Optimizing Joomla page speed load

[changlee]

Hello Joomlers,
I have spend months and monhts trying to optimize my Joomla pages. I chose JCH with Joomla default cache plugin (including browser cache), Conservative Cache and gZip.

But that caused a lot of CPU load. Finaly, a Linux man advised me NOT to use gZip and other plugins but only Joomla default Cache.

So I am now using ONLY the default Joomla Conservative cache plugin with the System Page Cache. Also I have inserted few lines of code in .htaccess in order to gZip the pages with the server CPU, not from PHP.

And it is little better...

What are you using? Have you reached perfect loading time?

I am bored hearing all the time from drupalers and worpressers that their pages are loading perfect and fast...

[dhuelsmann]

Follow this guide https://www.siteground.com/tutorials/jo ... -speed.htm
and then enable clouflare (CDN) https://www.siteground.com/tutorials/cl ... dflare.htm

[changlee]

Yes I already have read many times. That is what you follow exactly? Is that suitable for big sites?

Joomla gZip uses PHP and requires CPU. It is not suitable for big sites. So some .htaccess rules are making gZip from server direct, not from Joomla PHP.

[pranabmistry]

Cloudflare is the easiest solution to speed up a site to a visible level.

[changlee]

Sure, but if you have a dedicated server that stuck with the joomla bad configured websites, then cloudflare will wait for your server...

[almooj-craig]

Changlee,

I have spend months and monhts trying to optimize my Joomla pages. I chose JCH with Joomla default cache plugin (including browser cache), Conservative Cache and gZip.

I think it might be better to have the browser cache time set using .htaccess or in the httpd.conf file if you are using Apache.

Have you also tried using the system page cache?

Perhaps for the static files that JCH creates there is an option to save a .gz version. Then if the users browser can receive a gzip file you just use mod_rewrite to serve the file directly. If not perhaps you could rewrite JCH a litle so that it also outputs a static file usng php's gzip level 9.

Using php to gZip the output on the fly would be slow, like you found Apache deflate is quicker.

Have you tried using JotCache? Perhaps there is an option to save page cached files in the .gz format, then if the browser accepts gzip files, you simply serve the cached .gz page directly. That would eliminate php gzip on the fly or Apache deflate. If that option isn't available you could rewrite it a little so that it also stores a static .gz file that's created using php.

I would be curious to see the webpagetest.org waterfall view of your site to see how quick the Start to Render time is. Usually taking a quick look at the waterfall tells you what problem your site is having.

Craig

[jootify]

Hi changlee,

This depend actually on your configuration,if you can detail the details of your dedicated webserver,the name of the website,i can help you.

I typically suggest disabling gzip compression because it uses a lot of CPU, and enabling cache.

If you want gzip,use this from .htaccess file :

Add the following code to your site’s .htaccess file:
"
# compress text, html, javascript, css, xml:
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript
"

The cache from joomla,is not so good,you should use this :http://extensions.joomla.org/extension/jotcache

Basically with it,and without no CDN,i reduced the time from an website from 20 seconds,to about 2-3 seconds.

If you use it and you tweak it up with Cloudflare,mostly you will even get more better results.

Jotcache config depends alot on your website,and what components are you using and so on,without an look around,i cannot tell you exactly what settings you might need.

Jotcache,the component works only for guest users (By Design) and will NOT work for logged-in users as logged-in users get more dynamic content that will make cache a bad option .

The Challenge is to get the best configuration for the Cache, which needs many trials and inspection to get the best results .

Jotcache also work with memcache,but it needs tweaks.

" I am bored hearing all the time from drupalers and worpressers that their pages are loading perfect and fast..."

Drupal loads more bad then joomla,wp is an little better but not too much,and that is when you compare them all without cache.

With cache you will get differently results,based on many things:webhosting provider,configurations,cdns,components,plugins used etc.

With joomla and the perfect tweaks,you will be able to load more fast that any wp or drupal website,but like i said,without knowing the whole theme,i cannot get into specific things.

[changlee]

I think we more close to what I am looking for :-)

The .htaccess calibration is giving much more better results. My server has fasten the response time 5 times!!!

[jootify]

changless,so the .htaccess helped you?

It did solve your problem right now?

Hope your happy!

[1040TaxBiz]

I have had issues optimizing Joomla. I manage numerous wordpress sites and some joomla sites, and joomla has much more overhead. I found that with some htaccess tweaks, and plugins that cache and combine CSS/js files, you will get better performance.

[pduke24]

If its a really big site then I guess you had lots of JS or css files. Have you heard of ScriptMerge plugin? It compresses all those files and only loads what is necessary.

Sometimes, your hosting could also play a big factor.

[changlee]

changless,so the .htaccess helped you?

It did solve your problem right now?

Hope your happy!

Yes!

Until now, the best combination of Joomla - Server calibration I have tested is:

Joomla
- Minimise images, CSS, disable every useless plugin, and uninstall any useless component,
- Make the pages, especially the home page minimal , clean and light.
- Disable gZip, use only conservative cache and the page cache plugin.

Server
- Configure the firewall rules to block any unuseful visitor
- Use pagespeed and other modules through .htaccess
- Calibrate all the accounts to use specific power from MySQL, CPU and RAM according to their traffic needs.

That is my experience. I will be happy listen to yours, not theoretically.

[almooj-craig]

Changlee,

How much did mod_pagespeed increase your pagespeed score? I usually just keep manually tweaking things until my score improves.

Craig

[dezea]

I don't recommend compressig gzip files on the fly (neither with a joomla plugin like JCH or with an Apache module). Both will consume CPU. A much better solution is to have your files already compressed in gzip, but also have them in js/css format. Then, instruct the Apache server via htaccess that when a browser supports gzip, it should serve the gzip version, when the browser doesnt support gzip, serve them the raw/uncompressed version. For this, you only have to add these lines at the end of your .htaccess:

#Serve gzip compressed CSS files if they exist and the client accepts gzip.
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.gz -s
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.css $1\.css\.gz [QSA]

# Serve gzip compressed JS files if they exist and the client accepts gzip.
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.gz -s
RewriteRule ^(.*)\.js $1\.js\.gz [QSA]

# Serve correct content types, and prevent mod_deflate double gzip.
RewriteRule \.css\.gz$ - [T=text/css,E=no-gzip:1]
RewriteRule \.js\.gz$ - [T=text/javascript,E=no-gzip:1]

<FilesMatch ".gz$">
Header set Content-Encoding "gzip"
Header append Vary: Accept-Encoding
</FilesMatch>

[almooj-craig]

Dezea,
I agree it's much better to pre gzip static assets ahead of time then just serve them out. This is what I use:

Code: Select all

ReWriteCond %{HTTP:accept-encoding} gzip
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \.(?:js|css|html?|txt)$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.gz -f
RewriteRule ^(.*\.(?:js|css|html?|txt))$ $1.gz [L]

Did you experement with -s and -f to see which is quicker? Also I have never had any problem with double encription. [QSA] preserves the query string, but doesn't Apache just do that by default. I know wordpress tends to specify the version in a query string which is not good, but I don't think joomla has started doing that.

Craig

[changlee]

I see that we are much more improved than the Joomla gzip ;-)

These solutions rock!

[Hussain321]

For me, I prefer to use the .htaccess file first to address as much as possible of those speed factors. If there are remaining issues, then turning to use extensions is okay.