SG optimizer and CloudFlare

  • Resolved AlexOM

    (@alexom)


    7 years, 5 months ago

    Hello ,
    I have activated the CloudFlare option on Siteground, and I notice that many options offered by SiteGround Optimizer looks very similar to the one offered by Cloudflare….

    So… I am wondering what would be the best setting to use for my WP website? I am, of course looking for the best speed result, and try to avoid servers loosing time performing twice the same action. And I also wonder if I really need Cloudflare to speed up my website?
    If Siteground already do everything that cloudflare offers, I am worry that using an extra server will, in contrary make the site slower, no ?

    Here is the list of what SiteGround (SG) Optimizer compare to Cloudflare (CF).

    SuperCacher Setting:
    SG: Dynamic Caching / CF: choice between Standard , No query String, Ignore query String (not really sure to know what’s the best to choose)
    SG: MemCached / CF: not sure what is the equivalent ?

    Environment Optimization
    SG: Enable HTTPS / CF: Always Use HTTPS
    SG : PHP version / CF : no deal with that , but I guess could be done in CPanel
    SG: GZIP Compression / CF : I don’t see that, but I guess could be done in the .htacces
    SG: Browser Caching / CF : I don’t see that, but I guess could be fixed in the .htacces

    Frontend Optimization
    SG: Minify the HTML Output / CF: Yes
    SG: Minify JavaScript Files / CF: Yes
    SG: Minify CSS Files / CF: Yes
    SG: Remove Query Strings From Static Resources / CF: don’t see that ?
    SG : Disable Emojis / CF: don’t see that ?

    Image optimization:
    SG: New Images Optimization / CF: Yes, Polish
    SG: Existing Images Optimization / CF: Yes, Polish
    SG: Lazy Load Images / CF: I don’t see that

    Other Speed features that offer CF and not SG :
    Railgun (I have the feeling my website faster better without!)
    Enable Accelerated Mobile Links (not need)
    Brotli (compression. win only 0.01MB)
    Mirage (for mobile)
    Rocket Loader™ (for javascript, I don’t really see any difference!)
    Mobile Redirect (not needed for me)
    Prefetching URLs From HTTP Headers (probably don’t need it).

    To conclude.
    SG optimizer seams to offer all the same speed features that Cloudlfare offers, and I don’t know if some perform better than other?
    Cloudflare offer a LOT of other features, that, for the most I don’t even understand what they are doing. It also offers some security options, that sound great, but again, here I am looking for speed.

    So, what do you think?
    For a wordpress website (using Elementor), will Cloudflare make a difference ? Or does the basic option offered by Siteground are good enough ?

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

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  • Plugin Author Hristo Pandjarov

    (@hristo-sg)

    SiteGround Representative

    7 years, 5 months ago

    Few things to consider here. CloudFlare is a CDN. This means they take the content from our servers and distribute it on their network. That’s great because users from different geographic locations load your site from a node closest to them.

    Railgun works on SG but not in the plugin because it handles the commuunication between our server and theirs. As CDN, CloudFlare receives the complete output of your site after it’s processed by our server. This means that they can do things like minify, image optimizations, but not things like removing query strings and disabling emojis.

    A comparisson between the SG Optiimzer plugin and CloudFlare does not make any sense. Yes, there are overlapping features and the only general rule is not to do the same thing twice. Minification – if you’re doing it on the plugin level – don’t do it in CF. If you don’t have it enabled in the plugin but you use it in CF – just don’t bother changing. Minification is minification and it does the same. This said, I think some of the compared features are part of the Plus package which is paid extra while everything in the optimizer is Free.

    Whether you should use CF or not – it depends on your site and your preferences. If you’re targeting the USA only for example, I wouldn’t bother adding it since it would add another lear of complexity to your structure. If you’re targeting an audience worldwide – go for it. Just make sure you don’t duplicate functionality.

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

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