6 Ways To Speed Up Your Slow WordPress Admin

Is your WordPress admin panel loading slow? Well, it’s a common issue faced by many WordPress site owners. If you are among them then you have a serious issue to solve for better results.  A slow WordPress admin makes it difficult for the user to access the dashboard which results in less productivity and more hypertension.

Not only that but sometimes slow WordPress admin discourages users to complete the assigned task at the given time. So if you are looking to optimize your slow loading WordPress admin then this article is going to be very helpful in a number of ways.

But before we move ahead with further explanation let me offer you a brief idea about who we are? SFWP experts is an award-winning WordPress website design company working with highly experienced that can help you to create an attractive and conversion-centric WordPress website design that drives more traffic and conversion on your website design.  

An overview of slower WordPress admin 

There are various reasons that can cause slow WordPress admin like older PHP versions, resource-heavy plugins, not using a cache plugin, outdated WordPress, poor quality web hosting, and many more.

Undoubtedly Slow-loading websites are frustrating for website visitors, but a slow-loading WordPress admin can do more harm to business as well as websites. Whether you’re a blogger or running a fully functioning ecommerce website for your business, your time is the most valuable asset and a WordPress admin slows down your time so it speeds it back up. 

While there’s plenty of advice out there that can help you to speed up your slow WordPress website, it’s tough to identify the right advice just for the slow WordPress admin. A slow WordPress admin annoys its users this why we have research init and identified the best piece of advice that you can get to speed up your WordPress admin panel. 

In this article, we are going to run you through some of the best steps to fix the slow WordPress admin panel and help you to speed up your WordPress website as well as dashboard. 

If you don’t want your website to have bulk coded themes and plugins then make sure to check our blog on

WordPress Plugins List: Best Free WordPress Plugins to use in 2020
Best WordPress Themes To Use For Your Website In 2020

8 different ways you can speed up your WordPress dashboard admin 

1. Use A Better Web Host To Speed Up WordPress

This is probably NOT the answer you are looking for but trust us. One of the most common culprits to a slow loading WordPress backend is because you use a sub-par web hosting service. There are two scenarios that may lead to this issue:

  • Your host just plain doesn’t have the web hosting performance you are looking for (or what they had promised you with)
  • You might have a quality host, but you’ve outgrown the plan that you’re on

Either way, if your web hosting company can’t keep up with your website, it will almost certainly lead to a slow WordPress admin dashboard (and heck, you might even have a slow front-end, too).

There are seven more fixes in this post; some are fast fixes and some are challenging fixes which will help you solve a slow loading WordPress backend. But sometimes the only fix is to crack open your wallet and upgrade hosts.

If you are looking for some awesome WordPress hosting companies, here are some of our recommended hosts and partners:

  • WP Engine
  • Kinsta
  • SiteGround
  • BlueHost

2. Use Query Monitor And P3 Plugin To Find Slow Plugins

One of the best ways to make your WordPress dashboard faster is to understand the issue(s) that leads to a slow-loading site. Do you remember the first time you install WordPress? Your dashboard loads lightning fast but as you installed more plugins, it started to slow down, right?

Now, let’s dispel with a myth – “more plugins” does not automatically mean a slower site or WordPress admin. But “more resource-heavy plugins” does.

So, how do you find plugins that are using a lot of resources?

The answer is to use either Query Monitor or P3 (also known as Plugin Performance Profiler).

Both of these plugins can be found in the WordPress repository and once installed and activated, you can run simple tests to determine the plugin(s) that is affecting your website loading speed. What To Do With Slow Plugins?

If you find a slow plugin, we recommend you to disable and delete the plugin. If you need to use the plugin, you should find a better performance alternative plugin (or hard coding the functionality).

3. Clean Your WordPress Database To Remove Unwanted Files

You can solve the slow loading WordPress admin (even today) by cleaning out your database. A WordPress database will increase in size (by default) over time due to the number of post revisions, transients, etc. If you are managing WooCommerce stores, you will find even more expired transients in your database.

Most of these data can be safely deleted to remove this bloat without affecting your site in any way. There are two tools to clean up your database for a faster WordPress backend:

  • ManageWP (free and premium plans available)
  • WP-Optimize plugin (free to download)

Both of these allow you to remove unwanted data from your database and help manage the size of your database (by making everything tidier).

4. Use The Latest Version Of PHP

It is important to understand that this solution to a faster WordPress backend requires some level of server knowledge. Changing the PHP version without doing any backup can make your website inaccessible.

Generally, WordPress is built with PHP, but the exact version of PHP that your site is using depends on which version of PHP is installed on your server. Often times, newer versions of PHP offer better performance improvements and improved security features. The WordPress core team understands this and is constantly encouraging WordPress users to update to the latest PHP versions.

