Statixly – Static Site Generator vs DietPress

Statixly converts your WordPress site into a fully static HTML website — eliminating PHP, databases, and server-side dependencies from your production host. The result: faster load times, a reduced attack surface, and the freedom to deploy on any web server or CDN. ⚡ Benefits: Why Statixly? 🚀 Faster page loads: Static websites load 3 to 5 times faster than WordPress sites by serving pre-rendered HTML without PHP execution or database queries. 🔒 Reduced attack surface: Static sites have no login page, database connection, or server-side code on your production host. This eliminates primary attack vectors such as SQL injection and brute-force attacks. 🌍 Deploy anywhere: Host on Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages, AWS S3, or any standard web server. No PHP, MySQL, or WordPress dependency is required in production. 💰 Lower hosting costs: Static files can be served from free or low-cost CDN-based hosts instead of a PHP-capable server. Managed WordPress hosting typically costs $25 to $100 or more per month, while static hosting is often free or very affordable on platforms like Cloudflare Pages or Netlify, which offer unmetered bandwidth on their free tiers. 🛠️ Zero production maintenance: Your live site is pure HTML. With no WordPress running in production, there are no security patches, plugin updates, or server-side dependencies to manage on your public host. 🎛️ Live export control: Start, pause, resume, or abort the export from the admin screen and monitor progress in real time. 📦 One-click download: The entire static site is packaged as a ZIP file, ready for extraction and upload. 🔄 Auto-resume on interruption: If internet connectivity drops during export, the job resumes automatically once the connection is restored. 🔍 SEO Benefits 📊 Better Core Web Vitals scores: Static HTML loads faster, directly improving Time to First Byte (TTFB) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which are metrics Google uses as ranking signals. 🤖 Improved crawl efficiency: Search engine bots fetch plain HTML instantly, with no server-side rendering delay. This signals high crawl health and allows engines to index content more effectively. ⏱️ Higher uptime reliability: Static files served from a CDN experience near-zero downtime, helping avoid Google ranking penalties for frequently unreachable URLs. 🧹 No WordPress footprint in production: Common WordPress paths such as /wp-admin and /wp-login.php are removed from the live site, reducing spam crawling and preserving crawl budget. The admin screen provides the following capabilities: Start a static export job Monitor live export status in real time Pause, resume, or abort the export Download the generated static site as a ZIP file Download or delete export logs Delete temporary export directories Statixly systematically crawls website URLs, renders content, rewrites links for static output, and packages the results for deployment. Typical workflow First, build and set up your site as you normally do in WordPress. Make sure all content and settings are finalized before exporting. Next, open the Statixly admin screen and select the Generate/Export Static Site button to start the export process. After the export finishes, download the generated ZIP file containing your static website. Extract the files from the ZIP archive. Upload the extracted files to your chosen static hosting provider. For example, use your website’s document root on a web hosting server, Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages, AWS S3, etc. Important Requirements If the current WordPress website is on example.com and you want to make the static website available on example.com as well, move the WordPress website to a subdomain and protect it with HTTP Basic Auth, or move it to your localhost computer using a backup and migration plugin such as Duplicator. Permalink structure must not be set to Plain. Keep the Statixly export tab open while export is running. Not for e-commerce, etc. Statixly will not work on any WordPress website that generates content dynamically based on user interaction, e.g., an e-commerce or subscription-based website. Contact forms will not work. The contact form requires immediate backend processing upon submission by the user. However, this is on our roadmap. HTTP Basic Authentication If your WordPress install is protected with HTTP Basic Auth (for example, a staging or subdomain install), enter your credentials under Statixly → Settings → Security so Statixly can authenticate during export. Credentials are encrypted before storage and never exposed in logs or diagnostics output. Advanced Opt-In Options Statixly includes two optional safety/compatibility flags, both disabled by default and configurable from the Statixly → Settings → General screen. Allow insecure local HTTP fetch Enable this only for expired, invalid, or self-signed certificate environments where same-site HTTPS fetches fail TLS verification. This turns off SSL verification only for local same-site fetches. Prefer temporary storage above document root Enable this only if you explicitly want Statixly working directories outside wp_upload_dir(). By default, Statixly uses WordPress uploads paths. Please note that this option works only if the intended directory is readable and writable by the web server user. Both flags can also be set directly in the options table if preferred. Need Help? If you face any issues after installing the Statixly plugin, please open a support ticket with detailed information, and we will be happy to fix the issue.

