Epoch – A native Disqus alternative with a focus on speed and privacy
Epoch is a new plugin from the creators of Postmatic. The goal: To provide a realtime commenting/chat experience using fully native comments while being compatible with page caching, cdns, mobile, other comment plugins, and seo best practices. A tall order? For sure. Try it out. Epoch provides an amazing commenting experience to your users while improving site performance at the same time. Key Features WordPress native comments Realtime with minimal server load Fully ajax commenting for both sending and receiving comments Integrates with any theme while still blending in with your brand Front end moderation with realtime updates. It’s insanely fast. Epoch solves three big native commenting problems User Experience Comment forms and display are often neglected by theme developers. We’ve been there ourselves. The functions and templates involved in WordPress commenting are complicated, frustrating, and no fun to work with. Every day we see fantastic themes with ridiculously poor commenting experiences. So that’s the first thing Epoch fixes. Speed and context No more submitting comments and watching the page reload. All Epoch comments are submitted via ajax and post instantly in their proper place within the conversation. And, as it should be, new comments from other users show up like magic automatically. It doesn’t matter if they are posted from the web, or from email via Postmatic. The conversation is instantly updated. Cacheing, page load, and CDNs Epoch is hands down the fastest commenting system available for WordPress, all the while supporting page cacheing and CDNs. Epoch comments lazy load into a placeholder container only when needed. This means your post will load instantly, your comments will load instantly, and your server won’t blink. Comments are magically injected into your page so your full SEO mojo stays in tact. Success through compatibility Epoch is built for compatibility. It uses fully native WordPress commenting, plays nicely with most all other commenting plugins, and employs WordPress coding standards. Use it with your favorite social login, voting, moderation, and other commenting plugins. Epoch is fully integrated with Postmatic When running Epoch along with Postmatic the magic really happens. The comment stream is updated in realtime with comments being posted from web as well as email. Subscribing to new comments is quick and simple while users are intelligently invited to become site subscribers as well. All without ugly checkboxes and obtrusive forms. Want to jump into the ring and help with development? This is just 1.0. We’re hoping the WordPress community will lend strength, ideas, and code to this project. That’s why we’ve kept it open-source. You can find Epoch on Github and jump right in. We can’t wait to see where commenting goes next. Combine Epoch with [Postmatic](http://gopostmatic.com) for the ultimate engagment package Postmatic is a free plugin which lets users subscribe to comments but also reply right from their inbox by hitting reply. Postmatic and Epoch integrate perfectly to let you take the conversation on the road and keep the conversation going months after you hit publish.
Jetpack Boost – Website Speed, Performance and Critical CSS
Speed up your WordPress site by optimizing page performance with Jetpack Boost. Easily activate one-click optimizations to boost your Core Web Vitals. Did you know that a faster website:- Ranks higher on Google. Improves bounce rate (people stay on your site for longer). Increases your conversion rate. Increase your website performance and speed up your website with one-click optimizations that supercharge your WordPress site’s performance and improve core web vitals scores for better search engine listings. Improving Core Web Vitals helps you rank higher on Google. A faster website also improves your SEO, helps you reduce your bounce rate and increase your ecommerce conversion rate. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Measures loading performance. Improve your LCP and improve your website loading speed. First Input Delay (FID): Measures interactivity. To improve user experience pages should have a low FID. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Measures visual stability. Lowering your CLS helps improve your user experience. Performance Modules Optimize your website with the same techniques used on the world’s most successful websites. Each technique that is used to increase website performance is packaged up as a module that you can activate and try out. Currently, the plugin has 6 performance modules available: Optimize CSS Loading generates Critical CSS for your homepage, posts and pages. This can allow your content to show up on the screen much faster, particularly for viewers using mobile devices. Read more about critical CSS generation at web.dev Page Cache speeds up your site by saving pages as static files. These files are quickly served to visitors, reducing load times and enhancing user experience. Defer Non-Essential JavaScript moves some tasks to after the page loads, so that important visual information can be seen sooner and your website loads quicker. Read more about deferring JavaScript at web.dev Image Guide is a must-have feature for anyone who wants to optimize the images on their website. With this guide, you can ensure that the images on your site are the right size and dimensions, which is critical for improving user experience, page speed, and site ranking. Following the tips and best practices outlined in the guide, you can reduce image file sizes and speed up your site. Check out our support page to learn more about this feature and how it can help you achieve a faster and smoother website experience for your users. Image CDN allows your site to serve automatically-resized images in modern web formats directly from Jetpack’s worldwide Content Delivery Network. Read more about Image CDNs at web.dev Concatenate and Minify CSS and JS combines and shrinks your JavaScript and CSS resources to reduce the number and size of requests to your server, ensuring your content loads faster. Read more about minifying files at web.dev Don’t want to have to manually generate your critical CSS each time you update your site? Let us do the heavy lifting for you with automated critical CSS – each time you update your site we will automatically regenerate your critical CSS and update your performance scores. Upgrading also gives you dedicated email support access. With 💚 by Jetpack This is just the start! We are working hard to bring more features and improvements to Jetpack Boost. Let us know your thoughts and ideas! We’d also like to give a special THANK YOU to the XWP team who provided help with initial research and scoping of the plugin and were engaged with our team throughout the project.
