Site Scripts & Speed Manager vs Speed Up – Optimize CSS Delivery

Site Scripts & Speed Manager gives you full visibility and control over every JavaScript file loading on your WordPress site. Most performance plugins offer a blanket “defer all scripts” checkbox — then you spend hours figuring out what broke. This plugin takes a different approach: see first, then optimize. Crawl your entire site or scan a single page to discover every script See exactly what each script is, where it comes from, how it currently loads, and which pages it appears on Choose per-script: Defer, Async, or None — with visual badges, filter tabs, and live search Master kill switch — if anything breaks, flip it off instantly. No cache clearing needed. Full Site Crawl Don’t just scan one page — crawl your entire site with a single click. The plugin automatically discovers your pages, posts, and category archives (up to 50 pages, 10 posts, and 5 categories), scans each one for scripts, and merges the results into a unified view. An animated progress bar shows crawl status in real-time. Per-Page Script Tracking After a full site crawl, every script shows how many pages it appears on. Hover over the count to see the list of page paths. Scripts that only load on inner pages (not the homepage) are highlighted with an “inner only” badge, so you can immediately spot page-specific scripts from plugins like WooCommerce, contact forms, or page builders. Per-Script Loading Control Each discovered script gets its own dropdown: Defer, Async, or None. No blanket rules — you choose exactly how each script loads based on what it is and what it does. Color-coded dropdowns make it easy to see your choices at a glance: blue for Defer, amber for Async. Protected Scripts jQuery Core and jQuery Migrate are automatically locked and cannot be deferred or async’d. Deferring jQuery breaks the majority of WordPress sites, so the plugin prevents you from making that mistake. Protected scripts show a lock icon and their dropdowns are disabled. Smart Script Classification Every script is tagged with a visual badge: 🔒 Protected — jQuery core / jQuery Migrate — locked, cannot be modified WP (blue) — Registered via wp_enqueue_script() — fully controllable with Defer, Async, or None EXT (amber) — Hardcoded or external scripts — shown for visibility only (must be modified at source) Filter Tabs & Live Search Filter the script table by category: All — every script found Controllable — WP-enqueued scripts you can modify External — hardcoded/third-party scripts (display only) Protected — locked scripts (jQuery) Inner-Page Only — scripts not found on the homepage (appears after a full site crawl) Type in the search box to instantly filter by handle name or source URL. Filters and search work together. Stats Dashboard A real-time stats bar shows total scripts, controllable count, deferred count, async count, external count, and pages scanned (after a full crawl). Stats update automatically when you change strategies. Bulk Actions Defer All — sets every controllable script to Defer in one click Reset All — clears all strategies back to None Save Settings — persists your choices to the database Master Kill Switch A prominent on/off toggle at the top of the page. When active, the plugin modifies script tags on the front-end. When off, all scripts load normally — no changes are applied, no cache clearing needed, and your saved settings are preserved for when you turn it back on. Built-in Strategy Reference Detailed cards built right into the admin page explain exactly what each loading strategy does: None (Default) — The browser downloads and runs the script immediately, pausing HTML parsing. Required for jQuery and scripts that must run before the page renders. Defer (Recommended) — The browser downloads in parallel with HTML parsing, then executes after the document is fully parsed. Maintains execution order among deferred scripts. Best for most scripts. Async — The browser downloads in parallel, then executes as soon as the download is complete — regardless of HTML parsing state. Execution order is not guaranteed. Best only for fully independent scripts like analytics and tracking pixels. Each card includes detailed “When to use”, “Impact”, and “Caution” guidance. Modern Admin UI A completely custom-built interface with CSS custom properties for consistent theming, color-coded dropdowns, change highlighting (modified rows turn amber until saved), responsive layout for all screen sizes, animated progress bar during crawls, and hover-to-expand source URLs in the table. Zero Bloat No external API calls. No tracking or analytics. No ads, banners, or upsells. No additional database tables. All settings are stored in a single wp_options row. Who Is This For? WordPress developers who want granular script control without writing code Site owners looking to improve Core Web Vitals and page speed scores Agencies managing multiple client sites that need per-site optimization Anyone tired of blindly deferring scripts and breaking things

This plugin is no longer recommended. Deferring every stylesheet makes the page paint before its own layout arrives. That flash of unstyled content is measured as Cumulative Layout Shift — one of the Core Web Vitals this plugin is meant to improve. The current advice is to inline the CSS needed for the top of the page and defer only the rest, which is more than rewriting a link tag can do. If you have not configured the exclusion filter for your main stylesheets, deactivating this plugin will most likely improve your scores rather than worsen them. This small plugin (5 Kb) loads the stylesheets asynchronously and improve page load times. The recommended use of this plugin is to load your vital stylesheets synchronously and non-vital CSS files asynchronously. Non-vital CSS-files can be for example: fonts, icons, before the fold template-specific CSS, etc. You can choose which files to load synchronously with a filter in your function.php, eg.: // exclude main and child stylesheets from delivery optimization function exclude_from_delivery_optimization($handle){ return in_array($handle, array('main-stylesheet', 'child-stylesheet')); } add_filter('speed-up-optimize-css-delivery', 'exclude_from_delivery_optimization'); Note: this only works if your other plugins and theme add the CSS correctly.