Recently, Kinsta made public with the discovery that PHP 7.3 can handle more than triple the number of requests per second than PHP 5.6 can handle. Take a look at the image below.

Despite the massive performance in the latest PHP version, most WordPress users are still using PHP 5.6 (or older).

In order to upgrade the PHP version, you need to login to your web hosting backend and perform simple tasks. Here’s what it looks like if you are hosting on Kinsta:

It is common that some web hosting companies do not allow you to change or update the PHP version from the hosting backend. In this case, you need to reach out to your host’s support staff for help. If by any change your host does not support PHP 7+, this is a sign to switch host right now!

5. Increase The Memory Limit To Make WordPress Admin Faster

Here’s the truth. Most web hosting companies hate it when you request for a memory limit increase. This step is important because, at times, your WordPress admin dashboard is hitting a bottleneck because of your WordPress site’s PHP memory limit.

If this is the case, increasing your website memory limit can sometimes (not all the time) fix the issue. Now, we are aware that some web hosts allow you to increase the PHP memory limit by yourself. To increase the memory limit head over to your wp-config.php file and add this line at the top:

If your web host doesn’t allow you to change and update the PHP manually, reach out to the support and ask for some help.

6. Control The Number Of Displays In The WordPress Admin

If you are non-techie, this method would be easiest for you to improve the WordPress admin loading speed.

The WordPress CMS allows you to control how many posts, pages, or custom post types to display at a time (including things like WooCommerce products, orders, etc.), via the Screen Option setting as seen above.

We recommend you to remove as many widgets as possible (those which you don’t require) to speed up the WP Admin loading time. Always remember that “Less is more” when WordPress speed is a concern.

7. Disable Cache Setting In WP-Admin And Administrator Roles

Here’s a nifty trick to solve your WordPress Admin slow issue. We use LiteSpeed Cache and we noticed that when we turn off the automatic cache for WP-Admin, the loading speed improves dramatically. You can also choose to disable automatic caching for selected user roles too!

Cloudflare is the leading free CDN and security tool that WordPress owners use on a daily basis. The usage of automatic cache and rocket loader can also be a concern for the slow WordPress admin backend. Consider disable the performance for selected URL (such as /wp-admin/*.

8. Use Bloatfree And Clean WordPress Visual Builder

Most WordPress users use visual builder plugins to help in building beautiful websites. But are you aware of the fact that visual builder could lead to slow WP Admin?

While there are many WordPress visual builders in the market, not all of them are coded well, clean and most of the time, contain man bloatware. Installing this WordPress builder plugin will make your website load significantly slower, including your WordPress backend.

If you need to use a visual builder for functionality, we recommend you research properly on the right visual builder to ensure you are getting good WordPress performance.

Here are some of the best visual builders that don’t impact (much) on your WordPress speed:

  • Oxygen Builder
  • Thrive, Architect
  • Elementor
  • Beaver Builder
  • Divi Theme

Frequently Asked Questions: 

1. What is th best WordPress plugin to speed up the website? 

Below we are listing some of the popular plugins that you can use for your WordPress website:

  • WP Rocket 
  • Perfmatter 
  • WP Super Cache 
  • Cache Enabler 
  • WP Super Minify 
  • WP Smush it 
  • WP  Fastest Cache 
  • And many more 

Your WordPress website speed and appearance defines your online business presence. To build an attractive custome coded website we recommend you hire that best website design company that can help you to get a conversion-centric and result-driven WordPress website for your business. 

2. What are th best practices to speed up WordPress website? 

  • Update your WordPress to the latest version 
  • Make use of lightweight WordPress themes 
  • Select faster plugin for your website 
  • Optimize your website images 
  • Select the right CDN for your WordPress
  • Minify your WordPress codes using speed optimization plugin
  • Tune-up your database and remove unwanted things 

If you are looking to speed up your ecommerce website then make sure to check our blog on 8 Tips to Fix a Slow Loading WooCommerce Website Speed

4. How to select the best hosting provider for a WordPress website? 

  • Check the reputation of the hosting provider 
  • Identify whether the hosting provider is reliable or not 
  • Chek for fast connection 
  • User-friendly C-pannel
  • Features offered by them 
  • Customer support status 
  • Server location 
  • Automatic Data backup facility 
  • Bandwidth & Traffic 
  • And many more 

5. What are the best hosting providers? 

Below we are listing some of the best hosting providers for your WordPress website: 

  • Bluehost 
  • Dreamhost ‘
  • HostGator 
  • Hostinger 
  • A2 Hosting 
  • GreenGeeks
  • And many more