AMP vs Hummingbird Performance – Cache & Page Speed Optimization for Core Web Vitals | Critical CSS | Minify CSS | Defer CSS Javascript | CDN

Page Experience (PX) is a set of ranking signals—including Core Web Vitals (CWV)—measuring the user experience of interacting with a web page. AMP is a powerful tool which applies many optimizations and best practices automatically on your site, making it easier for you to achieve good page experience for your visitors. The official AMP Plugin, supported by the AMP team, makes it easy to bring the power of AMP to your WordPress site, seamlessly integrating with the normal publishing flow and allowing the use of existing themes and plugins. For more videos like this, check out the ongoing AMP for WordPress video series. The plugin’s key features include: Automate the process of generating AMP-valid markup as much as possible, letting users follow the standard workflows they are used to in WordPress. Provide effective validation tools to help users deal with AMP incompatibilities when they happen, including mechanisms for identifying, contextualizing, and resolving issues caused by validation errors. Provide development support to make it easier for WordPress developers to build AMP-compatible ecosystem components and build websites and solutions with AMP-compatibility built-in. Support the serving of AMP pages to make it easier for site owners to take advantage of mobile redirection, AMP-to-AMP linking, and generation of optimized AMP by default (via PHP port of AMP Optimizer). Provide a turnkey solution for segments of WordPress creators to be able to go from zero to publishing AMP pages in no time, regardless of technical expertise or availability of resources. The official AMP plugin for WordPress is a powerful tool that helps you build user-first WordPress sites, that is, sites that are fast, beautiful, secure, engaging, and accessible. A user-first site will deliver experiences that delight your users and therefore will increase user engagement and the success of your site. And, contrary to the popular belief of being only for mobile sites (it doesn’t stand for Accelerated Mobile Pages anymore!), AMP is a fully responsive web component framework, which means that you can provide AMP experiences for your users on both mobile and desktop devices. AMP Plugin Audience: Everyone This plugin can be used by both developers and non-developer users: If you are a developer or tech savvy user, you can take advantage of advanced developer tools provided by the AMP plugin to fix validation issues your site may have and reach full AMP compatibility. If you are not a developer or tech savvy user, or you just simply don’t want to deal with validation issues and tackling development tasks, the AMP plugin allows you to assemble fully AMP-compatible sites with different configurations taking advantage of AMP-compatible components. The plugin helps you to deal with validation issues by removing invalid AMP markup in cases where it is possible, or altogether suppressing AMP-incompatible plugins on AMP pages. The bottom line is that regardless of your technical expertise, the AMP plugin can be useful to you. Template Modes The official AMP plugin enables site owners to serve AMP to their users in different ways, which are referred to as template modes: Standard, Transitional, and Reader. The differences between them are in terms of the number of themes used (one or two), and the number of versions of the site (non-AMP, AMP). Each template mode brings its own value proposition and serves the needs of different scenarios in the large and diverse WordPress ecosystem. And in all cases, the AMP plugin provides as much support as possible in terms of automating the generation of AMP pages, as well as keeping the option chosen AMP valid. In a nutshell, the available template modes are the following: Standard Mode: This template mode is the ideal, as there is only one theme for serving requests and a single version of your site: the AMP version. Besides enabling all of your site to be AMP-first, this has the added benefit of reducing development and maintenance costs. This mode is the best choice for sites where the theme and plugins used in the site are fully AMP-compatible. It's also a good option if some components are not AMP-compatible but the site owner has the resources or the know-how to fix them. See our showcase of sites using Standard mode. Transitional Mode: In this mode there is also a single theme used, but there can be two versions of each page: AMP and non-AMP. The active theme is used for serving the AMP and non-AMP versions of a given URL. This mode is a good choice if the site uses a theme that is not fully AMP compatible, but the functional differences between the AMP and non-AMP pages are acceptable (due to graceful degradation). In this case, users accessing the site from mobile devices can get the AMP version and get an optimized experience which also retains the look and feel of the non-AMP version. Check out our showcase of sites using Transitional mode. Reader Mode: In this mode there are two different themes, one for AMP pages and another for non-AMP pages, and therefore there are also two versions of the site. This mode may be selected when the site is using an AMP-incompatible theme, but the level of incompatibilities is significant without graceful degradation. It’s also a good choice if you are not technically savvy (or simply do not want to deal with the incompatibilities) and therefore want simplified and robust workflows that allow you to take advantage of AMP with minimal effort. Different modes would be recommended in different scenarios, depending on the specifics of your site and your role. As you configure the plugin, it will suggest the mode that might be best for you based on its assessment of the theme and plugins used on your site. And, independently of the mode used, you have the option of serving all or only a portion of your site as AMP. This gives you all the flexibility you need to get started enabling AMP on your site progressively. AMP Ecosystem It is possible today to assemble great looking user-first sites powered by the AMP plugin by picking and choosing themes and plugins from a growing AMP-compatible ecosystem. In this context, the AMP plugin acts as an orchestrator of the overall AMP content creation and publishing process; it serves as a validator and enforcer making it easier to not only get to AMP experiences, but to maintain them with confidence. Many popular theme and plugin developers have taken efforts to support the official AMP plugin. If you are using a theme like Astra or Newspack, or if you are using plugins like Yoast or WP Forms — they will work out of the box! You can see the growing list of tested themes and plugins. AMP Development Although there is a growing ecosystem of AMP-compatible WordPress components, there is still a ways to go before majority AMP compatibility in the ecosystem. If you are a developer, or you have the resources to pursue development projects, you may want in some cases to develop custom plugin or theme to serve your specific needs. The official AMP plugin can be of great help to you by providing powerful and effective developer tools that shed light into the AMP development process as it is done in WordPress. This includes mechanisms for detailing the root causes of validation issues, the contextual space to understand them properly, and methods to deal with them during the process of achieving full AMP compatibility. Read more about Developer Tools. Getting Started To learn more about the plugin and start leveraging its capabilities to power your AMP publishing workflow, check the official AMP plugin product site. If you are a developer, we encourage you to follow along or contribute to the development of this plugin on GitHub. We have put up a comprehensive FAQ page and extensive documentation to help you start as smoothly as possible. But if you need some help, we are right here to support you in the plugin’s support forum, as well as through GitHub issues (for technical bugs and feature requests). And our thriving AMP Expert ecosystem has indie freelancers to enterprise grade agencies in case you need commercial support!

Hummingbird makes your website faster and optimizes site performance by adding new ways to boost Google PageSpeed Insights with fine-tuned controls over file compression, deferring CSS and JavaScript styles and scripts, minify for CSS and JS, Lazy Load integration, and world-class caching. Hummingbird is brought to you by the WordPress speed specialists that created Smush image optimization, now active on more than +1 million websites. Get the complete speed boost with Hummingbird and Smush. Enjoy top-tier performance and PageSpeed optimization from the start with Hummingbird Pro. Level up immediately with exclusive Pro features like Delay JavaScript Execution, Critical CSS Generation, Brotli file compression, and 119-point global asset CDN with unlimited bandwidth. Learn more about Pro. If PageSpeed Insights is making these speed recommendations Hummingbird can help: Enable text compression – Use gzip to make your site fly (Brotli Compression via CDN included with Pro). Preconnect to required origins – Use Hummingbird to establish earlier connections. Preload key requests – Prioritize resources based on order. Avoid enormous network payloads – Consider Lazy Load for comments or breaking up smaller posts. Use efficient cache – The Hummingbird Cache suite offers effective browser cache for caching any site. Fix your JavaScript execution