Jetpack Boost – Website Speed, Performance and Critical CSS vs Asset CleanUp

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.

WordPress themes and plugins often load CSS and JavaScript on pages that do not use them. A contact form may load on the homepage, a slider may load on a plain article, or store-related files may load outside the shop. Asset CleanUp shows you what each page loads and lets you unload what is not needed. This can reduce HTTP requests, page weight, and browser work while complementing your existing caching setup. Use Test Mode to validate changes as an administrator before they affect visitors. Asset CleanUp gives you precise, testable control over every optimization. A safer workflow, without giving up control The Dashboard keeps the technical detail experienced users need while guiding first-time users through Getting Started, Test Mode, and the central Overview page. Test changes before they affect visitors, then review and manage existing or leftover rules from one place. CSS and JavaScript management View loaded stylesheets and scripts, organized by their source. Unload unnecessary CSS and JavaScript on the homepage and on individual posts, pages, and custom post types. Manage assets from the Dashboard, the post/page edit screen, or the front-end view. Review unload rules, exceptions, asset attributes, page options, and leftover entries from the Overview page. Minify and combine supported CSS and JavaScript, including supported inline code. Preload selected CSS and JavaScript files when they need to be discovered earlier. Granular manual Critical CSS management Add, edit, and remove your own Critical CSS directly from the Dashboard. Keep manual CSS organized by supported page context instead of maintaining one large global block. Asset CleanUp does not automatically generate Critical CSS. It gives you a structured way to manage CSS that you prepare yourself. Fonts and resource loading Combine, preload, asynchronously load, or remove Google Fonts requests, with font-display and preconnect controls. Preload local font files and apply font-display. Add fetchpriority, loading, and decoding attributes to images using simple matching or regular expressions. Lazy-load images where appropriate. WordPress cleanup options Remove unused WordPress features such as Emojis, Dashicons for guests, and Comment Reply. Remove selected discovery links, metadata, and oEmbed resources from the document HEAD. Disable RSS feed links or feeds when they are not needed. Restrict or disable XML-RPC when your site does not rely on it. Strip supported HTML comments, with exceptions where required. Works with your caching setup, it does not replace it Asset CleanUp is not a page-caching plugin. It controls what WordPress outputs; a page cache, server cache, or CDN can then store and deliver the optimized result. After changing rules, clear every active cache layer. Avoid enabling the same minify or combine feature in multiple optimization plugins at the same time. Asset CleanUp Lite and Pro Lite includes page-level asset management, Test Mode, manual Critical CSS for supported contexts, resource-loading controls, and WordPress cleanup options. Go beyond individual CSS and JavaScript files with the Plugins Manager. Lite includes an interactive preview of the Plugins Manager (rules can be explored, but saved only in Pro). In Pro, it can prevent entire plugins from running on frontend or Dashboard pages where they are not needed, not merely remove their CSS and JavaScript. This can reduce PHP work, database queries, and potential conflicts before the page is generated. Asset CleanUp Pro also adds broader conditional rules, hardcoded asset management, device-specific rules, and advanced JavaScript attribute and placement controls. Documentation and support Read the Asset CleanUp documentation. Ask a question in the WordPress.org support forum. External Services and Privacy WordPress.org plugin icon service When an authorized administrator opens an Asset CleanUp Dashboard screen and the local plugin-icon cache is missing or incomplete, Asset CleanUp may request public plugin information from https://api.wordpress.org/plugins/info/1.2/. The request is used only to retrieve icons for active plugins displayed inside Asset CleanUp. It can include the corresponding WordPress.org plugin slugs and standard HTTP metadata, including the server IP address. Asset CleanUp does not intentionally include the site URL, administrator details, or site content. See the WordPress.org Privacy Policy. Google Fonts preload audit When an authorized administrator explicitly runs the Google Fonts preload audit, Asset CleanUp may request discovered Google Fonts stylesheets from https://fonts.googleapis.com/ and process font-file URLs from https://fonts.gstatic.com/. Requests can include the stylesheet URL and its font-family, variant, subset, or text parameters; the browser user-agent used by the audit; and standard HTTP metadata, including the server IP address. These requests are made only as part of the administrator-initiated audit. See the Google Privacy Policy. The following two Asset CleanUp-operated services are optional. Both are disabled by default and require an administrator to opt in from Asset CleanUp > Settings > Plugin Usage Preferences. Dashboard announcements When an administrator explicitly enables announcements, Asset CleanUp periodically requests the Asset CleanUp Lite announcements feed. The feed is used to show maintenance information, important update notices, optimization guides, and occasional product offers in the WordPress Dashboard. Asset CleanUp does not intentionally add the site URL, administrator details, or site content to this request. As with any HTTP request, the service receives the server IP address and standard HTTP metadata. When announcements are disabled, this feed is not requested. Optional usage tracking When an administrator explicitly enables usage tracking, Asset CleanUp sends an initial technical check-in and then no more than one check-in per week to the Asset CleanUp usage-tracking endpoint. The payload can include the PHP, WordPress, and Asset CleanUp versions; Asset CleanUp settings; first-use and review-notice state; server software; multisite status; the active theme name and version; active and inactive plugin file identifiers; and the WordPress locale. The site URL, administrator name, and administrator email are not intentionally included in the tracking payload. Disabling the setting stops future check-ins. The announcements and usage-tracking services are operated by the Asset CleanUp developer. See the privacy policy. CloudFront infrastructure is provided by Amazon Web Services and is also subject to the AWS Privacy Notice.