Delete Expired Transients vs MSCache Varnish Purge

Delete old, expired transients from the WordPress options table (wp_options), to prevent them from bloating your database and even slowing down your website. Unless you are using an object cache (like memcached), WordPress stores transient records in the options table. Many transients are given an expiration time, so in theory they should disappear after some time. In practise, because old transients are only deleted when requested again after they’ve expired, many transients stay in the database. After a while, there can be thousands or even millions of expired transients needlessly taking up space in your options table, depending on what your plugins are doing. Delete Expired Transients schedules a daily task to delete any expired transients from the options table. It performs this operation with a single SQL query, and then runs a second query to find any orphaned expiration records and deletes them too. There are a few other plugins around that clean up expired transients. This one is written for fast performance, set-and-forget scheduled housekeeping, and maximum compatibility. It uses the PHP time to determine whether transients are expired, not the database time (which can be different). It does only one job, and it does it well with the minimum of resources. Now optimised for WordPress Multisite. Translations Many thanks to the generous efforts of our translators: English (en_CA) — the English (Canadian) translation team English (en_GB) — the English (British) translation team English (en_ZA) — the English (South African) translation team French (fr_FR) — the French translation team Hungarian (hu_HU) — the Hungarian translation team Norwegian: Bokmål (nb_NO) — neonnero Norwegian: Nynorsk (nn_NO) — neonnero Russian (ru_RU) — the Russian translation team Spanish (es_ES) — the Spanish translation team If you’d like to help out by translating this plugin, please sign up for an account and dig in. Contributions Translate into your preferred language Fork me on GitHub Privacy Delete Expired Transients does not collect any personally identifying information, and does not set any cookies. It removes some old information from the database, potentially reducing a website’s exposure to leakage of personally identifying information.

MSCache Varnish Purge helps WordPress administrators purge the Varnish cache for sites running behind a Varnish HTTP reverse proxy. It is developed by Managed Server S.r.l. and provides settings for configuring the Varnish connection, automatic cache invalidation when content changes, and manual purge tools available from the WordPress admin area. This plugin is useful when your WordPress site sits behind Varnish and you need cached pages to be invalidated after content is published or updated, or on demand. It requires a reachable Varnish instance whose VCL is configured to accept PURGE requests from the WordPress server (see the FAQ for a reference VCL). The settings page is available at Settings → MSCache Varnish Purge. On WordPress Multisite, shared connection settings are configured at Network Admin → Settings → MSCache Network, while each site keeps its own purge options. Key Features Asynchronous raw socket PURGE — sends PURGE requests via a direct TCP socket (fsockopen) without waiting for the Varnish response, so the purge request does not block the WordPress request. Automatic purge on content changes — when a post, page, or custom post type is published, updated, trashed, or deleted, the plugin automatically purges the affected URLs including the post itself, home page, categories, tags, author archives, and date archives. Full cache purge — supports multiple methods for purging the entire cache: PURGE wildcard, PURGE custom path, or BAN with configurable header. Additional URLs — define a list of extra paths to purge alongside content changes or on demand. Exclusion patterns — define glob or regex patterns for URLs that should be excluded from caching. Matching requests receive the ms-cache: excluded HTTP header, which can be used by Varnish to skip caching. Admin bar integration — quick-access purge buttons in the WordPress admin bar: Purge All, Purge Home, Purge Current Page. Bulk and row actions — purge cache for selected posts/pages directly from the list table. Debug logging — optional logging of all purge operations to a protected log directory. PHP 7 and PHP 8 compatible — works on PHP 7.0 through PHP 8.x without deprecation warnings. How It Works The plugin opens a raw TCP socket to your Varnish server and sends an HTTP PURGE request with the appropriate Host header. The socket is closed immediately after writing the request — the plugin does not wait for Varnish to respond. This “fire and forget” approach is designed to avoid blocking the WordPress request while the purge is processed. External Services This plugin optionally connects to the following external services when configured by the administrator: Cloudflare API — When the Cloudflare integration is enabled, the plugin sends cache purge requests to the Cloudflare API v4 (https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/) to synchronize Varnish cache invalidation with Cloudflare CDN edge cache. This requires a Cloudflare account, a Zone ID, and an API Token with “Zone.Cache Purge” permission. No personal data or visitor information is transmitted — only URL paths and authentication credentials are sent. Cloudflare Terms of Service Cloudflare Privacy Policy Varnish Cache — The plugin opens raw TCP socket connections to a Varnish server at a user-configured IP address and port (default: 127.0.0.1:80). This is typically a localhost connection to infrastructure managed by the site administrator. No external third-party service is contacted for this functionality. Data Handling & Logging When debug mode is enabled by the administrator, the plugin logs technical data (URL paths, timestamps, socket connection status, purge results) to files in wp-content/uploads/mscache-logs/. Log files are protected with .htaccess rules, obfuscated filenames, and an index.php guard. No personally identifiable information (PII) or visitor data is collected, stored, or transmitted. Purge statistics (success/failure counts, recent activity) are stored in the WordPress options table and are visible only to administrators. Configuration General Settings Enable Plugin — master switch for all purge functionality. Varnish IP — the IP address of your Varnish server (default: 127.0.0.1). Varnish Port — the port Varnish listens on (default: 80). Custom Host Header — override the Host header sent with purge requests. Leave empty to use your WordPress site URL. Socket Timeout — connection timeout in seconds (default: 5). Automatic Purge Choose which content changes trigger automatic cache purge: Posts, Pages, Custom Post Types Home page Category, tag, author, and date archives Full Cache Purge Three methods are available: PURGE /.* — sends a PURGE request with a wildcard path. Requires Varnish VCL to handle regex/wildcard PURGE. PURGE custom path — sends PURGE to a specific path (e.g., /purge-all). Useful when your VCL maps a special path to a full ban. BAN with custom header — sends a BAN request with a configurable header name and value. The most flexible option but requires matching VCL configuration. Important: The actual behavior of a full purge depends entirely on your Varnish VCL configuration. The plugin only sends the request — it is your VCL that decides what gets purged. Additional URLs Enter one URL per line (absolute or relative paths). These URLs can be purged: Automatically alongside post/page saves (if the option is enabled) Manually via the “Purge Additional URLs” button Exclusions Define patterns (one per line) for URLs that should be excluded from caching. Two matching modes: Glob (default) — supports * (any characters) and ? (single character). Example: /wp-admin/*, /cart*, *.xml Regex (advanced) — full regular expression support. Use with caution. When a frontend request matches an exclusion pattern, the plugin sends the HTTP header ms-cache: excluded. Your Varnish VCL can check for this header and bypass caching accordingly. Lines starting with # are treated as comments and ignored. Matching is performed on the request path only, ignoring the query string. Disclaimer This plugin is provided “as is” under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 or later. MANAGED SERVER S.R.L. does not warrant that the plugin will function correctly on hosting environments, servers, or Varnish configurations not directly managed by the company. The plugin has been tested and validated exclusively on the Managed Server hosting infrastructure. Use on third-party environments is at the user’s sole risk and responsibility. In no event shall MANAGED SERVER S.R.L. be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from the use of this plugin outside of the Managed Server infrastructure.