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

Caching is great for scenarios where your post or page content it’s not changed frequently, but if you have a form embedded to which you do changes very often or you’re using dynamic code, that doesn’t run for a cached page, or using third-party solutions relaying in dynamic live data (e.g. reCAPTCHA), using caching in these cases is going to cause issues. The same applies to certain automatic JS optimizations done by caching plugins that are known to break JS execution easily. An easy solution is to configure your caching plugin or proxy to exclude the page where the form is embedded, but you need also to remember this when you create a new page or embed a new form in an existing page… This plugin will take care of the above automatically doing the following: Flush current cache on plugin activation. This is required in order to allow the next step to run. Dynamically check if there’s a Gravity Forms for any of the supported embedding methods (see below for the list). If so, it will prevent post/page from being cached by any of the supported caching plugins, browsers and CDN/Proxies. Embedding methods supported: WordPress default editor, shortcode or Gutenberg block. Content of any post type, including pages and custom posts. ACF fields of type Text, Text Area, and WYSIWYG. Disabled by default. Avada. The following elements has been proven to work: Content Boxes, “Gravity Form”, Modal, Text Block. Other elements could work too, but not tested. Beaver Builder. It will detect Gravity Forms shortcodes added to a Text Editor module. Conversational Forms add-on. It will automatically detect any form page using the conversational_form post type (requires Conversational Forms add-on 1.3.0+). Divi. It should work with any of the default modules where you can insert a GF shortcode into the content. e.g. Call To Action, Text, Tabs… Elementor. The following widgets added to the post content are supported: Shortcode, Text. Essential Addons for Elementor Gravity Forms widget. GravityKit Gravity Forms Widget for Elementor. PowerPack for Beaver Builder Gravity Forms Styler module. Ultimate Addons for Beaver Builder Gravity Forms Styler module. Ultimate Addons for Elementor By Brainstorm Force. WooCommerce Gravity Forms Product Add-ons by Lucas Stark. WPBakery Page Builder. The following elements has been proven to work: “Gravity Form”, Text Block. Other elements could work too, but not tested. WP Tools Gravity Forms Divi Module. If you’re not using any of the above embedding methods you can still use Fresh Forms with a filter to pass the ID number of the posts where you want to run Fresh forms. You can also make Fresh Forms to add a cookie when a form is detected to use this cookie as a way to skip caching for hosts using Varnish based caching. Please see FAQ for more details. There’s no options page. Only the plugin version is saved to the database to be able to handle actions after an update when needed, no other data is stored. It should work with any caching plugin with support for DONOTCACHEPAGE constant, and proxies respecting the use Cache-Control HTTP header. Caching and Optimization plugins supported: Autoptimize Cache Enabler Comet Cache Hummingbird Kinsta Cache LiteSpeed Cache Page Optimize (Script concatenation only) Perfmatters (Delay JS exclusions only) Speed Optimizer (by SiteGround, the plugin with more name changes in the history of WordPress!) Surge W3 Total Cache WP Engine System WP Fastest Cache WP Optimize WP Rocket WP Super Cache Caching plugins NOT supported: Breeze. It doesn’t support DONOTCACHEPAGE constant or filters to skip caching. Check FAQ for a workaround. NitroPack. It doesn’t support DONOTCACHEPAGE constant or filters to skip caching. Check FAQ for a workaround. Cloudflare and other CDN/proxies: This plugin will add appropriate HTTP header to pages with a Gravity Forms form to exlude the page HTML from caching when the web host setup allows it. By default Cloudflare doesn’t cache the page HTML, it does only when you have configured it to “Cache Everything”. In this case, after activating the plugin, you need to purge cache in your Cloudflare account or wait for cache expiration to let Cloudflare know the page must be excluded from caching. Certain hosts like WP Engine and Kinsta don’t allow HTTP headers modification from WordPress side of things, therefore Cloudflare support will not work for these hosts. Other proxy services should work in a similar way, but I don’t have access to test any other proxy service. Feel to reach me if you want to provide me access to add support for your proxy service (documentation for the proxy would be required). Note for these cases (caching is done by an external service), Fresh Forms can just include the HTTP header when your web host allows it. Once the header is added, it’s up to the CDN/proxy being used to obey the header and skip caching for the page. Requirements PHP 7.0 or higher. WordPress 4.9 or higher. Gravity Forms 2.3 or higher. Only forms embedded using classic editor shortcode or Gutenberg block are supported. Usage Just install and activate. No settings required except for ACF support (see FAQ).

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!