In the previous article we have found out that BuddyPress and bbPress took a hefty performance toll on the backend of your website.

We have fixed this with the help of object caching which was cleverly implemented with the SQLite Object Cache plugin that uses the widely available SQLite3 extension to PHP.

SQLite is fast and efficient database software. It doesn’t require a separate server. Instead, it is built into PHP using the SQLite3 extension. SQLite programs don’t need to open network connections to send requests and wait for replies.

In WordPress, as in many web frameworks, your database server is a performance bottleneck. Using some other mechanism for the object cache avoids adding to your database workload. Web servers serve pages using multiple PHP processes, and each process handles its own SQLite workload while updating a shared database file. That spreads the object-cache workload out over many processes rather than centralizing it.

Caches contain short-term copies of the results of expensive database lookups or computations, and allow software to use the copy rather than repeating the expensive operation. This plugin extends WordPress’s caching subsystem to save those short-term copies from page view to page view.

Without a persistent object cache, every WordPress page view must use your MariaDB or MySQL database server to retrieve everything about your site. When a user requests a page, WordPress starts from scratch and loads everything it needs from your database server. Only then can it deliver content to your user. With a persistent object cache, WordPress immediately loads much of the information it needs. This lightens the load on your database server and delivers content to your users faster.

For this plugin to work first we had to install sqlite3 extension for PHP on our server.

If you do not have access to your server via terminal ask your hosting provider to do it for you.

After that we had installed and activated the plugin.

Results were immediate and profound!

• Forum loading speed was increased.
• Topic loading was much faster.
• Activity page speed was increased.
• Members page speed increased.

Posting anything in the backend was instant.

This was huge improvement in performance just by installing and setting up object caching with this plugin.

Clearly, SQLite Object Cache plugin is a life saver for all BuddyPress and bbPress sites.

Did you like our test? What do you think about our findings? Do you have any questions or suggestions regarding BuddyPress and bbPress optimization. Feel free to post any of these on our open discussion platform.

Hope you’ve enjoyed our content.

Stay optimized!