Improving speed in PrestaShop is very important for SEO, conversions, and user experience — especially if your store is live and getting traffic.
Here is a practical, safe speed optimization checklist 👇
🚀 1️⃣ Enable Built-in Performance Settings
Go to:
Advanced Parameters → Performance
✅ Set these:
🔹 Smarty
- Template compilation → Recompile templates if files updated
- Cache → Yes
🔹 Debug Mode
- Must be OFF (very important)
🔹 CCC (Combine, Compress, Cache)
Enable:
- ✅ Smart cache for CSS
- ✅ Smart cache for JavaScript
- ✅ Minify HTML
- ✅ Compress inline JavaScript
Save → Clear Cache
🚀 2️⃣ Enable GZIP Compression (Very Important)
In your hosting control panel:
For Apache (.htaccess)
Add:
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css application/javascript
</IfModule>
🚀 3️⃣ Use PHP 8.1 or 8.2
Check hosting PHP version.
Best performance:
- PrestaShop 1.7 → PHP 8.1
- PrestaShop 8 → PHP 8.2
Avoid PHP 7.x (slow & outdated).
🚀 4️⃣ Enable OPcache (Huge Speed Boost)
In hosting:
- Enable OPcache
- Memory: at least 128MB
🚀 5️⃣ Optimize Images (Biggest Impact)
Do this:
- Resize large images before upload
- Use WebP format (if supported)
- Regenerate thumbnails:
Design → Image Settings → Regenerate
Heavy images = slow store.
🚀 6️⃣ Remove Unused Modules
Go to:
Modules → Module Manager
Disable:
- Unused payment modules
- Old sliders
- Extra analytics modules
- Demo modules
Each module adds load time.
🚀 7️⃣ Use a Good Hosting (Very Important)
Avoid cheap shared hosting.
Recommended:
- LiteSpeed server
- NVMe SSD
- 2GB+ RAM minimum
If traffic high → VPS.
🚀 8️⃣ Enable Browser Caching
Add to .htaccess:
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault "access plus 7 days"
</IfModule>
🚀 9️⃣ Use CDN (Cloudflare)
Use:
- Cloudflare
Benefits:
- Global caching
- DDoS protection
- Faster image loading
🚀 🔟 Database Optimization
In phpMyAdmin:
- Optimize all tables
- Remove old logs
- Clean guest & connections tables
Or use DB optimization module.
🚀 1️⃣1️⃣ Use Redis or Memcached (Advanced)
If VPS:
Enable Redis caching.
Huge improvement for large stores.
🎯 Expected Speed Result
After proper optimization:
- Mobile speed 80–90+
- Desktop 90+
Test using:
- Google PageSpeed Insights
- GTmetrix
⚡ Quick Priority Order (If You Want Fast Result)
- Disable debug
- Enable CCC
- Optimize images
- Remove unused modules
- Enable OPcache
- Use Cloudflare
