Why AccelerateWP is better than just Redis Object Cache

Redis Object Cache can make a huge difference for websites – but it doesn’t add performance value for every website. And for hosting companies, managing Redis instances per-user is notoriously challenging in shared hosting environments.

That’s where AccelerateWP comes in – a secured and automated way to deploy Redis only to the customers that will benefit. And, as a key point for hosting providers, it enables a new revenue stream and allows hosting companies to bill customers to recuperate the costs associated with consuming Redis instance resources. 

Keep reading to find out how AccelerateWP can boost the right customer’s websites, grow your hosting revenue, and achieve that without wasting resources along the way.

In theory, Redis Object Cache can make a huge difference for website owners by significantly speeding up page load speeds. But there’s a problem: Redis only improves performance under specific conditions, and it only provides a substantial performance improvement for a subset of websites. Here are some of the reasons why that’s the case:

• Object caching doesn’t improve performance when the entire page is cached statically: no database requests occur so there’s nothing for object caching to speed up. Many sites on shared hosting are simple enough to be page-cached entirely.
  
  
• Not all database queries are coded to use the WordPress object caching framework. Some themes and plugins are coded to bypass it completely. Furthermore, some requests are just not suitable to be cached by design, so they will not benefit from Redis Object Cache.
  
  
• Accessing data in Redis is not free from a resource perspective, it still has costs for inter-process communication. Where the database query is not long enough the benefit of Redis is negligible. That's why we have a minimal threshold in SmartAdvice.

In other words, Redis Object Cache is compatible with all websites, but its noticeable performance enhancement may vary across different sites. The primary issue addressed by Object Caching is the sluggishness of SQL queries to the database. Consequently, if a site doesn't experience a significant number of slow SQL queries, the impact of implementing Object Cache may not be substantial. Conversely, the effectiveness of Object Cache becomes more apparent when multiple sites encounter problems with their database queries, as it can assist a larger proportion of them. And in this case AccelerateWP will know exactly if Object Caching can make noticeable improvements to the website and offer an automated deployment, securely for each account on a server.

In estimating the number of sites that benefit from Redis we used a "minimal expected boost = 30%" threshold as a cut off. Many sites just do not generate enough traffic to see a real difference in performance. Optimization will still help but it’s not that cost effective.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that Redis can, in fact, negatively impact website performance – and consume valuable server resources in the process.

This is an area where hosting providers need to be cautious. Redis is a resource-intensive technology, and charging users more for its usage is not straightforward. Allowing end users to indiscriminately enable Redis can result in unnecessary consumption of resources, and users could end up with worse performance. It may even cause conflicts between different plugins, resulting in broken websites.

In addition to this, and as many hosting providers know all too well, setting up and managing a Redis instance for each user is tough work without automation.

Let’s do a quick recap of AccelerateWP including its key features. First, AccelerateWP provides smart website optimization advice to users within WordPress admin interface and by email, which guides users to effectively optimize their website's performance.

This feature is available in the free version of AccelerateWP and makes it easy for users to get recommendations for improving the performance of their WordPress websites.

AccelerateWP also offers an automatic upsell to the premium version of AccelerateWP, which allows hosting companies to offer valuable performance features on shared server infrastructure - at an affordable price.

The CloudLinux WHMCS plugin provides automated provisioning for custom billing integration. When a specific add-on or plan is purchased, the user’s access to premium features is automatically activated, and the user can enjoy the premium, high value benefits of AccelerateWP.

Included in this premium version is Redis Object Cache, a powerful caching solution that speeds up WordPress websites.

AccelerateWP provides Redis instance automation with per-user deployment. Smart, automated advice from AccelerateWP reduces the possibility of conflicts that can degrade performance and even break some WordPress websites.

With AccelerateWP, hosting companies can offer a powerful object caching solution to their customers, making their WordPress plans more competitive while generating more revenue.

Hosting companies can easily offer these premium optimization features on shared server infrastructure thanks to integrated billing automation– which generates revenue, decreases sales/support overhead and improves customer satisfaction. That includes automatic upsell.

However, the key benefit of AccelerateWP is that it delivers Redis instance automation with per-user deployment and extensive security. It ensures that only users that will benefit from the Redis Object Cache deploy it – which means consistently improved website performance.

Herein lies the magic of the AccelerateWP implementation of Redis Object Cache: AccelerateWP automatically identifies the sites that will benefit most from Redis. After that, customers have the option to upgrade (if required) and apply Redis to those sites, and rely on AccelerateWP to automate the Redis installation:

• Only the users who will benefit from object caching (based on PHP X-Ray data) will be advised to upgrade to AccelerateWP Object Cache. Even better, both hosts and users benefit from deployment automation, there’s no need to manually maintain a fleet of databases.
• We also only ever charge you for the customers that do decide to use Redis. AccelerateWP’s ability to identify which websites benefit from object caching helps tremendously because it means that no Redis resources are unnecessarily consumed.
• As a result, the small percentage of users who need object caching can be charged extra for their additional memory consumption – and they will also greatly benefit from it. For customers that won’t benefit from Redis you simply don’t enable it.
• You also get far better security with AccelerateWP Object Cache because every user gets their own, private cache that covers just their content.

AccelerateWP offers object caching as part of the AccelerateWP Premium Edition. Only users who have taken advice from their hosting provider through the "SmartAdvice" tab or have enabled object caching manually for their website will be billable as Premium Edition usage.

It's worth noting that more than a large portion of websites will not require object caching and can be optimized with the standard AccelerateWP edition at no additional cost.

Let's take an example where you have 200 WordPress websites on a server, and AccelerateWP identifies that 7% of users will benefit from the feature. In this case, the cost to the hosting provider would be $16.80, while the revenue generated would be $42, resulting in a $25.20 margin for the hosting provider.

It compares favorably to the alternative of installing and maintaining a full Redis automation environment, which would require costs for advising users to install the plugin, as well as support troubleshooting in cases where object caching has a negative or no impact on performance.

We’re doing a good job with Redis but keep a look out… we’ve got a few more high value features that will help your users run websites that are optimized even further - all based on automated deployment and upselling:

• Critical CSS generation: By generating critical CSS, AccelerateWP will allow users to improve their website's loading speed by only loading the necessary CSS.
  
  
• Image Optimization: AccelerateWP compress images without losing their quality, resulting in faster page loading times and an improved user experience.
  
  
• CDN service from CloudLinux (coming soon): you’ll be able to use the cloud delivery network (CDN) from CloudLinux, by caching your content on multiple servers worldwide we’ll enable you to deliver content faster to your customers.

You can keep a lookout for new features on the CloudLinux roadmap. Think some of your users can benefit from object caching? You can learn more about AccelerateWP Premium here.

Need more technical details on deploying and managing Object Cache with AccelerateWP? Please read all the instructions on our technical documentation.  

Expanding your product portfolio and offering "in-house optimization" with AccelerateWP Premium is a game-changer for your WordPress customers! While many of our customers have already embraced AccelerateWP Premium since its beta release, we understand that some

are still asking: "Why do we need it?" Well, Igor Seletskiy is here to provide the answers and shed light on the importance of this powerful solution.