Transient Cleaner vs BaseCloud Boost

Clean expired transients from your options table. The original and best! Transient housekeeping was added to the core of WordPress after version 5.8. However, I have decided to open up this plugin to all versions to allow for manual transient cleaning. Longer term I am working on a new version of the plugin, designed specifically for all WordPress releases. Tested up to PHP 8.2 Fully complies with WordPress coding standards Compliant with the stronger WordPress VIP coding standards, as well as compatibility with their platform Community plugin – visit the Github page to get involved with the latest code development, request enhancements and report issues “Transients are a simple and standardized way of storing cached data in the WordPress database temporarily by giving it a custom name and a timeframe after which it will expire and be deleted.” Unfortunately, expired transients only get deleted when you attempt to access them. If you don’t access the transient then, even though it’s expired, WordPress will not remove it. This is a known “issue” but due to reasons, which are explained in the FAQ, this has not been adequately resolved. Why is this a problem? Transients are often used by plugins to “cache” data (my own plugins included). Because of this it means that expired data can be left and build up, resulting in a bloated database table. Meantime, this plugin is the hero that you’ve been waiting for. Simply activate the plugin, sit back and enjoy a much cleaner, smaller options table. It also adds the additional recommendation that after a database upgrade all transients will be cleared down. The Settings Screen Within Administration -> Tools -> Transients an options screen exists allowing you to tweak when you’d like cleaning to happen, including the ability to perform an ad-hoc run, and when you’d like the to be automatically scheduled. You can even request an optimization of the options table to give your system a real “pep”! Running in Lite mode A “lite” mode is available. By activating this the options screen will no longer appear and default settings will be used. The advantage? Improved performance to Admin and, especially if you’re running multi-site, no chance of anybody “tinkering” with the settings. To activate, use the following… define( 'TC_LITE', true ); This should be added to your wp-config.php file. Using hooks If you’re the type of odd person who likes to code for WordPress (really?) then I’ve added a couple of hooks so you can call our rather neat cleaning functions… housekeep_transients – this will clear down any expired transients clear_all_transients – this will remove any and all transients, expired or otherwise Acknowledgements I’d like to thank WordPress Developer Andrew Nacin for his early discussion on this. Also, I’d like to acknowledge the useful article at Everybody Staze for ensuring the proposed solution made sense, and W-Shadow.com for the cleaning code. Iconography is courtesy of the very talented Janki Rathod.

BaseCloud Boost is a professional-grade WordPress performance plugin that dramatically speeds up your website through intelligent full-page caching, asset optimization, and smart cache management. Core Features Page Cache Full-page HTML caching that bypasses WordPress and PHP entirely for maximum throughput GZIP and Brotli compression variants stored alongside each cached page Smart cache invalidation on post updates, comment submissions, and taxonomy changes Configurable cache lifetime (default: 7 days) Separate mobile device cache for responsive-aware caching Cache exclusion by URL pattern or cookie name Asset Optimization HTML, CSS, and JavaScript minification CSS and JS file combining to reduce HTTP requests JavaScript deferral for faster first paint Critical CSS extraction and inline injection Remove query strings from static asset URLs for better CDN hit rates Async-load non-critical Google Fonts with font-display=swap Media Optimization Reliable native lazy loading for images, iframes, and videos — defers off-screen media without ever hiding it, so images always appear On-the-fly image compression — generates high-quality WebP copies of your images on upload, plus a one-click Bulk Compress tool for your existing media library Quality-preserving compression — originals are never altered; WebP copies are created alongside them at a tunable visually-lossless quality WebP and AVIF serving — automatically serves the next-gen format when available Video facade for YouTube and Vimeo — replaces iframes with click-to-play thumbnails preload=”none” applied to video tags for faster page loads Cache Preloader Automatic sitemap-based URL discovery Background batch processing to keep the cache warm Real-time progress tracking in the admin dashboard CDN Integration Generic CDN hostname rewriting for any CDN provider Cloudflare API cache purging — automatically clears Cloudflare edge cache on purge BunnyCDN API cache purging — mirrors local purge events to your Pull Zone Database Optimization Post revision cleanup Auto-draft and