18 Best Ways to Speed Up Your Slow WordPress Admin/Dashboard

Managing a WordPress site involves a lot of scut work. Filtering out spam comments, publishing content, regularly updating plugins, and the list goes on and on.

And if you’re reading this blog, you’re likely bothered by how slow your WordPress admin dashboard has been lately, making your work much slower.

The culprit: poor hosting, high CPU usage, resource-heavy plugins, or not configuring caching and CDN.

Whatever may be causing the issue in your case, I’ll cover 18 ways in detail to fix the annoying WordPress admin slow issue.

Spoiler alert: The best option is speed-optimized hosting like Cloudways, offering free Object Cache Pro with persistent caching to efficiently handle database queries and speed up your admin dashboard.

Let’s get started…

Why Is Your WordPress Admin Dashboard Slow?

There can be a ton of reasons why your WordPress admin dashboard is running sluggish. Fun fact: The WordPress admin dashboard is not slow out of the box. But as you add content to your site, customize the dashboard, and add plugins, things tend to get slower and slower over time.

A slow WordPress admin usually boils down to three usual suspects.

• First, heavy plugins. Plugins are great for adding features, but some are like gas guzzlers. For example, running a bulky page builder on basic shared hosting can be just too much for your setup to handle.

• Then there’s outdated infrastructure. If your WordPress or PHP version is stuck in the past, you’re setting yourself up for slowdowns. Modern plugins are built for the latest versions, so sticking with the old stuff is not a great move.

• Finally, poor hosting choices. Picture trying to play Grand Theft Auto V on a PC from 1999—it’s not happening. Hosting a busy site with lots of traffic on shared hosting is the same story. If you’ve got big demands, you need hosting that can keep up.

How to Speed Up WordPress Admin?

Like I mentioned earlier, there can be multiple reasons for a slow WordPress admin dashboard. Based on my experience handling client sites over the years, I’ll list down 18 ways you can speed up your WordPress admin.

Let’s start with the most effective and easiest solution, which I can’t recommend enough: use Cloudways hosting with built-in Object Cache Pro.

1. Use Cloudways With Built-in Object Cache Pro

The WordPress admin dashboard is dynamic, meaning it’s constantly changing. As site admins, we add posts, update settings, and manage live data constantly.

Now, you may be thinking: if I’m already using a caching plugin on my WordPress site like Breeze, why should I switch to Cloudways to benefit from built-in Object Cache Pro?

Well, for one, installing a caching plugin on WordPress will only handle application-level caching, not server-level caching.

Also, because the admin dashboard needs to load fresh data every time you use it, regular caching methods like page caching or browser caching don’t work. These methods store static versions of a page.

But if you use Cloudways hosting, you will benefit not only from our ThunderStack, comprising Varnish Cache, NGINX, Redis, MariaDB, MySQL, Memcached, and Apache but also from the built-in Object Cache Pro, which enables Persistent Object Caching.

Cloudways has partnered with Object Cache Pro to leverage cutting-edge Redis-powered object caching. With persistent object caching, data is stored across multiple requests, reducing database queries and speeding up dynamic areas like the WordPress admin dashboard.

Here’s how to enable Object Cache Pro with Cloudways:

Log in to the Cloudways Platform using your credentials.

• Click Servers from the top menu bar.
• Choose the server where your application is deployed.

• Next, click www.
• Select your application, as shown in the image below.

• Next, select Application Settings and then click on the WordPress Settings tab.
• Now, Enable Object Cache Pro.

• Lastly, you will be asked to confirm if you want to enable Object Cache Pro. Click Confirm.

That’s it! Object Cache Pro will now be automatically installed and activated on your WordPress application.

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Optimize Server and Hosting Resources

2. Increase CPU Cores/RAM

To improve your WordPress admin’s performance, you should look at your hosting’s CPU and RAM usage. If your hosting has limited resources, it might be slowing down your site.

With Cloudways, you can easily monitor server usage directly from your dashboard.

If you’re not using Cloudways, you can install the WP Hosting Benchmark plugin to monitor your site’s performance. Low scores here indicate that your hosting is struggling to handle your site’s demands, hence the slow WordPress admin.

Here’s an example of a server with a low score.

If you’re a Cloudways customer, you have the freedom to scale your server resources whenever you like. Our most powerful servers offer 128 GB of RAM, 2560 GB SSD storage, 11 TB of transfer, and a 24 core processor.

Upgrading your CPU and RAM ensures your site can handle more traffic, perform faster, and keep the WordPress admin responsive.

3. Use the Latest PHP Versions

A quick fix, but it can be a hit or miss if your website throws any errors. If your plugins are compatible with the latest version of PHP, you should not hopefully see any errors. If you do see errors, you can revert back to a PHP version that worked fine prior to updating.

Cloudways supports PHP 8.3, the latest stable version. PHP 8.4, the newest release, is not yet on Cloudways but will be offered soon.

You can upgrade or downgrade your PHP version directly from the Cloudways platform.

To keep your plugins, themes and WordPress core always up to date, we offer an add-on called SafeUpdates.

