Perform – Performance Optimization for WordPress

Description

Perform helps you speed up WordPress by removing unused CSS/JS, deferring or disabling scripts, and giving fine-grained control over asset loading per page.

The plugin is designed to be lightweight, beginner-friendly and developer-extensible. It focuses on practical optimizations that improve front-end load times and Core Web Vitals without complicated setup.

Key benefits (short):

  • Reduce page size and HTTP requests by disabling unused assets per page.
  • Improve Largest Contentful Paint and Time to Interactive via script deferring and selective loading.
  • Reduce admin and server overhead, minimal CPU and memory footprint.

Features

  • Assets Manager: selectively disable CSS and JS per page, post type or template.
  • Remove jQuery Migrate, emojis, embeds and other unnecessary features.
  • WooCommerce optimizations: control cart fragments, scripts and styles to speed up stores.
  • CDN & preconnect: add DNS-prefetch, preconnect, and native CDN integration hooks.
  • Menu caching and lightweight transient caching for faster navigation.
  • Developer-friendly hooks and filters for custom integrations.

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Support

For help and troubleshooting, use our WordPress.org support forum: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/perform
Contributions and bug reports welcome on GitHub: https://github.com/performwp/perform

Contributors

performwp, mehul0810, ankur0812

Screenshots

  • Settings overview: global optimization toggles.
  • Assets Manager: disable CSS/JS per page.1. General Settings Screen
  • Bloat Settings Screen
  • Assets Settings Screen

Installation

  1. Upload the perform folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory, or install via the WordPress plugin directory if available.
  2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ screen in WordPress.
  3. Go to Perform Settings to review defaults (the plugin works well out-of-the-box).

FAQ

Will Perform break my theme or plugins?

Perform is conservative by default: it only disables assets when you explicitly choose them in the Assets Manager. If you disable something and see issues, re-enable the asset. Changes are reversible.

Is this compatible with caching plugins like WP Rocket?

Yes. Perform works alongside caching plugins and most server-level caching solutions. Clear cache after making asset changes.

Which page builders are supported?

Full compatibility with majority of all the page builders.

Reviews

11 March 2022
A straightforward plugin that is easy to use. In my case, I only need the ‘General’ options to simplify the HTML that WP generates – removing the shortlink from <head>, query strings (version numbering) from CSS and JS files, etc. I then create a static mirror using wget and the output is clean.
Read all 2 reviews

Contributors and Developers

“Perform – Performance Optimization for WordPress” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Change Log

1.5.0 – 2025-11-01

  • Upgraded Settings UI to look and feel premium.
  • Optimized code around settings screen.

1.4.1 – 2025-04-26

  • Added Freemius integration.
  • Moved to PostCSS build and wp-scripts.
  • Added PHPStan static analysis.

1.3.1 – 2024-11-13

  • WordPress 6.7 compatibility.
  • Raised minimum PHP version to 7.4.

1.3.0 – 2020-12-31

  • Modernized codebase and namespaces.

1.2.3 – 2019-12-31

  • Fix: Handle writable wp-config scenarios.

1.2.2 – 2019-12-27

  • Fix: CDN rewrite bug and UI tweaks.

1.2.1 – 2019-06-22

  • Fix: Welcome redirect after activation.

1.2.0 – 2019-04-30

  • Added Menu Caching.