DietPress is a free WordPress speed optimization plugin with a built-in page cache. Page caching, browser caching, GZIP and Brotli compression, deferred JavaScript, critical CSS, image loading attributes, preloading, locally hosted Google Fonts and selective asset loading, all in one plugin and all free. And it goes further than a caching plugin: it also puts WordPress itself on a diet, switching off the features your site never uses. It pairs that with a clean, risk-based interface. Everything is configurable, the optimizations are already on by default, and nothing is hidden behind a paid tier. Activate it and your site is faster, or open the settings and tune every detail. By default WordPress loads functions, services and scripts that most sites do not need. They slow down loading times and consume hosting resources. DietPress lets you trim that fat and apply battle-tested performance tweaks, with a clear description of what each option does and what might break, organized by risk level so you always know what is safe. WHY CHOOSE DIETPRESS Page caching, for free. Serve anonymous visitors a copy stored on disk instead of building the page again. The feature people buy WP Rocket or a NitroPack subscription for, with no licence and no monthly fee. No drop-in, no changes to wp-config.php. Unlike WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache, DietPress installs no advanced-cache.php and never edits wp-config.php. Switching it off leaves your site exactly as it was, with nothing orphaned behind. It tells you why. Most cache plugins leave you guessing when nothing is cached. DietPress reports its own status, tests itself against your home page, and names the exact reason a page was skipped. WooCommerce-safe by design. Carts, checkout, my account and any visitor carrying a cart cookie always get the live site, so nobody ever sees somebody else’s basket. Diet as well as speed. Where Perfmatters focuses on disabling scripts, DietPress covers that ground and adds page caching, critical CSS, local Google Fonts and a dashboard, admin and email cleanup, in one plugin. Light on your server. No account, no external service, no telemetry, no upsell nags. Everything runs on your own hosting. WHAT THE PAGE CACHE DOES TO YOUR RESPONSE TIME Measured on a WordPress 7.0 install with GeneratePress, WooCommerce and a 76 product catalogue, PHP 8.5, taking the median of 15 requests per URL. Your own hosting will give different figures, but the shape of the result will not change. Server response time, the same pages with the page cache off and on: Home page – 52.7 ms without, 15.1 ms with, 71% faster WooCommerce shop – 45.4 ms without, 14.8 ms with, 67% faster A 110 KB article – 43.0 ms without, 15.1 ms with, 65% faster A 98 KB page – 41.0 ms without, 14.9 ms with, 64% faster A product category – 41.3 ms without, 15.1 ms with, 63% faster The interesting part is not the percentage, it is that the cached figure barely moves. Serving a stored file costs the same whether the page was cheap or expensive to build, so the saving grows with the size of your site rather than with the power of your server. The heaviest page in the test is the one that gained most. It also changes how much traffic your hosting can take at once. In the same test the server went from serving about 40 visits a second to more than 210, five times as many, on exactly the same plan. That is what keeps a small site standing up when one of your posts does well. TWO THINGS IN ONE PLUGIN 1. Performance optimizations (on by default) Automatic Critical CSS inlined in the head (optional experimental deferral of non-critical CSS) JavaScript defer parsing with smart dependency handling Image loading attributes safety net: lazy loading, decoding=async and fetchpriority for images that bypass core Automatic image dimensions for better CLS scores (including picture elements) Resource hints: preconnect and DNS prefetch for common third-party origins Theme stylesheet, critical fonts and logo preloading for a faster LCP Google Fonts display=swap Google Fonts local hosting: serve the fonts your theme uses from your own server, GDPR-friendly with a silent fallback to the Google CDN (opt-in) Selective third-party loading: WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, block library, Slider Revolution, TablePress, Smash Balloon, Formidable Forms and Everest Forms assets only load where they are used (opt-in) RSS feed optimization (cache headers and item limit) Server rules in .htaccess: browser caching with a configurable lifetime for media, for styles and scripts and for fonts, GZIP and Brotli compression, immutable cache headers, CORS for fonts and keep-alive (master switch plus per-feature toggles) Database maintenance: daily expired-transient cleanup and safe query optimizations Page cache: store each page on disk and serve it to anonymous visitors without building it again, with automatic purging, gzip precompression and a status panel that says whether it is working (opt-in, in its own tab) 2. Put WordPress on a diet (risk-based, opt-in) Light (safe for any site): emojis, RSD/WLW tags, shortlinks, self-pingbacks, comment pagination, and more Moderate (evaluate first): oEmbed, jQuery Migrate, Dashicons on the frontend, Global Styles and Duotone, remote block patterns, avatars and