SafeUpdates helps you automatically detect, test, and deploy updates error-free. From update detection to rigorous testing and safe deployment, SafeUpdates makes website maintenance more manageable.

4. Increase WordPress Memory Limit

WordPress admin dashboard can become sluggish if your site’s PHP memory limit is low. PHP memory limit is the amount of memory allocated to run PHP scripts, which WordPress relies on heavily.

When the memory limit is not enough, tasks in the admin dashboard, like updating plugins, saving changes, etc, may become sluggish.

Increasing the PHP memory limit allows WordPress to handle more data and perform operations efficiently.

We let our customers increase or decrease PHP memory limit value from within the platform easily without having to edit the PHP.ini or wp-config files.

For non-Cloudways users, they can add the code mentioned below at the top of your wp-config.php file:

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M' );

If required, you can set the maximum memory limit:

define( 'WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );

Enhance Database and Backend Performance

5. Clean Your Database to Get Rid of Bloat

Your WordPress database collects unnecessary data like old post revisions and expired transients over time, slowing down performance.

Transients are temporary data used by plugins, especially in WooCommerce, to speed things up. Once they expire, they stay in the database until removed. But you can safely delete these using tools like the Delete Expired Transients plugin.

If you’re a Cloudways user, you can use the Database Manager to optimize your database. Just select the desired table/tables from the list and click the Optimize button.

While we’re talking about cleaning your database, It is also a good idea to get rid of post revisions. They’re helpful when creating posts but not useful once your post is published. They end up occupying space inside your table.

To delete all the post revisions, run the following command.

DELETE FROM wp_posts
WHERE post_type = 'revision';

You can also limit the number of revisions saved to prevent excessive post revisions from piling up in the future. To do this, add the following code to your wp-config.php file.

define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', 2 );

Umm, what else? Oh, you can also delete spam comments. To do so, run the following command to delete all spam comments from your database table.

DELETE FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_approved = 'spam';

6. Set Up an External Cron Job

WP-Cron is a default system in WordPress that schedules and runs time based tasks. These tasks include checking for updates, publishing scheduled posts, and sending email notifications.

Whenever a visitor visits your site, WP-Cron checks if there are any tasks that need to be completed.

But the downside is that WP-Cron is triggered every time a page is loaded. So, for websites with high traffic, this can slow down the site.

To address this, many WordPress users set up external cron jobs, which are server level scheduled tasks that run independently of page views. This can help offload the task-checking from each page load and improve site performance.

To disable WP-Cron, edit the wp-config.php file and this code to it:

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

Now that it’s disabled, you can set up an external cron job. Many hosting providers offer their own interface for adding cron jobs. Cloudways also provides an option for adding cron jobs on its platform.

Here’s how you can use the Cloudways platform to schedule Cron jobs.

• Log in to the Cloudways Platform.

• Select the application (WordPress, etc) for which you want to set up cron job.

• Next, from the Cron Job Management tab, click on the “Add New Cron Job” option.

• Set the frequency of the cron job using the drop down menu with predefined values or set custom values.

• Choose the type of script to run (PHP, curl, or wget) and specify the command to execute.

• Click “Submit” to save your configuration.

• Once configured, your cron job will be listed under the Basic tab.

If you’re iffy about manually disabling WordPress Cron and configuring server-based cron jobs, we also offer a Cron Optimizer feature. This feature automatically disables the default WP Cron and switches your site to reliable server-side Cron Jobs using WP-CLI.

Cron Optimizer makes sure all jobs are scheduled in an optimized manner, preventing Jobs from overwhelming your server. So, if you have several jobs set to run at 1 p.m., instead of running them all together, Optimizer spreads them out, improving your site’s performance.

If you’re using cPanel, head to the “cron jobs” tab and add this line to set an external cron job:

wget -q -O - https://mywebsite.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron >/dev/null 2>&1

Then, you can specify the time or interval you want the cron job to run within cPanel’s cron job settings.

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Optimize Caching and Content Delivery

7. Use a WordPress Caching Plugin and CDN

Caching plugins are usually used to speed up your website’s front end, but they can also make a difference in your WordPress admin.

These plugins work by storing dynamic pages as static HTML, which means the server doesn’t need to work as hard every time someone visits. This helps free up CPU resources for your WordPress dashboard.

If your site is hosted on Cloudways, you don’t need to install caching plugins. You can benefit from built-in caching plugins like Breeze and Object Cache Pro.

Note: you can also install Redis cache on your site to boost your website’s performance. If you’re a Cloudways user:

• Log in to the Cloudways platform.
• Navigate to Servers.
• Click Manage Services.
• Locate Redis and click on “Start“.

To improve a site’s Time to First Byte (TTFB), Cloudflare CDN is by far the best choice in my experience, especially because it supports dynamic caching. I covered a Cloudflare WordPress CDN setup guide that you might find helpful.

Your hosting plays a big role in this too. Cloudways offers a stack that’s optimized to reduce server load times, helping you serve pages faster. And, if you go with Cloudways, you can add Cloudflare Enterprise for just $4.99 per domain—far cheaper than buying it directly from Cloudflare.

