How to Make Thrive Architect Pages and Websites Load Faster

NOTE:  I recommend you visit my latest (and always updated) post with all the information you need to improve site speed for ALL of Thrive Suite. This post still contains great details, but will no longer be updated. Head over to the other post to get the latest details.

Thrive Architect is already the best optimized page builder available for WordPress. However, it's still a WordPress website platform and that means there's a lot of extra things you can do to improve performance.

If you're looking to squeeze out every ounce of performance you can from your website, then here are the areas where you'll find the biggest gains.

Optimize Images the Right Way

Optimizing images is, by far, the area where you'll see the biggest gains and the biggest hits to performance. If you're uploading massive file sizes to your pages, then regardless of what tools you're using the page will load slow.

Every kilobyte you add to the page has to be loaded by your server, sent to the recipient's browser, then viewed/downloaded by that browser and rendered. Packing in megabytes means you're bogging down your host (and slowing down your website at the source) as well as making it take longer to render for visitors.

Here are a couple tools you can use as well as a few guidelines.

Ideal Image Sizes

I try and avoid uploading images greater than 60kb in a standard blog post. There are times my featured images and more detailed images will reach 80 or 90kb, but that's pushing it. Most people will say I'm being generous there and would cut the size much further.

When using your favorite image editing tool, look for an option that allows you to reduce the quality by compressing it slightly. I use Photoshop, so I export my images for use on the web and tweak the quality settings to find an acceptable balance between file size and quality (usually 60% on JPGs). 

ShortPixel - The Best Image Optimization Plugin for Thrive Architect

I highly recommend ShortPixel (link gives you bonus images if you sign up) to help you optimize your images even further. ShortPixel uses some kind of crazy optimization magic to reduce file sizes sometimes greater than 70% beyond what you've already done in something like PhotoShop.

ShortPixel is reasonably priced as well. You get 100 images / month optimized (+100 more if you use this link here) for free, or pay for $5/m for $5000 images/m. There are other one-time purchase options as well. Awesome, awesome tool. 

It even integrates directly with WordPress. You simply upload your image and it'll work its magic.

Short Pixel's Free Online Image Optimizer

ShortPixel also has an online image optimizer that you can use for FREE. I find it's way better than Kraken.io (which I used for years) and really helps in a quick pinch. If you're willing to open a browser tab and upload the images, you'll save yourself plenty of space. 

Use a Caching Plugin

Here's where things can get a little tricky. Caching plugins are an absolute must have for your website because they drastically reduce load times and strain on a server. However, they also have a tendency to not play nice with other plugins -- particularly Thrive.

There are two caching plugins I recommend that work great with Thrive, though one is better than the other.

W3 Total Cache - The Best Caching Plugin for Thrive Themes

W3 Total Cache is my new favorite caching plugin. Last year I would have told you to go with WP Rocket, but I've become a true fan of W3TC because of its native integrations with Thrive Theme Builder and WPX Hosting.

Hard ignore the price: Free.

You can set up all of the settings yourself following the video below, or you can simply click one button in Thrive Theme Builder and they'll automatically install and apply all the settings you need. 

The team at Thrive Customer Service put out this video where they go over the settings.

WP Rocket - Still a Great Caching Plugin for Thrive Architect

WP Rocket is still one of the best caching plugin for Thrive Architect and Thrive Theme Builder. I have no complaints about the server other than they're a paid solution and an equally great option is completely free.

You can install WP Rocket and it will right out of the box improve your website's performance and the performance of Thrive Architect.

There are a few settings that I recommend you enable to ramp up the performance boosts even more.

Optimize CSS Delivery

The biggest additional boost you'll get comes from a setting called Optimize CSS Delivery which will defer the loading of that CSS that your site may have otherwise waited on to load. Anything blocking the rendering of the site will be optimized, which is great.

This setting does not conflict with Thrive and will give a great speed boost.

Other WP Rocket Settings

There are a few other WP Rocket settings I would make sure you have enabled.

  1. Under File Optimization > Load Javascript deferred (also the box below to enable safemode)
  2. Under File Optimization > Combine Google Font Files
  3. Under Cache > Enable cache for mobile devices (also separate cache files for mobile)
  4. Under Media > Do not use lazyload for images if you are using ShortPixel's Adaptive Images and have this setting enabled. They conflict. Otherwise feel free to Lazyload.

Takeaways

WP Rocket

  • Enable 'Optimize CSS Delivery'
  • Enable Mobile Caching
  • Load Javascript Deferred

W3 Total cache

  • Enable Page Cache
  • Enable Minify
  • Under Minify  > Disable for logged in users
  • Enable HTML Minify Settings
  • In the "Never Minify JS" box type in: frontend.min.js
  • 1-Click Install all settings from Thrive Theme Builder

Use a CDN

CDN stands for Content Delivery Network. In layman's terms, this means your media can be served up to your visitors from a server other than your own. The files are cached elsewhere, ideally closer to your visitors, and take the strain and load off your server. This means the core files of your site load faster -- core files like Thrive Architect!