time – Deliver smaller JS payloads, preload JS, and defer JS. Minify CSS – Strip unused code from your CSS. Minify JavaScript – Speed up the time it takes to parse your JS files. Eliminate render-blocking resources – Move critical CSS and JS inline and defer all non-critical JS/CSS. Delay JavaScript execution (Pro only) – Increase performance by delaying the loading of non-critical JS files and scripts until user interaction. Automatically generate Critical CSS (Pro only) – Substantially boost page speed and UX by prioritizing above-the-fold content. Defer unused CSS – Defer the loading of CSS not used for above-the-fold content. Lazy Load offscreen images (Smush free integration). Hummingbird scans your site and provides one-click fixes to speed up WordPress in a flash. You’ll get faster loading pages, higher search rankings (SERP) and PageSpeed scores, and happier visitors with Hummingbird’s WordPress speed optimization. Optimizing the speed of your site has never been easier! Features Available in Hummingbird Include: Scan and Fix – Get a scan of your site, find out what’s slowing it down, and use one-click performance improvements to make critical speed improvements. World-class caching – A full caching suite to load pages faster with full-page, Gravatar, and browser cache tool. Performance Reports – Pro tips for running your site at super speed. Asset Optimization – Combine, compress and position Javascript, CSS, and Google Font files for top performance. Safe Mode — Test Hummingbird settings without affecting your visitors’ experience, only logged-in admins see the optimized version. Better Rankings – Improve scores on Google PageSpeed Insights (SEO ranking factor), YSlow, Pingdom, and GTmetrix. Increase Your Conversion Rate – Don’t keep visitors waiting: faster sites convert better. GZIP Compression – Blazing-fast HTML, JavaScript, and stylesheet (CSS) transfer. Configs – Set your preferred performance settings, save them as config, and instantly upload to any other site. Font Optimization – Improve site speed, Core Web Vitals, and visual stability by preloading critical fonts and enabling fallbacks. Uptime Monitoring & Alerts – Get instant notifications if your site ever goes down. Scheduled Performance Reports – Stay on top of site speed with regular insights. Learn The Ropes With These Hands-On Hummingbird Tutorials How To Optimize WordPress For Speed With Hummingbird How To Optimize Elementor for Free Using Smush and Hummingbird How To Optimize WPBakery Sites Using Smush And Hummingbird Speed Up and Optimize Avada for Free Using Smush and Hummingbird Optimize Divi for Free Using Smush and Hummingbird Hummingbird Features to Speed Up WordPress Scan and One-Click Fix Hummingbird is a WordPress speed optimization plugin. It will scan your site, find files that are slowing it down, and provide tips and fixes for making your site run at top speed. Hummingbird even has one-click improvements like a full cache suite, one-click minify for styles and scripts, and deferring CSS and JS for quickly optimizing performance. What could be easier! World-Class Caching You’ll get a world-class caching suite, including full-page, browser, and Gravatar cache. Make your site load even faster with Hummingbird’s complete set of cache tools that give your visitors a faster browsing experience. Including full-page, browser and Gravatar caching. Asset Optimization Did you know that loading too many files in your site’s header can slow it down? Hummingbird now gives you granular control with separate Combine and Compress optimization modes, so you can fine tune your Asset Optimization like a pro. Reorder, defer, compress and exclude CSS and JavaScript files with one-click. Transfer Data at Top Speed With GZIP Hummingbird has GZIP powers to make sharing your site more efficient. Sending zipped files is faster and can save you money on hosting. And don’t worry about setup, send Hummingbird instructions with the click of a button and she’ll handle the rest. Built-in Cloudflare Integration Hummingbird can be used to control your Cloudflare browser cache and Automatic Platform Optimizations (APO) settings as well! Simply add your Cloudflare API key and configure away. Font Optimization Boost site speed, Core Web Vitals, and the visual stability of pages for users with Hummingbird’s one-click font optimization features: Preload Fonts, which instructs browsers to preload essential fonts, and Swap Web Fonts, which applies a temporary fallback font until the primary one loads. Fully Compatible With Smush Image Optimization You can complement Hummingbird’s WordPress speed optimization features with our award-winning sister-plugin Smush image optimization. Smush compresses your images, giving your site less to load – and thus a faster load time. Hummingbird + Smush integrate perfectly together, and are the perfect match to speed up WordPress. Compress, optimize (optimise), and fix PageSpeed performance with properly sized images, lazy load, next-gen WebP convert, image formatting, and more. Save time with Hummingbird Configs Configs allow you to save your preferred Hummingbird configuration settings and apply them to your other sites in a few clicks. You can create unlimited configs. Delay Javascript Resources (Pro Only) Boost site performance dramatically by delaying the loading of JS files and third-party scripts until direct user interaction (e.g. scroll or click). Enjoy faster loading pages, improve web vitals, and ace your PageSpeed scores. Activate in one click, includes user interaction timeout and the option to exclude critical files from being delayed. A paid WPMU DEV account (the developers of Hummingbird) is required to access this feature. You can check out our affordable plans here. Generate Critical CSS (Pro Only) Maximize site speed and user experience by prioritizing only the CSS that matters most. The Generate Critical CSS feature intelligently generates and embeds critical CSS in the head of each page, giving priority to above-the-fold content and significantly improving loading speed. Updates to your critical CSS are automated with every site design change, and you can enable/disable with a click. Faster Websites Rank Higher, Convert Better Every millisecond counts: your visitors expect an ever-faster website, with a page load time of under two seconds expected – and the norm. If visitors don’t get that on your site, they will leave. If you’re running a business website or eCommerce store, that means if your website does not load quickly, you will lose sales. Hummingbird is here to help you; it’s a one of a kind WordPress performance optimization plugin that can make your site run at superspeed, for free! You get our WordPress performance optimization suite, which includes minification and GZIP for small page sizes, full caching for faster loading, and integration with Cloudflare’s APO / browser cache, and our sister-plugin Smush image optimization. Hummingbird is built with ease-of-use in mind; it makes your WordPress site faster, but it’s also fast to set up. You can scan your site and implement recommended changes in one-click, getting a fast site in mere minutes. All the above is free and will speed up WordPress for you. If you need the very fastest WordPress site, you should get a WPMU DEV Membership. Our Membership gives you access to Hummingbird Pro – which features automated scanning, enhanced minify compression (with 2x the regular optimization), CDN hosted minification – alongside Smush Pro image optimization, all our premium WordPress plugins, and 24/7 WordPress support. It’s an incredible deal, and you can find out more here. What do People say About Hummingbird? ★★★★★ “Hummingbird is so easy to use. I thought it wouldn’t change my speed much because I already made improvements. I ran the scan, it gave me recommendations, I pushed a button to apply them and it made my site even faster!” – Camilo ★★★★★ “Hummingbird is getting smarter with each update. Today it’s become so good that it forced me to remove giant cache and optimization plugins like WP Super Cache and WP Sweep because now Hummingbird includes all those features – but in a more impressive way.” – swagatam1975 ★★★★★ “Hummingbird took me from 32 to 84 on Google page speed plus made my site 50% faster on GTmetrix!” – Nicolas ★★★★★ “I just built a real bloated sack of crap of a WP site, and after configuring Hummingbird and letting it do its thing, the site is actually fast — much faster than it has any right to be…I’m impressed.” – Cacarr A Note From Hummingbird Hey! This is Hummingbird, your trusted solution to speed up WordPress. I’m part of the WPMU DEV team, a superhero-suite of WordPress plugins, services, and support. Here are some of our other free plugins: Smush – Image Compression and Optimization Forminator – Form, Quiz, Poll and Survey Builder Hustle – Pop-ups, Slide-ins and Email Opt-ins And if you need ALL our Pro plugins AND 24/7 WordPress support, get WPMU DEV membership! My superhero friends run the WPMU DEV Blog, your source for the very best WordPress tutorials. If you need to be in the know about WordPress, check it out. Thanks for looking at Hummingbird, and I look forward to flying through your site to make it faster than ever. Enjoy, The Hummingbird About Us WPMU DEV is a premium supplier of quality WordPress plugins, services and support. Join us here: https://wpmudev.com/ Don’t forget to stay up to date on everything WordPress from the Internet’s number one resource: WPMU DEV Blog Hey, one more thing… we hope you enjoy our free offerings as much as we’ve loved making them for you!