchmark, and WP Healthcheck to diagnose or speed up your slow WooCommerce admin. These tools can help you identify slow queries, view CPU/memory utilization, and check your WordPress/PHP/mySQL version, server, etc.
PHP X-Ray is a powerful tool that can help you identify performance issues in your PHP code. It provides detailed insights into how your code is running, allowing you to pinpoint bottlenecks and optimize your application.
We have a guide on how to use the X-Ray plugin here.
Remember, a slow WooCommerce admin is often related to a specific plugin (or plugin setting), high CPU usage, a bloated database, or inadequate hosting infrastructure. Implementing these strategies can help speed up your admin and improve your overall user experience.
