Compared with WP Rocket
WP Rocket or MakeStatic: a faster WordPress, or no WordPress for visitors.
WP Rocket is a performance plugin for WordPress: it caches finished pages, fills the cache ahead of visitors and trims the site's CSS and JavaScript, all from inside WordPress. MakeStatic gives the public a copy that is already finished pages, served without WordPress, and hosts it. Which one fits depends on whether your site has to stay dynamic for visitors — a shop, a members' area — or only for you.
A copy that works like your site
An HTML export writes each page out with the files it names. What a page only loads once it is open — a picture that appears as you scroll, a menu that fills in, content a script fetches, a link that forwards to another address — is often missing, and you find out from a visitor.
A copy from MakeStatic works like your site, not only looks like it. You try it yourself, side by side with your site, before you decide anything — and if a page of the copy ever works differently from yours, write to [email protected] and we fix it.
- Pictures that load as you scroll, in every size your site has for phones and large screens.
- Fonts, icons and everything your theme or page builder brings along.
- Content a script loads once the page is open, and menus that fill in as you move over them.
- Links on your pages that forward to another address still forward.
- Videos that play and let you skip ahead.
- Contact forms that deliver, and a search box that answers.
At a glance
| MakeStatic | WP Rocket | |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers a visitor | Files, without WordPress | Your WordPress server, from its cache where it can |
| Installed on your site | Nothing | The plugin |
| Pages it speeds up | Every page of the copy | By default not for logged-in visitors, addresses with query strings, or cart, checkout and account pages |
| Your site's CSS and JavaScript | Left as they are | Minified, combined, scripts delayed until the visitor interacts |
| Plugins a visitor can reach | None | All of them |
| Shops and members' areas | Not for them: a copy is for pages everyone sees alike | Yes |
| Systems | Any: WordPress, TYPO3, Joomla, Drupal, Ghost… | WordPress |
| Hosting | Included | Yours; a CDN of their own is available |
| Free version | Free, with no paid plan yet | No, paid only |
What this page says about WP Rocket was checked on its own website on 28 September 2026.
Where WP Rocket is the better choice
- Your site has to stay dynamic for visitors: a shop's cart and checkout, a members' area, pages that differ per logged-in visitor.
- You want the front end itself trimmed: fewer and smaller CSS and JavaScript files, and scripts that wait until the visitor does something.
- Your site stays on your own hosting, and you want it that way.
Where MakeStatic is the better choice
- You want the wait gone rather than shortened: there is no WordPress to start for a visitor, cached page or not.
- You also want visitors away from your plugins. A cache makes WordPress faster, but every plugin is still there to be reached.
- Nothing can be installed: the installation is managed by someone else, your WordPress.com plan does not allow plugins, or nobody has the login any more.
- You want to see it first. The trial copy of one page shows your site's time to first byte beside the copy's, measured just now, with no account.
What to know about MakeStatic
Every page of the copy ends with one line of ours, "Made static with MakeStatic". There is no paid plan yet, and there is no download or export of the files.
A copy does not trim your site's own files: pictures, fonts and scripts are as heavy as they are now.
Questions people ask
- Can I use WP Rocket and MakeStatic together?
- Yes. Visitors get the copy, and WP Rocket keeps working in the WordPress you edit in. What it did to your pages' CSS and JavaScript is in the copy, because the copy works like your pages do.
- Is a static copy the same as a page cache?
- For a visitor it is close: both hand out finished pages. The difference is what is behind them. A cache sits in front of a WordPress that visitors can still reach, and passes on what it does not cache; the copy has nothing behind it.
- Is MakeStatic a WordPress plugin?
- No. Nothing is installed in WordPress. We read the pages from their address, so it works whatever the site was built with.
See it on your own site
About twenty seconds, and nothing to sign up for. You will have your site and the copy open next to each other, and can try the copy yourself before you decide anything.