About 10 years ago, I discovered Perfmatters after I had built my first site using the Elementor page builder. Anyone familiar with Elementor knows it’s a powerful concept — but one that comes with a lot of bloat. Combined with the added weight of WooCommerce, getting fast load times or decent Core Web Vitals scores can feel like a losing battle.
That all changed when I discovered this lightweight optimization plugin. I was honestly amazed by the difference it made — especially after fine-tuning it to support an ecommerce site with over 600 products and more than 4,000 images. It took some tweaking, sure, but the results were worth it. What stood out just as much as the performance boost was the support: the developers behind the plugin were some of the most helpful I’ve ever dealt with — incredibly patient, even with a beginner like me.
🚀 What Is Perfmatters?
This plugin is a performance optimization plugin for WordPress that focuses on reducing bloat, speeding up load times, and improving Core Web Vitals — without requiring a caching plugin or advanced technical skills.
Unlike traditional caching plugins, Perfmatters takes a more granular approach:
- It lets you disable scripts and features you don’t need
- It includes a powerful Script Manager to unload unnecessary assets
- It helps you delay JavaScript, manage lazy loading, preload key assets, and more
It’s built for site owners who want better speed — without breaking their layout or digging into custom code.
🛠 How I Use Perfmatters on My Site
I run a WooCommerce store with hundreds of products and thousands of images, so performance matters. Here’s how I set it up to make things fast (without cutting corners).
🔧 General Settings I Enable:
- ✅ Disable emojis
- ✅ Remove REST API links
- ✅ Disable XML-RPC
- ✅ Remove dashicons (if not logged in)
- ✅ Disable embeds
- ✅ Disable password strength meter (on checkout)
Each of these tweaks cuts out something WordPress loads by default — but that most sites don’t actually need.
⚠️ Please Note: These are just a few of the settings available in the optimization process. There are too many options to cover in this article — this is the “why” article. We’ll cover the “how” in a later post. In the meantime, you can check out the official Perfmatters Performance Checklist to explore everything it offers.
🧠 Delay JavaScript (Massive Speed Boost)
This might be the most impactful setting in the optimization process.
I enable Delay All JavaScript — and then exclude just a handful of things I want to load right away (like Stripe or my live chat widget). This alone shaved over a full second off my load times.
If you’ve ever tried to optimize LCP and struggle with JS-heavy themes or plugins, this is where Perfmatters shines.
🧩 Script Manager: Unload What You Don’t Need
I love that I can disable WooCommerce cart scripts on blog posts, or unload contact form scripts from product pages.
The plugin gives you page-level control over CSS and JS. It’s super granular but very user-friendly. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll wonder how you lived without it.
🖼 Lazy Loading & Image Optimization
My store has over 4,000 images, and image bloat was a real problem.
After optimization my websites:
- ✅ I enable lazy loading for images and iframes
- ✅ I add a small fade-in animation for smoother UX
- ✅ I preload featured images on blog posts to improve LCP
It doesn’t replace a full image compression plugin, but it pairs perfectly with tools like ShortPixel or TinyPNG.
📈 The Results
Here’s what I saw after a full optimization:
- ✅ Load time reduced from 3.2s to 1.4s
- ✅ LCP dropped below 2.0s on most key pages
- ✅ WooCommerce product category pages passed Core Web Vitals
- ✅ Fewer plugin conflicts compared to traditional caching setups
And the best part? I didn’t need to add any extra plugins or write custom code. Everything is done inside one lightweight plugin.
🙌 Support That Actually Helps
I have to call this out — the support from the Developers has been phenomenal. When I was getting started, they helped me troubleshoot conflicts and guided me through best practices for ecommerce-specific tweaks.
They don’t just give you documentation — they answer your questions clearly, even if you’re not a developer. That’s rare, and it made a huge difference for me.
🎯 Is It Right for You?
If you’re a non-developer trying to build a fast, clean WordPress site — especially if you’re using WooCommerce — then this plugin is 100% worth it.
It’s perfect if:
🛒 Try Perfmatters
I use Perfmatters on every WordPress site I build. If you’re building fast sites with GeneratePress, WooCommerce, Bricks or even Elementor, it fits right into your stack.
It’s affordable, fast, and beginner-friendly — exactly the kind of tool I look for when building ecommerce sites.
📌 Final Thoughts
If switching to GeneratePress gave me the foundation for a lightweight site, then Perfmatters gave me the boost I needed to actually pass Core Web Vitals. Together, they form the core of my current WordPress performance stack.
Next up in this series: I’ll break down how I use Rank Math to handle SEO across my product categories and blog posts.