Gravatar, comment threading, and more Strict (site-specific): granular RSS feed control, Heartbeat API mode, post revisions and autosave, disable comments, XML sitemap, native lazy loading/fetchpriority, content types, selective loading for WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, block assets, Slider Revolution, TablePress, Smash Balloon, Formidable Forms and Everest Forms, and more Widgets: dashboard widgets (including third-party ones from Yoast, WooCommerce, Elementor, Jetpack, Wordfence, Rank Math, Gravity Forms), classic sidebar widgets, block-editor widgets and the Customizer Emails: silence the automatic emails WordPress sends on its own, grouped by area: auto-update results for core, plugins and themes (plus the new-version notice), comment moderation and new-comment notices, and new user, password and email-change notices, plus toggles for the admin email verification prompt and post-by-email. Every option is off by default, and critical notices such as a failed core update are always kept SCALE, PROFILES AND ANALYZER Savings indicator: HTTP requests removed, CSS/JS saved and active optimizations at a glance Quick profiles: Personal Blog, WooCommerce Store, Landing Page and Maximum Cleanup Site analyzer: personalized recommendations based on your active plugins and content, page cache included Import and export your whole configuration as a JSON file COMPATIBILITY AND EXTENSIBILITY The plugin includes filters for developers: dietpress_critical_css – Customize the inline critical CSS dietpress_critical_css_handles – Define which CSS handles are critical dietpress_skip_defer_script_handles – Opt scripts out of the JavaScript defer dietpress_skip_defer_style_handles – Opt stylesheets out of the CSS deferral dietpress_preconnect_hints – Customize preconnect origins dietpress_dns_prefetch_domains – Customize DNS prefetch domains dietpress_critical_fonts – Define critical fonts to preload dietpress_exclude_local_fonts – Exclude Google Fonts stylesheets from local hosting dietpress_selective_{module}_has_content – Mark a page as showing the content of a selective loading module, so its assets are kept. The module is wc, cf7, formidable, everest_forms or revslider dietpress_selective_{module}_styles / dietpress_selective_{module}_scripts – Adjust the handles removed by each module dietpress_selective_page_hides_content – Mark a page as rendering content the content scan cannot reach, so no module removes anything (this is what handles Elementor) dietpress_selective_is_wc_page – Override the WooCommerce page detection of selective loading dietpress_selective_wc_keep_cart_fragments – Keep the cart fragments script when your theme has a hand-coded mini-cart dietpress_selective_cf7_has_form – Mark pages that load a Contact Form 7 form dynamically dietpress_selective_blocks_dequeue – Override the block library dequeue decision dietpress_selective_everest_forms_dequeue_dashicons – Keep Dashicons when another plugin enqueues it directly dietpress_native_sitemap_in_use – Tell DietPress your plugin builds on the native WordPress sitemap, so the option that removes it becomes unavailable dietpress_cache_bypass – Keep the current page out of the page cache dietpress_cache_bypass_cookies – Adjust the cookie name prefixes that make a visitor uncacheable dietpress_cache_ignored_params – Adjust the query parameters that do not change the page dietpress_cache_exclude_urls – Adjust the excluded URL patterns dietpress_cache_post_urls – Adjust the URLs purged along with a post Compatible with: Well-coded themes and page builders (Divi, Elementor, Beaver Builder, Bricks Gutenberg) Cache plugins (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, etc.). The one exception is the optional page cache module, which will not run beside another page cache and says so; everything else in DietPress works alongside them as it always has Security plugins (DietPress focuses on performance and deliberately leaves security to them; we recommend our free Vigilant) CDNs (Cloudflare, StackPath, KeyCDN, etc.) thanks to CORS and Vary headers WordPress Multisite (except the optional page cache module, which does not support it yet) HOW TO VERIFY THE OPTIMIZATIONS Cache rules: check your .htaccess for a block marked # BEGIN DietPress with immutable Cache-Control headers Logo preload: view page source and look for pointing to your logo Critical CSS: view source and look for in the head Compression: test at giftofspeed.com/gzip-test Always measure with tools like Google PageSpeed, GTMetrix or WebPageTest, and run each test at least twice to account for caching. Support Need private support or custom development? Do you need one-on-one help, priority troubleshooting, or a custom feature, integration, or tweak built specifically for your site? I offer private support and custom development. Just contact me and tell me what you need. Need help or have suggestions? Official website WordPress support forum YouTube channel Documentation and tutorials Love the plugin? Please leave us a 5-star review and help spread the word! About AyudaWP We are specialists in WordPress security, SEO, AI and performance optimization plugins. We create tools that solve real problems for WordPress site owners while maintaining the highest coding standards and accessibility requirements.