Installation¶

There are two ways to use LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress (LSCWP): with a LiteSpeed server, and without one.

With the exception of the Using LSCache Without a LiteSpeed Server section below, all of these instructions pertain to those who are using OpenLiteSpeed, commercial LiteSpeed products, LiteSpeed-powered hosting, or QUIC.cloud CDN. These options allow you to use ALL of LSCWP's features, including caching.

Before installing and activating the LSCache plugin, deactivate all other full-page cache plugins.

Tip

You can still use other types of cache (like object cache), but only one page cache can be used at a time, so you’ll need to disable any other page caches, if you want to use LSCache.

Tip

It is possible to use multiple optimization plugins at once. Please see these instructions to learn how to do so safely.

Using LSCache Without a LiteSpeed Server¶

Anyone can use the LSCWP plugin, even those who are using Apache, nginx, or some other non-LiteSpeed server. However, none of the plugin's caching functionality will be available to you. You are free to use all of the optimization features, but caching does not work without a LiteSpeed server. To use LSCache without a LiteSpeed server:

Simply install and activate the plugin through the WordPress Admin interface.
Navigate to LiteSpeed Cache > Page Optimization
Have fun playing with the options! Screen-by-screen instructions are here, if you need them.

Tip

If you are not currently running a LiteSpeed Web Server with LSCache enabled, but you would like to use the caching features of the WordPress plugin, please contact your hosting provider. Ask them to switch you to LiteSpeed Web Server! If that is not an option, check out QUIC.cloud CDN, which gives you access to LSCWP caching, no matter what server your site uses on the backend.

Plugin Installation¶

Note

Please see the Overview for the server-level requirements before attempting to install this plugin.

Download the LSCWP plugin from our WordPress Plugin Directory page.
Log in to your WordPress Dashboard, navigate to Plugins > Add New and click on Upload Plugin.
Select the LSCWP zip file and click Install Now. Activate the plugin.
Navigate to LiteSpeed Cache > Cache > Cache and set Enable Cache to ON.

You may also install the plugin directly from the Plugins > Add New screen. Replace the first three steps above with:

Search for LiteSpeed Cache in the search box. Our plugin should be the first search result to come up.
Press Install Now. Activate the plugin.

Verify Your Site is Being Cached¶

Video

See a video demonstration of this topic here.

You can verify a page is being served from LSCache through the following steps:

From a non-logged-in browser, navigate to your site, and open the developer tools (usually, right-click > Inspect). Open the Network tab.
Refresh the page.
Click the first resource. This should be an HTML file. For example, if your page is http://example.com/webapp/, your first resource should either be something like example.com/webapp/ or webapp/.
You should see headings similar to these:
```
X-LiteSpeed-Cache: miss
X-LiteSpeed-Cache-Control:public,max-age=1800
X-LiteSpeed-Tag:B1_F,B1_ 
```
These headings mean the page had not yet been cached, but that LiteSpeed has now stored it, and it will be served from cache with the next request.
Reload the page and you should see X-LiteSpeed-Cache: hit in the response header. This means the page is being served by LSCache and is configured correctly.

Alternative Headers

The X-LiteSpeed-Cache header is most common, but you may see X-LSADC-Cache if your site is served by LiteSpeed Web ADC. You may also see X-QC-Cache if your site was served via QUIC.cloud CDN. These alternate headers are also an indication that LSCache is working properly on your site.

Important

If you don't see X-LiteSpeed-Cache: hit or X-LiteSpeed-Cache: miss (or any of the alternative headers), then there is a problem with the LSCache configuration.

Non-Cacheable Pages¶

Sometimes there are pages which should not be cached. To verify that such pages have indeed been excluded from caching, check the developer tools as described above.

You should see headings similar to these:

X-LiteSpeed-Cache-Control:no-cache, esi=on
X-LiteSpeed-Tag:B1_F,B1_

X-LiteSpeed-Cache-Control, when set to no-cache, indicates that LiteSpeed Server has served your page dynamically, and that it was intentionally not served from cache.

LSCache Check Tool¶

There's a simple way to see if a URL is cached by LiteSpeed: the LSCache Check Tool.

Enter the URL you wish to check, and the tool will respond with an easy-to-read Yes or No result, and a display of the URL's response headers, in case you want to examine the results more closely.

In addition to LSCache support, the tool can detect cache hits, and can detect when sites are using LiteSpeed Web ADC or QUIC.cloud CDN for caching.

Additionally, a Stale Cache Warning will alert you if browser cache is detected on dynamic pages. This is because browser cache may interfere with the delivery of fresh content.

Last update: July 21, 2021