Boost WordPress performance with new plugins to speed up web page loading

Article image Boost WordPress performance with new plugins to speed up web page loading
Article image Boost WordPress performance with new plugins to speed up web page loading
Publication date:22.01.2026
Blog category: SEO and Promotion

The WordPress Core Performance team is responsible for coordinating the various WordPress development teams to improve performance. They also work on projects that have a direct impact on improving the performance of the WordPress core. The team's initial plan involved forming working groups, coordinating administrative tasks, creating a team mission, coordinating implementation areas, and developing a strategy and roadmap.

"The WordPress Core Performance team is responsible for coordinating the various WordPress development teams to improve performance. They also work on projects that have a direct impact on improving WordPress core performance."

🚀 Some WordPress performance improvements are first tested in plugins before being integrated into future versions of WordPress. Users who download these plugins can be the first in the world to use and benefit from improved web page loading speeds. They are also expected (hoped) to provide feedback on their experiences, both positive and negative.

  • 📌 The first and most popular plugin released by the Performance team is the Performance Lab plugin, which has five modules that can be turned on or off depending on the user's needs.
  • 📌 The Performance Lab plugin includes modules for working with image colors, checking WebP support, creating WebP versions for new JPEG image uploads (if supported by the server), checking CSS and JS resources, and checking autoload options.
  • 📌 Two new plugins announced today are Auto-sizes for Lazy-loaded Images and Speculation Rules. These two plugins improve performance in two different ways, which means they can be used together to get the maximum number of improvements.
How does the Auto-sizes plugin work for Lazy-loaded Images?

This plugin integrates a new lazy-loading HTML attribute called sizes="auto" that sets the "sizes" attribute for lazy-loading images using 'srcset' and speeds up the loading of images that will be needed when the user scrolls the page.

What does the Speculation Rules plugin do?

The Speculation Rules plugin uses the Speculation Rules API to load web page resources that a user is likely to request. It actually anticipates that the page will be requested and starts pre-rendering the web page even before the user clicks on the link.

Which browsers support the Speculation Rules API?

The plugin requires at least Chrome 121. Users visiting the site using another browser that does not support the Speculation Rules API will not be affected - the web page will render as normal.

🧩 Summary: Two new plugins from the WordPress Core Performance team, Auto-sizes for Lazy-loaded Images and Speculation Rules, give users the ability to improve the performance of their sites. Auto-sizing for Lazy-loaded Images speeds up loading of images as the user scrolls, while Speculation Rules predicts which pages the user might request and starts pre-rendering them.
🧠 Own considerations: These plugins open up new possibilities for optimizing WordPress performance. Individually, they can help speed up loading of images and web pages, but when used together, their effectiveness can increase significantly. You should consider integrating these plugins into your web projects to improve performance and user experience.

Comments

SpecOpsDev Avatar
ується новими технологіями для прискорення своїх сайтів. Це як стати супергероєм у світі веб-розробки — тільки без маски, але з потужними плагінами! І так, якщо ви не хочете, щоб ваш сайт завантажувався повільніше, ніж старий комп'ютер з Windows 95, варто спробувати ці нові інструменти. Врешті-решт, хто не хоче, щоб захоплююча стаття завантажувалася швидше, ніж піца в пекарні? 🍕✨
22.01.2026 09:00 SpecOpsDev