ShortPixel Adaptive Images

ShortPixel has a second plugin called ShortPixel Adaptive Images that will serve up all of the images on your site through their own CDN! You literally have to do nothing except activate the plugin and it'll start serving your images from another server! 

Worried about SEO? Don't be. The images are properly marked up to let Google know they're from your website.

Check out these results from a client's website I'm working on to improve the load times:

ShortPixel before and after

Let me point out a few things about this client. His website pages were full of images ranging from 500kb up to 1mb. He obviously needs to resize those images and re-upload them. However, before I sent him off to do that I simply installed the ShortPixel Adaptive Images addon. Look what that immediately did to his page size and loading times. Incredible!

If you use this link here you'll get an additional 100 images optimized each month when you sign up! 

WPX Cloud

WPX Cloud is now my preferred CDN when hosting my website with WPX Hosting (more on that below). WPX Cloud essentially loads your website from multiple points around the world wherever it's closest to the person visiting your site. What's great about WPX Cloud is its ability to integrate seamlessly with W3 Total Cache and any of your sites hosted on the platform. Toggle it on or toggle it off, it just works.

BunnyCDN

A more traditional CDN that I recommend is called BunnyCDN. It's super cheap (I've spent less than a dollar in 6 months) and integrates seamlessly with Breeze Caching plugin, WP Rocket, and W3 Total Cache. All you have to do is go into your settings and paste in the CDN information given to you by BunnyCDN. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I can walk you through it.

Get Fast WordPress Hosting

Hosting matters A LOT for your Thrive Architect performance. You need a host that is set up by default to support the technical requirements of Thrive Themes plugins and themes, and you need a host that has a proven track record of reliability. That's why there's really only one host that I can possibly recommend wholeheartedly.

WPX Hosting for Thrive THemes

WPX Hosting

My #1 Recommended hosting provider for Thrive Themes is WPX Hosting. This is an EASY choice.

  1. Blazing fast hosting that is always rock solid.
  2. Their CDN and Caching integrations work flawlessly with Thrive Themes.
  3. Customer service is SO FAST and helpful. Any time, day or night, within seconds they answer their chat and get to work on helping me. Hosting over 60 sites with WPX right now, I contact support for various things like help with SSL and they solve my problem quickly.
  4. No sneaky price hikes or tricks that end up costing you hundreds more per year. What you pay now is what you continue to pay (unlike Siteground).

Unlike most people who refer people to hosting, I actually use who I recommend. This website is hosted on WPX Hosting.

Here's what Shane from Thrive Themes has to say about WPX.

BigScoots

When your traffic starts to grow, you're running a really resource-intensive tech stack, and you start to feel the back-end of WordPress slowing down, I highly recommend BigScoots fully-managed WordPress Hosting.

When I started my membership site in late 2020, I could feel my site starting to slow down. I had WooCommerce, WishList Member, all the Thrive Themes plugins, Uncanny Automator, etc., etc, all chugging away on my website. I needed to upgrade. At first I went to Cloudways (and that didn't last), then I found BigScoots and I've been super happy ever since.

While I still recommend WPX for most people, BigScoots is there when you're ready or need the service.

Hosting Providers to 100% Avoid when Using Thrive Themes

While I'm hesitant to say "omg avoid these hosts," I have to pass along knowledge I've gained first-hand from working with hundreds and hundreds of websites utilizing Thrive Suite.

GoDaddy

I would stay away from GoDaddy. Although I have successfully managed many sites on GoDaddy that use Thrive Architect, in recent months there are many issues starting to crop up pertaining to server settings and the plugins being slow to load, breaking when updating, and simply not working. Just avoid GoDaddy plans altogether.

Bluehost

For a long time I hosted about 30 client sites on Bluehost, but after repeated downtime and failures in their system I had to make the move off of their servers. They actually blamed my websites for the problem, but after TWO MONTHS of arguing, I finally got a message that it was their fault and they overlooked something. Blaming me, blaming Thrive.... no thanks. Avoid them.

Tweak Your PHP Settings

This is the most technical part of this entire post. You'll need to be able to access your host or server's PHP settings in order to make these changes.

This is not a "must" change setting, but I must point out that for almost every site I have that uses more than just a couple of plugins, you'll be bumping up against those default PHP values real quick. 

'500 - Internal Server Error' with Thrive Themes

This error can almost always be blamed on needing your PHP memory limit increased.

The Ideal PHP Settings for Thrive Architect

  • the PHP memory limit set to 512MB
  • the max post size bigger or equal to 50MB
  • the WP-memory limit set to 128/256 MB
  • the max upload size should be 50 MB
  • the max input vars 2500
  • and ideally the max execution time should be around 300.

That concludes my guide for improving the page load speed for pages and sites build in Thrive Themes!

I will continue to update this post as time goes on and new resources become available. Please feel free to comment and ask any questions you have about improving load times. I've spent countless hours working to achieve great results, and would be happy to share what I have learned.

