While Magento is a powerful e-commerce platform, when loaded with extensions, it can be a considerably heavy and slow platform. This article discusses how to remove the bloat and get your site up to its full potential. Some simple tweaks along with the implementation of caching, a CDN, and a reliable web hosting provider can lead to significant performance improvements. 

Best practices for optimizing Magento speeds. 

Use a fast and reliable hosting service: 

One of the key factors in Magento performance optimization is having a fast and reliable Magento hosting provider. A slow server can lead to slow page load times, even if all other optimization efforts are made. It’s important to choose a Magento cloud hosting provider that can deliver reliable service with fast performance. Check the provider’s reviews and choose one that has a track record of providing excellent customer support.  

Enable caching: 

Caching is a tool that can greatly improve your site speed. Once properly implemented, the frequently accessed (or cached) data of your site will be stored in a temporary area so that it can be quickly retrieved the next time it is needed. Caching decreases the number of database calls and reduces the number of queries to your database, thereby speeding up your site. Once caching is enabled, you can expect reduced page load time and a decrease in server load. Magento supports several types of caching, including full-page caching and caching for blocks of content.  



Implement a Content Delivery Network (CDN): 

A CDN stores the static assets of your site (CSS, JS, and images) on dozens of servers located in multiple geographic locations that work together to deliver content quickly to users. A Magento hosting provider combined with a CDN such as Cloudflare, Fastly or Akamai are your best bet to getting top speeds. By using a CDN, you can ensure that your website loads quickly for visitors wherever they are located. If your customers are solely based in the country you host your site, you may be able to skip out on a CDN. However, if you host your site in the United States and if 50% of your  visitors are abroad, then you may definitely want to consider the use of a CDN.

Optimize images 

Large, high-resolution images can significantly slow down page load times. Optimizing images before uploading them to your Magento store is very important at reducing load times. Saving your images as WebP can significantly reduce your file sizes. This can be done using various online tools, Photoshop. Magento also has a popular WebP extension which can be used to add WebP support. It's also a good idea to use a tool like Lazy Load to defer the loading of images until they are needed on the page.  

Minimize HTTP requests: 

Every time a user visits a page on your Magento store, their browser has to make several HTTP requests to retrieve all the necessary resources. There are third-party extensions that can do this for you, however some CDNs such as Cloudflare offer a way to do this. Minimizing the number of HTTP requests can reduce the time it takes for pages to load. It’s accomplished by combining multiple CSS and JS files into a single file.




Use a modular design:

Modular design is a technique where a website is divided into smaller, reusable components. This makes it easier to maintain and update your website and improves its performance. Once a modular design is implemented, you can reduce the amount of data that has to be loaded on each page, making pages load faster.  

Monitor performance regularly: 

Finally, it's important to monitor your Magento store's performance regularly. This can be done using tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights, WebPageTest, GTmetrix, and Pingdom. 

By monitoring performance, you can identify areas that need improvement and make changes accordingly. In conclusion, optimizing the performance of a Magento store requires a combination of technical and design efforts. The single largest changes will come from choosing a reliable Magento hosting provider, enabling caching, and optimizing your images.

What is the difference between production and developer modes in Magento? 

In Magento, there are two main modes of performance optimization. 

Production Mode: Production mode is intended for live websites. It is optimized for performance and uses Magento’s built in cache and static assets to deliver your content at faster speeds. The caches are enabled by default in this mode, which reduces the load on the server and provides faster page load times. 

Developer Mode: This mode is ideal to use during development and testing. It disables caching so that your developer won’t get confused by cached objects. This allows developers to make changes to the website and see the effects immediately. 

Note: Production Mode is always faster in Magento as it is optimized for performance.

Production mode can be set with the following command:

php bin/magento deploy:mode:set production

Does lazy load help web pages load faster? 

Yes, absolutely. Lazy loading will help improve page loading time by deferring the loading of images and other non-critical content until needed. It can improve your Google PageSpeed scores and can translate to higher rankings. Lazy loading means that only the necessary content is loaded initially, reducing the amount of data that needs to be transferred and processed, leading to a faster page loading time. Once a user starts scrolling down your page, the images will then come into view.