trashed post/comment removal Expired transient removal Orphaned postmeta cleanup Table optimization (OPTIMIZE TABLE) Security Headers X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, Referrer-Policy Permissions-Policy (FLoC/Topics API opt-out) Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS) for HTTPS sites Developer-Friendly Full hook API: filter cache behaviour, modify HTML before write, extend CDN purge logic WP-CLI commands for cache management PSR-4 autoloaded class architecture External Services BaseCloud Boost connects to the following external services only when you explicitly configure them in the plugin settings. No data is sent to any third-party service by default. Cloudflare Cache Purge API (Optional) If you enable Cloudflare CDN integration and provide a Zone ID and API Token, the plugin calls the Cloudflare API to purge cached content whenever your local cache is cleared. Service: Cloudflare, Inc. What it is used for: Purging edge-cached pages so visitors see fresh content after a cache clear. When data is sent: Only when you trigger a cache purge (manually, on post save, or via plugin action). Data sent: List of URLs to purge and your Cloudflare Zone ID (via your API token). API endpoint: https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/{zone_id}/purge_cache Terms of Service: https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/ Privacy Policy: https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/ BunnyCDN Cache Purge API (Optional) If you enable BunnyCDN integration and provide an API Key and Pull Zone ID, the plugin calls the BunnyCDN API to purge cached content whenever your local cache is cleared. Service: BunnyWay d.o.o. (BunnyCDN) What it is used for: Purging Pull Zone edge cache so visitors receive fresh content. When data is sent: Only when you trigger a cache purge. Data sent: URLs to purge and your API key. API endpoints: https://api.bunny.net/purge and https://api.bunny.net/pullzone/{id}/purgeCache Terms of Service: https://bunny.net/tos/ Privacy Policy: https://bunny.net/privacy/ Performance Metrics Webhook (Optional) If you configure a webhook URL in the plugin settings, BaseCloud Boost will POST a JSON payload containing anonymous performance metrics to that URL on a daily cron schedule. Service: Custom endpoint configured by you. What it is used for: Sending performance data to an external monitoring or reporting system. When data is sent: Once per day via a scheduled cron event, and when you manually send a test from the admin panel. Data sent: Cache hit rate, cache size, bytes saved (HTML/CSS/JS), last purge time, plugin version, site URL, and site name. No user data or passwords are included. Endpoint: Your custom URL — you are responsible for its security and privacy compliance. Google PageSpeed Insights API (Optional) If you enter a PageSpeed Insights API key in the Lighthouse settings, the plugin calls Google’s PageSpeed Insights API to run automated Lighthouse audits for your site. Service: Google LLC (PageSpeed Insights) What it is used for: Running automated Lighthouse performance audits (Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, SEO scores). When data is sent: When you manually trigger an audit from the Lighthouse settings page, or on the scheduled Lighthouse cron (if enabled). Data sent: Your site URL and your API key. API endpoint: https://www.googleapis.com/pagespeedonline/v5/runPagespeed Terms of Service: https://developers.google.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy Vimeo oEmbed API (Conditional) If a page contains a Vimeo video facade, the plugin’s frontend JavaScript fetches the video thumbnail from the Vimeo public oEmbed API. This happens in the visitor’s browser, not on the server. Service: Vimeo, Inc. What it is used for: Retrieving the video thumbnail image to display in the click-to-play facade. When data is sent: When a page containing a Vimeo video facade is viewed by a visitor. Data sent: The Vimeo video ID (no user data or authentication is required). API endpoint: https://vimeo.com/api/v2/video/{id}.json Terms of Service: https://vimeo.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://vimeo.com/privacy Google Tag Manager / Google Fonts Preconnect Hints (Conditional) When the Resource Hints module is enabled, the plugin outputs and hints for common third-party origins (Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Google Fonts, jsDelivr/cdnjs). These are passive hints that tell the browser to pre-establish connections — no data is sent by the plugin itself. Service: Various (Google LLC, Cloudflare, Inc.) What it is used for: Reducing connection latency for third-party resources already loaded by your theme or other plugins. When data is sent: The browser (not the plugin) initiates the connection. No plugin data is transmitted. Terms of Service / Privacy: Governed by the respective third-party services. All remote requests originating from the plugin server-side use WordPress’s built-in wp_remote_post() / wp_remote_get() functions and respect your server’s SSL configuration.