There are lots of large and high-quality online stores these days. And you probably thought how to speed up Magento® 2 if your store is based on this platform.
Speed is one of those critical factors that can convert casual browsing users into actual paying customers. You can buy almost anything if you find the right website. Because of this, it is vital to make your site as attractive as possible to potential customers.
By nature, Magento 2 performs quite fast. But it can get bogged down by incorrect configurations, outdated versions, and additional extensions. In this article, we are going to discuss how to speed up your online store’s performance and some ways to solve Magento 2 performance issues.
Where to Start?
A right place to start is by auditing your website performance with Google Speed Insights. It is an online tool that tests the speed of a web page. When you enter your website’s URL, it will give you a detailed report on the performance of your site. It will include possible reasons for slow performance and recommendations on how you can fix it.
Another way to get maximum performance is to check the technical requirements for your Magento 2 online store. Ensure that you follow these specifications. Magento 2 needs to operate in certain conditions. You can speed up Magento 2 website just by giving it what it needs.
Useful for you:
How to Solve Magento 2 Performance Issues?
Here are some practical steps that can help fix the most common performance issues. We suggest that you carry out each one because it will help eliminate many existing and potential problems.
Use Fast Hosting Provider
Your Magento 2 website should ideally be hosted on a virtual private server. The alternative is a hosting service that is optimized for Magento-based websites. Using cheaper shared hosting will slow down your Magento 2 website.
Magento 2 requires at least 2 GB RAM and 20 GB SSD storage. So check out and pick the best hosting for Magento 2 that meets all requirements.
Make Time for JS and CSS Files Optimization
JavaScript and CSS functionality on your website can sometimes slow it down. Bear this in mind when adding features. You should also ensure that these features are optimized so that they run as quickly as possible. There are advanced developer settings that you can use to adjust them to a minimum size so that they take up fewer resources to run. Here is how you can set them:
Turn on Merge CSS and JavaScript in Stores -> Configuration -> Advanced -> Developer.
For the latest Magento 2.2 version, this option is turned on automatically in Production Mode.
Also, Performance Optimization Tool for Magento 2 by Potato Commerce is a great way to go. This extension solves lots of optimization issues, including minifying JS and CSS.
Optimize the Size of Images
Images can add remarkable eye-catching dimensions to your website. Sadly, they also add extra weight when it comes to performance. One way to fix this is to ensure your images are all optimized for web usage. There are several online tools to help you make your images more lightweight. They do this by adjusting the image dimensions and resolution. These actions ensure the media files are minimalized but still look good on screen.
For these purposes, you can use images online compressors, like TinyPNG or the same service but packed into extension Compress JPEG & PNG Images by TinyPNG.
Enable Full Page Caching
Full Page Caching means that the visitor’s cache memory will store your online store’s web pages. That means faster loading times when the users visit a page after the first time. It happens because the full-generated web pages are already decoded and ready to display from the cache memory. It boosts the performance of your website. It also reduces the load on your server. All this contributes to our goal: a faster online store.
To turn on Full Page Caching in Magento 2, go to System -> Cache Management in Admin Panel.
Set off Unnecessary 3rd Party Extensions
Any 3rd party extension on your Magento 2 online store will add extra weight when it is loading on a computer. It makes sense to remove all unnecessary extensions because they don’t serve any productive purpose. Remember that the aim to make your website as lightweight as possible. So, remove any extensions that are not critical to your website’s performance and it will help you to speed up Magento 2 website.
Make Magento 2 Database Optimizations
Loading a database is another crucial element of your Magento 2 website’s performance. One way of optimizing your database to enable the Flat Catalog option. Magento 2 usually stores your catalog data in various tables. Then, it calls the various required bits of information together when the catalog data is loaded. The flat catalog option creates a new table and fills it with the combined information from each table. So it leaves only 1 table to be loaded instead of all of them. The result is catalog data that loads faster than usual.
To turn on Flat Catalog in Admin Panel: Stores -> Configuration -> Catalog -> Storefront.
Run Dependency Injection Compilation
Dependency Injection Compilation in Magento 2 allows for significantly speed up web page loading time. It works the following way:
The classes and dependency injection auto-uploader is implemented in Magento 2.
The key moment here is di.xml – the file that stores dependency injections and operates creation of modifiers, classes, pseudo-classes, virtual types, etc. Every time when loading the web page, this file is parsed by default. But parsing takes much time in the world of page loading speed. Guess what? That influences your website performance. But, we can turn on dependency injection compilation and fix this by running the command:
bin/magento setup:di:compile
We should run it in Production Mode.
Dependency Injection Compilation operation creates dependency injections cache where all specific classes are created automatically. So, the next time when the visitor loads the page, di.xml file modules and classes don’t need to be parsed again. All of them are extracted quickly from the cache. That speeds up page loading rate in several times.
Pick a Reliable CDN Solution (Content Delivery Network)
A content delivery network is a web service that hosts the external resources of your Magento 2 website. The idea is that a CDN provider can load these resources faster than if they were stored on your server. By default, Magento 2 fully supports CDN, and there are no extra extensions needed. There are several Magento 2 CDN solutions that you can choose from.
Install Some Useful Speed Up Magento 2 Extensions
Thankfully, several Magento 2 extensions specialize in speeding up your website’s performance. They use a combination of smart techniques that all add up faster loading times for your site. Some good examples are Amasty Full Page Cache Warmer and Mirasvit Cache Warmer Magento 2. These extensions make your web pages load as fast as possible, even for the first time. They mainly “warm up” your pages so that they are ready to perform as soon as they are called.
Implement Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Accelerated mobile pages are web pages built ideally for mobile devices. It is a stripped-down, lightweight version of the original web page. They are developed purely for bearing speed and readability in mind. Images are only loaded when they come into view. It operates on a “light” version of HTML. These pages load extremely fast because they are unencumbered by any fancy scripting or features.
To learn more about AMP, learn the official Google’s Documentation for developers and take a look at AMP presentation. Google even provides a handy tool for testing AMP on your website.