Viptor Says: The Performance Lab Plugin Tests Ongoing WordPress Improvements

Hello, everybody! Viptor here! As usual, I’m stepping into the role of a news presenter whose job is to report all the exciting news from the wonderful world of WordPress, exclusively for you.

This week, I and everyone at our WordPress agency for enterprise want to bring your attention to the amazing WordPress performance team. So, what’s new with them, you may ask?

Well, I’m happy to report that the WordPress performance team has introduced a new feature plugin. The plugin is called Performance Lab and it features a number of fundamental performance enhancements for core.

The team was actually founded just five months ago and it is managed by Yoast and Google-sponsored core contributors. The team can already pride itself on over 250 members on its Slack channel, with many of them participating in weekly conversations on a regular basis.

So, today, our enterprise WordPress agency will tell you everything you need to know about the new project of the performance team. Let’s go and see what we know so far!

The Different Modules of the New Performance Lab Plugin

And so, our WordPress Agency for Development can tell you that the following modules are included in this first release of the plugin (we remind you that all modules are in various stages of development):

• WebP Uploads: If the server supports it, this module creates WebP versions of new JPEG image uploads
• WebP Support: This module works by adding a WebP support check to the Site Health status
• Persistent Object Cache Health Check: This module works by adding a persistent object cache check to the Site Health status for sites with large volumes of data
• Audit Enqueued Assets (experimental): This module works by adding a CSS and JS resource check to the Site Health status

Our WordPress development agency has found out that the plugin’s main goal is to make it simple for users to test ongoing improvements. There’s a new Settings > Performance menu in the admin where you can easily enable or disable each of these modules.

For instance, here’s how you can test the WebP upload module: upload JPEG photos and then check to see if WebP versions are produced in the Media Library and shown on the front-end. The Site Health status screen will display the other performance modules as checks.

Not a Quick Fix for a Faster-Running Site

I and everyone at our WordPress development company were particularly interested in what Felix Arntz, a WordPress Core Committer, had to say about the new plugin.

Arntz stressed that the plugin should be viewed as a beta testing tool rather than a quick fix for a faster-running website.

In a GitHub ticket about the plugin’s branding Felix Arntz commented that the new plugin will not be a suite of all critical performance features you need to make your WordPress website fast. After all, that’s the specialty of the already existing performance plugins.

So, the Performance Lab plugin shouldn’t raise a false image of wanting to compete with what is already on the market. Our WordPress agency for enterprise respects that important clarification, and we believe that Arntz is on the right track here.

Is the Performance Lab Plugin Trustworthy?

I want to warn all users that they may get unexpected results when testing the brand-new plugin. This is especially true if you enable the more experimental features that aren’t activated by default.

Our enterprise WordPress agency wants to stress that the plugin should not be used in place of other, more well-known performance plugins. Remember that as new features for core are suggested, Performance Lab may gradually evolve over time.

Felix Arntz explained that the list of modules provided in the Performance Lab plugin may radically alter over time. After all, it is a collection of potential WordPress core feature modules.

Arntz has made it clear that new modules may be added on a regular basis, while others may be deleted in a future plugin version after they have been integrated into the WordPress core.

Check Out the New Performance Lab Plugin!

All in all, our WordPress Agency for Development can conclude that the purpose of the new feature plugin is to aid the wider testing of ongoing performance enhancements. This will help with filtering out edge cases before distributing the modules as part of a core release.

The WordPress developers from Vipe Studio have told me that issues and concerns can be submitted as GitHub issues or wordpress.org support forum requests by testers, so have that in mind.

That was it for this week’s news, folks! I hope that the idea behind the new Performance Lab plugin has sparked your interest as much as it did mine.

Remember to come back to Vipe Studio’s blog daily if you want to discover high-quality articles about everything WordPress-related! Bye for now, and till next time!

Need help with your WordPress project? Our WordPress development agency can help! Vipe Studio offers full-stack custom WordPress website development that can cater to the specific needs of businesses of all shapes and sizes, including Enterprise.

Get in touch with us, so we can become the long-term technical partner you need!

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