  • Nils says:

    Exactly the post I need right now! Thank you for all the good info in here – I’ll be applying it over the next few days (as I also work my way through Shane’s new SEO course – he’s the found of Thrive Themes).

    • Doug says:

      Hi Nils, I’m glad you found this information useful! Please let me know if you have any questions or run into any hurdles.

      Shane’s SEO course is fantastic, especially if you’re just getting started with SEO. Just finished going through it myself. 🙂

      • Nils says:

        I applied the main two suggestions – ShortPixel and W3 Total Cache – and got an immediate improvement. Webpagetest.com likes my sites a lot more now!

        Next step will be to rehost at WPX, based (again) on Shane’s suggestion. I’m on GoDaddy now, and it’s been fine, but not outstanding.

        • Nils says:

          Oh, one more question. The Google Pagespeed Insights test keeps saying I should inline critical blocking resources. Do you know if any of the plugins they recommend work well with Thrive, like Autoptimize or Hummingbird? Do you have a recommendation for this functionality?

          • Doug says:

            I recently moved 35 of my websites over to WPX. I’m LOVING it. I plan to write a post all about why I’m changing from Bluehost to WPX. Recently had a horrible experience with them that caused me to reconsider my recommendation.

            Google Pagespeed Insights is really obnoxious when it comes to Javascript. If you’re using WP Rocket, you can play with the Javascript settings they have but honestly you’re going to have a really hard time getting around it. Pagespeed Insights tells me the same thing, and they’re referencing the basic Javascript library in the WP Includes folder.

            You WILL NOT see any speed gains from that. You’ll simply see an arbitrarily better score in pagespeed insights.

            I do not personally know of any tools to fix that.

          • Nils says:

            Perfect answer, as far as I’m concerned! Means I don’t have to do much.

            And thanks for the update on WPX. Feeling even better about the move, which I’ll be making soon.

          • Doug says:

            I had the WPX team move all my sites (for free!) and it was the smoothest, best hosting experience I’ve ever had.

  • Bud says:

    if I use WPX hosting (CDN included) should I use ShortPixel Adaptive Images for CDN as well?

    • Doug says:

      Nope, you don’t need to use the ShortPixel CDN with WPX.

  • Simon says:

    Hello, thanks for your post. If I use cloudflare, do I still need to cache my website with wp rocket? Cloudflare cache my website and I am wondering if thats enough.
    Thank you and thanks for this article again, I bookmark it so I can come back when I launch new website.

    • Doug says:

      Cloudflare is a CDN I believe, so you can use WPRocket for caching and integrate with Cloudflare as your CDN. The two would work in harmony.

  • Alan says:

    Curious to hear about your cloudways setup for membership sites. Specifically, a membership site running wishlist and a suite of thrive plugins. I’m on WPX right now but seriously considering a switch to cloudways over the next couple of days. I’m just a little hesitant because of the technical setup required. I have about 200 members that wouldn’t be happy if the site went down. Great post. Thanks 🙂

    • Doug says:

      I use Cloudways Vultr HF and I have the second tier (I think it’s $26/m) which I run four sites on: Convology, My convology members site, my wife’s ecommerce site, and another business site. I have a couple of these plans actually which I device my client sites into. (I also have clients on WPX for more brochure style sites).

      On my membership site I run WLM, Thrive Suite, and FluentCRM.

      You can migrate, check the staging URL prior to pushing live, then swap your DNS and your users won’t even know you moved hosting.

      If you need help with this, I move people to Cloudways regularly. Feel free to request a consultation with me and we can talk about your move and then I can give you a quote.

      • Alan says:

        Thanks for the response Doug. I moved all my sites over last weekend and I couldn’t be happier. I got the Vultr HF with 4gb and it’s $50/m. I have 4 sites including an active membership site and everything got moved without an issue to date.

        Man cloudways is fast!!!

        I was on WPX and had a couple of sites with Siteground but I just decided that it was the right move considering the speed of the servers I could get.

        Do you do any sort of caching on your membership site? I have no caching on mine right now. I also turned off Varnish on my server and left redis uninstalled.

        I know those two server caching applications will speed up my sites, but based on my research I wasn’t willing to risk installing them for the extra speed boost.

        • Doug says:

          I use Varnish. It’s awesome. Enable it and use the Breeze plugin with Cloudways. Disable it for your membership sites and ecommerce sites, or be sure to add exemptions. Otherwise you’ll end up getting your dynamic content cached and things won’t work right for people who log in.

          • Alan says:

            That’s great. I must give Varnish a try. I was in touch with cloudways support when trying to decide to switch it on or not, and the guy didn’t inspire me with confidence when it came to disabling varnish at the application level on my membership site. He gave me the impression it might still cause conflicts.

            But you’ve had no problems, once it’s disabled inside the application?

            Thanks Doug

  • sam says:

    if i have install W3 Total Cache
    Do I still need to install this?

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