Description
Flexa Cache is a full-featured WordPress page-cache and front-end optimization plugin. It installs a self-contained advanced-cache.php drop-in that serves compressed static HTML files before WordPress even loads — the same technique used by WP Fastest Cache and W3 Total Cache — giving you maximum TTFB improvement on both Apache and nginx hosts.
Page Cache
- Static HTML cache served by a pre-WordPress drop-in (no PHP/MySQL on cache hits)
- Gzip pre-compressed
.gzfiles served natively - Separate mobile cache variant (
index-mobile.html) when Mobile Theme is enabled - Smart invalidation: purge on new post, updated post, comments, theme/menu/widget changes, and WooCommerce product/stock updates
- Per-URL cache purge from the admin UI, WP-CLI, or REST API
- Cache preloader via Action Scheduler (or WP-Cron fallback) with start/cancel/status controls
- Widget output cache with O(1) versioned-key invalidation
Front-End Optimization
- Minify HTML (whitespace collapse) and Minify HTML Plus (inline CSS/JS trim)
- Minify CSS and Minify CSS Plus (deeper punctuation squeeze)
- Combine CSS — adjacency-only buffer fusion preserving cascade order
- Combine JS / Combine JS Plus — concatenate header and footer scripts
- Gzip — mod_deflate
.htaccessblock for dynamic (non-cached) responses - Browser Caching — Expires/Cache-Control
.htaccessblock - Disable Emojis — remove WordPress emoji scripts, styles, and DNS prefetch
- Lazy Load — native
loading="lazy"+decoding="async"on images and iframes - Render Blocking JS — add
deferto render-blocking scripts - Google Fonts Async — rewrite Google Fonts
<link>to preload +onloadswap with<noscript>fallback - Delay JS — neutralise non-critical external scripts until first user interaction or 7-second idle fallback
Developer-Friendly
- WP-CLI:
wp flexa-cache clear [--url=<url>],wp flexa-cache status,wp flexa-cache preload [start|status|cancel] - REST API:
/flexa-cache/v1/cache/purge,/cache/stats,/cache/preload - Filterable hooks:
flexa_cache/engine/is_cacheable,flexa_cache/engine/buffer,flexa_cache/store/dir,flexa_cache/purged,flexa_cache/settings/languages, and more - Kill switch:
?flexa_cache_optimize=0disables optimization for a single admin request - Exclusion lists for URLs, cookies, user agents, CSS handles, and JS handles
Source code for compiled JavaScript and CSS
The plugin ships with a compiled admin UI (assets/dist/). The human-readable source code is publicly available at:
https://github.com/flexatech/flexa-cache
Installation
- Upload the plugin files to
/wp-content/plugins/flexa-cache, or install through the WordPress Plugins screen. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen.
- Open Flexa Cache from the admin sidebar (located below Settings).
- Enable the Cache System toggle and click Save Settings.
After a plugin update: deactivate and reactivate Flexa Cache once so the advanced-cache.php drop-in is refreshed. This step is only needed after an update that changes the drop-in — the release notes will say so when it applies.
FAQ
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How does the page cache work?
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On activation, Flexa Cache installs an
advanced-cache.phpdrop-in intowp-content/and addsdefine('WP_CACHE', true)towp-config.php. On the next uncached request, the plugin generates a static HTML file. Every subsequent request for that URL is served directly from the file — no PHP execution, no database query. -
Does Flexa Cache work with WooCommerce?
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Yes. Cart, checkout, and account pages are automatically excluded from the cache. The cache is also purged when a product’s stock level or price changes.
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Does it work on nginx?
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The static file cache works on any server (the drop-in uses PHP
readfile()). The Gzip and Browser Caching toggles write Apache.htaccessrules; the plugin’s class docblocks include the nginx equivalent snippets for hosts that need them. -
How do I clear the cache?
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Click Delete Cache in the Flexa Cache settings page, use
wp flexa-cache clearfrom the command line, or callPOST /wp-json/flexa-cache/v1/cache/purge. To clear a single URL, use the per-URL input in the Cache Stats panel orwp flexa-cache clear --url=https://example.com/page/. -
What does “Minify JS” do?
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The Minify JS toggle is a documented safe no-op when used alone. JavaScript is only ever concatenated (via Combine JS), never minified in isolation — the plugin ships no JS parser. If you want JS minification, enable Combine JS together with Minify JS.
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Will it conflict with other caching plugins?
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Flexa Cache checks for a foreign
advanced-cache.phpon activation and refuses to overwrite it. If you already have a caching plugin installed, deactivate it and remove its drop-in before activating Flexa Cache. -
Where are the plugin settings?
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In the WordPress admin sidebar, click Flexa Cache (located below Settings). Settings are organised into five sections: Cache, Invalidation, Performance, Exclusions, and Danger Zone.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“Flexa Cache” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Flexa Cache” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.1
- Security: cache purge, stats, and preload REST endpoints now require the
manage_optionscapability instead ofupload_files, so only administrators can trigger site-wide cache operations. - Hardening: cached widget output is now passed through
wp_kses_post()before it is echoed. - Cleanup: removed a dead pre-WordPress-5.7 raw
<script>fallback in the delay-JS loader; the corewp_print_inline_script_tag()helper is now always used. - CSS/JS combine and minify now rewrite the URL of the stylesheet/script tag WordPress already enqueued and printed, instead of emitting a freshly-built tag — preserving the original tag attributes.
1.0.0
- Initial release: page cache drop-in, 23 optimization toggles, WP-CLI, REST API, cache preloader, widget cache, mobile theme cache, i18n-ready.