Install and enable LiteSpeed Cache
Turn on LSCache from cPanel or from WordPress, and understand what each section of the plugin does before you change anything.
LiteSpeed Cache (LSCache) is a full-page cache that runs in the web server itself, plus a set of optimisation tools. It is free on all WebGee plans. Applies to all shared and reseller hosting, which runs LiteSpeed.
Only the caching matters for most sites. The optimisation features are optional and can be ignored entirely.
Enable it from cPanel
This is the quickest route, and it installs and configures the plugin for you.
- Log in to cPanel and open LiteSpeed Web Cache Manager.
- Under LiteSpeed Cache Management, select WordPress Cache.
- Select Scan if your installations are not listed.
- Select Enable beside the installation.
That is the whole procedure. The plugin is installed, activated and caching.
Or enable it from WordPress
If the plugin is already installed but caching is off, go to LiteSpeed Cache → Cache and set Enable Cache to ON.
The defaults are chosen to work on most sites without adjustment. If you change nothing else, the cache still works properly. Everything below is reference for when you have a specific reason to look.
The Cache tabs
Cache — the master switch, plus which types of content are cached. Everything is enabled by default.
TTL — how many seconds a page stays cached before it is considered stale and purged. The defaults suit most sites.
Purge — when to remove pages from the cache ahead of their TTL. This matters more than it sounds: publishing one post changes the home page, its category archive, its tag archive and your author archive, and all of them need purging or visitors see stale listings. The default rules handle this.
Excludes — pages that should never be cached. Use this rather than disabling the cache when a single page misbehaves.
The other Cache tabs
ESI (Edge Side Includes) — punch holes in a cached page and fill them with per-visitor content, such as a cart total or a "logged in as" greeting. Disabled by default. This is what lets a page be cached at all when it contains something personalised.
Object — connects to an external object cache such as Redis. It only works if the server side is enabled first; see Redis object caching for the equivalent on WordPress Cloud, or enable Redis in cPanel's Software section.
Browser — tells visitors' browsers to keep static files such as images locally, so they are not re-downloaded on every visit.
Advanced — only needed to resolve a conflict with another cache plugin.
WooCommerce — appears when WooCommerce is active, and controls how shop pages are cached. Leave the defaults; they already exclude the cart and checkout.
The other plugin sections
Dashboard — status of the cache and any QUIC.cloud services in use.
General — QUIC.cloud settings and plugin auto-updates.
CDN — CDN configuration. Disabled by default; see QUIC.cloud or Cloudflare.
Image Optimization — compresses images through QUIC.cloud.
Page Optimization — CSS and JavaScript minification and combination, deferred loading and similar. All disabled by default.
Page Optimization is where sites break. Minifying and combining CSS and JavaScript can silently damage layout or stop scripts running, and the damage often shows only on one template. Enable one option at a time and check the site after each — not all of them at once.
Database — the DB Optimizer. See Optimise your WordPress database.
Crawler — pre-loads pages into the cache so the first visitor does not wait for generation.
The crawler is disabled on shared hosting. It visits every page of every site with LSCache enabled, which is too resource-intensive to run on a shared server. It is available on Premium Hosting and Premium Reseller plans.
Toolbox — purge the cache manually, export settings, and debug.
Verify
Load the site in a private window and check for the x-litespeed-cache response
header. See
Check whether LiteSpeed Cache is working.