Here’s a practical PrestaShop Speed Optimization Checklist you can follow step-by-step. This is useful for both PrestaShop 1.7 and 8.x, and especially relevant since you’re working on improving website speed 🚀
✅ 1. Hosting & Server Optimization (Very Important)
✔ Use SSD / NVMe hosting
✔ PHP version 8.1 or recommended by your PrestaShop version
✔ Enable OPcache
✔ Minimum 2 GB RAM (4 GB+ recommended for busy stores)
✔ Use HTTP/2 or HTTP/3
✔ Enable GZIP / Brotli compression
✔ Keep memory_limit ≥ 256M
👉 Avoid shared hosting if possible; use VPS / Cloud
✅ 2. PrestaShop Performance Settings
Back Office → Advanced Parameters → Performance
✔ Smarty Cache: ON
✔ Compilation: Never recompile templates
✔ Cache type: Filesystem or Memcached/Redis
✔ CCC (Combine, Compress, Cache):
- ✔ Combine CSS → ON
- ✔ Combine JS → ON
- ✔ Minify HTML → ON
- ✔ Move JS to bottom → ON
- ✔ Smart cache for CSS → ON
⚠ Disable CCC temporarily only while debugging
✅ 3. Enable Caching (Critical)
✔ Use Redis or Memcached
✔ Page Cache module (official or trusted 3rd-party)
✔ Enable browser caching
Apache
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 year"
Nginx
expires 365d;
✅ 4. Image Optimization (Big Speed Boost)
✔ Use WebP images
✔ Resize large product images
✔ Regenerate thumbnails
✔ Lazy-load images
✔ Compress images (TinyPNG / ImageMagick)
👉 Product images are the #1 cause of slow PrestaShop sites
✅ 5. Theme Optimization
✔ Use a lightweight theme
✔ Remove unused JS & CSS files
✔ Avoid heavy sliders & animations
✔ Optimize header & footer hooks
✔ Disable unused theme features
⚠ Many themes load 30–50 JS files unnecessarily
✅ 6. Module Optimization (Very Important)
✔ Disable unused modules
✔ Remove heavy modules:
- Live chat
- Multiple sliders
- Tracking scripts
✔ Avoid duplicate SEO / cache modules
✔ Use one page-cache module only
👉 Each enabled module adds DB + PHP load
✅ 7. Database Optimization
✔ Clean:
- Cart rules
- Connections
- Stats
- Logs
✔ Optimize tables
✔ Remove old abandoned carts
✔ Disable unnecessary statistics modules
✅ 8. Reduce External Scripts
✔ Limit:
- Google Fonts
- Facebook Pixel
- Chat widgets
✔ Use async / defer for JS
✔ Self-host fonts if possible
✅ 9. CDN (Recommended)
✔ Use Cloudflare / BunnyCDN
✔ Enable:
- Image CDN
- CSS/JS caching
✔ Enable Cloudflare APO for PrestaShop if possible
✅ 10. Mobile Speed Optimization
✔ Test mobile separately
✔ Reduce image size for mobile
✔ Avoid pop-ups on mobile
✔ Ensure lazy-loading works on mobile
✅ 11. Core Web Vitals (Google Ranking)
Target:
- LCP < 2.5s
- CLS < 0.1
- INP < 200ms
Fix:
✔ Hero image preload
✔ Remove layout shifts
✔ Defer non-critical JS
✅ 12. Regular Maintenance
✔ Update PrestaShop core
✔ Update theme & modules
✔ Clear cache after changes
✔ Monitor speed monthly
🧪 Speed Testing Tools
✔ Google PageSpeed Insights
✔ GTmetrix
✔ WebPageTest
✔ Lighthouse (Chrome)
🔥 Quick Wins (Most Impact)
✔ Enable Smarty + Redis
✔ Image optimization (WebP)
✔ Disable unused modules
✔ Cloudflare CDN
✔ Lightweight theme