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Avoid PHP 7.x (slow & outdated).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)

1. Disable debug
2. Enable CCC
3. Optimize images
4. Remove unused modules
5. Enable OPcache
6. Use Cloudflare