We Tested 3 WordPress Database Maintenance Plugins Our Results

Your database is one of the most crucial components of your WordPress website. Its where all your posts, revisions, and lots of other critical information are stored, so keeping it running in top shape is vital. However, as time passes, its normal for your database to become bloated – and thats where WordPress database maintenance plugins come in.These tools enable you to optimize your databases and keep them lean, which is said to translate to faster loading times and less space taken up on your servers. However, not all plugins are equally effective, so youll want to pick and choose when it comes to database maintenance plugins.In this case, well take care of the testing for you. First, well talk a bit more about what WordPress database maintenance plugins are and how they work. Then well try out three popular options and see how they compare.TL;DR: Overall, our testing points to WP-Optimize as the best option, but we encourage you to read the full post to see how we came to that conclusion. WordPress databases look complex, but at their core, theyre just a collection of tables.Your sites  database is a collection of tables where WordPress stores its information. As your site grows, so does the database.While the database is an integral part of WordPress, most people dont ever interact directly with their databases while running their  websites, since its  something that works quietly in the background.However, giving yours a spring cleaning may  have benefits. For example:You get to save space.  Most web hosts will provide you with more space than youll need, but its still a good idea to use it efficientlyYou can optimize  your sites performance.  Each time you or anyone else performs an action on your site, it sends a request to your database. If yours is too bloated, these requests can take longer than they should to process, resulting in a small drag on performance.The question were posing in this article has to do with that last poin t. Many people say that optimizing your database is an important step to improving your sites performance, but is there data to back up that assertion? Lets find out.Three WordPress database maintenance plugins comparedFor this section, well introduce you to three of the most popular WordPress database maintenance plugins, then compare them. Well use the same WordPress site to try out each one (restoring it from a backup after each test), along with the same host (Flywheel in this case).Before we begin, well test our sites loading times. Then well do so again after optimizing our database. Keep in mind that  every site is different, so its possible that your experience may vary from ours!1. Advanced Database Cleaner (Free and premium versions available) Advanced Database Cleaner Author(s): Younes JFR.Current Version: 2.0.0Last Updated: May 31, 2019advanced-database-cleaner.2.0.0.zip 96%Ratings 224,521Downloads 3.1.0Requires Advanced Database Cleaner is a plugin that lives up to its name. It helps you eliminate all the data you dont need anymore – such as old revisions and trashed comments – to keep your database lean and mean. Plus, you can schedule your cleanings in advance, which is nice to put things on autopilot.Testing the Advanced Database Cleaner pluginFor this test, were going to use a test site with 21 posts, 101 users, and a couple of comments. This sites unoptimized database weighs 5.38 MB and it and takes under a second to load:Now, lets clean up that site. Running Advanced Database Cleaner is very straightforward. You can simply go to the  WP DB Cleaner  tab on your dashboard after installing the plugin, pick the elements you want to clean, and click on  Apply:After the cleanup, our databases size remains unchanged at 5.38 MB, which suggests the plugin thought our database was already in good shape to start with. A subsequent speed test gave us a 6.32% improvement, by coming in at just 0.89 seconds:While there is an i mprovement, the difference isnt large enough that we feel comfortable definitely saying the improvement was a direct result of the plugin. A 6% change is well within the bounds of normal fluctuations for Pingdom tests.2. Optimize Database (Free) Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions Author(s): CAGE Web Design | Rolf van Gelder, Eindhoven, The NetherlandsCurrent Version: 4.8.7Last Updated: September 28, 2019rvg-optimize-database.4.8.7.zip 96%Ratings 2,559,348Downloads WP 2.8+Requires Optimize Database is one of those one-click plugins that aims to be as utterly simple as possible. In this case, there are some additional settings for you to configure, but the plugin stays true to its core goal of efficiency. As with our first pick, you can also schedule successive cleanings to save time.Testing the Optimize Database pluginKeep in mind that well be  using the same site as we did for our first test. All we did was restore it to its starting point. Now, to run a test using this second plugin, youll need to go to the  Settings → Optimize Database  tab:Tick the options you want the plugin to optimize (we recommend all of them), save your settings, and click the  Go to the optimizer  button. This will start the process, which shouldnt take long.In this case, the plugin shaved off a mere 94 KB from our database, and a post-cleanup speed test revealed a 1.05% improvement:Again, with a difference this small, we cant definitely say anything in either direction about whether there was any true performance improvement.3. WP-Optimize (Free) WP-Optimize Clean, Compress, Cache. Author(s): David Anderson, Ruhani Rabin, Team UpdraftCurrent Version: 3.0.12Last Updated: September 24, 2019wp-optimize.3.0.12.zip 98%Ratings 11,586,621Downloads WP 3.8+Requires The WP-Optimize plugin is part of the Updraft family, which includes the popular UpdraftPlus  backup plugin. As you can imagine, this means the plugin helps you  back up your database r egularly, along with optimizing it. Beyond that, you get a ton of settings to play with, and access to information about the state of your database at any given time.Testing the WP-Optimize pluginWere kicking things off from the same point as our last tests, so lets get right to it. To start your cleanup, go to the  WP-Optimize  tab on your dashboard and click on the  Run all selected optimizations  button:The plugin automatically unticks any options that dont need to be optimized, so its safe to run right away. As with the previous tests, however, our space savings were almost insignificant. However, our final speed test came as a surprise with a strong 19.2% improvement:Successive tests revealed results in the same ballpark, which means the plugin somehow improved our loading times despite not affecting the size of our database.This is the first result where we feel comfortable pointing to one of our database maintenance plugins as the source of speed improvements. 19% is tough to chalk up to random chance, so we truly believe WP-Optimize worked some magic on our site.ConclusionWhile you should always use multiple methods to speed up your WordPress site, it seems like the right database optimization plugin can give your site a nice improvement. While our first two tests didnt find any statistically significant improvements, WP-Optimize gave our test site a significant speedup.For that reason, we recommend going with WP-Optimize if youre interested in optimizing your WordPress sites database. WordPress database maintenance plugins comparedAdvanced Database CleanerOptimize DatabaseWP-OptimizeA modern and easy-to-use plugin, but one that offers negligible improvements (if any).This plugin isnt very user-friendly and its results werent that impressive either. This is our  least recommended plugin.A backup-conscious plugin, which  provided us with a noticeable improvement in performance.6.32% speed improvement1.05% speed improvement19.2% speed improve mentAre WordPress database maintenance plugins are worth your time? Share your opinions with us in the comments section below!