8. Avoid Clearing All Cached Files

Storing too much cached content can actually make your WordPress admin slower, especially if you clear the entire cache too often. When you clear all cached files, the system needs to rebuild them, which increases CPU usage and puts extra strain on your server.

To avoid this, it’s a good idea to disable automatic cache clearing and instead set up a cron job to manage cache clearing at specific times.

Also, consider increasing the cache TTL (time-to-live). I’m saying this because this makes sure cached content remains valid for a longer time, reducing the need for frequent rebuilding. This approach decreases server stress and improves cache hit ratio, leading to faster site performance.

9. Speed Up with a CDN Firewall

Blocking unnecessary requests to your site can help you save server resources. This can improve your site’s performance.

One way to do this is by using tools like captchas to block automated bots, or better yet, a CDN (Content Delivery Network) firewall.

Cloudflare is highly recommended as it offers features like Edge Page Caching, Brotli compression, and an advanced Web Application Firewall (WAF). And a lot more…

If you’re a Cloudways customer but haven’t enabled the Cloudflare add-on, you’re missing out on these features.

Also, we recently introduced Imunify360’s firewall on our Flexible servers, which provides server-level security. This works alongside Cloudflare or other CDNs seamlessly.

Even though CDNs are excellent at blocking attacks like DDoS, they don’t cover server-level threats like FTP or SFTP attacks. This is why using a CDN, combined with server-level protection, is highly recommended for enhanced security and better performance.

Reduce Frontend and Admin Overhead

10. Reduce Admin Bloat

The WordPress admin panel contains several features that may not be useful for most users and can slow down the dashboard.

For example, features like the Welcome Panel or Activity widget might not be too useful for you on a day to day basis.

So…to simplify the admin dashboard, you can click on “Screen Options” in the top-right corner and uncheck the widgets you don’t need. We have a detailed guide on how to customize WordPress admin dashboard that you might find really helpful.

And if you remember the days we used to root our Android phones to remove bloatware, you can do the same using plugins like Disable Bloat to remove unnecessary features from WordPress and WooCommerce, improving WordPress admin performance.

11. Avoid Using Page Builders If Your Hosting Is Slow

Page builders like Elementor require a significant amount of server resources, especially memory, to function correctly. When you combine a resource-heavy page builder with slow hosting, the WordPress admin panel can load slowly.

Each time you use the Elementor editor or preview a page, it consumes more memory, which can further slow down your website’s performance.

While you can try and optimize page builders for better performance, the best solution is to use hosting that is optimized to support page builders. Elementor works great on Cloudways. We have covered a how-to guide for it if you want to check that out.

Also, what you can do is increase your server’s memory limit to about 768 MB which is the recommended amount for Elementor to avoid slowing down your admin panel.

If you’re using Cloudways, it’s easy to increase your server’s memory.

12. Turn Off the WordPress Admin Toolbar

The WordPress Admin Toolbar, located at the top of the site, offers quick access to admin features but can slow down your site. To improve performance, you can disable it.

One way is to add a small code snippet in your theme’s functions.php file to turn off the toolbar for all users or only for non-admin users.

Here’s the code to disable the admin toolbar for all users:

add_filter( 'show_admin_bar', '__return_false' );

And here’s the code to disable the admin toolbar for all users, except for users with the admin user role:

if ( ! current_user_can( 'manage_options' ) ) {

add_filter('show_admin_bar', '__return_false');

}

You can also disable the toolbar for yourself via Users > Your Profile by unchecking “Show Toolbar when browsing the site.” If you’re new to WordPress user roles, I highly recommend checking out our detailed guide.

Alternatively, you can use the Admin Toolbar Menus plugin to hide the toolbar based on user role or adjust its settings for better control.

13. Disable Unneeded Dashboard Widgets

Just like reducing unnecessary features (bloat) in WordPress, removing unused dashboard widgets can improve the performance of your WordPress admin.

By default, WordPress includes widgets like “At a Glance” or “Activity” that you may not need. These widgets can slow down your admin panel because they make external calls to load data.

To speed things up, you can use a plugin called Widget Disable. Once installed, you can go to Appearance → Disable Widgets and remove the widgets you don’t use.

This will help lighten the load on your WordPress dashboard and improve its speed.

14. Limit the Posts or Comments Displayed Per Page

WordPress shows a set number of items (like posts, comments, or orders) on each admin page by default, usually around 20.

If you ever increased this number to see more items at once, it might be causing your admin area to load slowly. I had to make adjustments too when I chose to display 200 posts in one go.

Displaying fewer items reduces the amount of data WordPress needs to process, speeding things up. You can adjust this setting through the Screen Options menu at the top of the admin panel. In the image below, I changed the default number to 10.

Also read: How to add pagination to your WordPress website using a plugin.

Improve WordPress Core and Theme Performance

15. Update WordPress Version

Every WordPress core update includes performance improvements, bug fixes, and sometimes security patches, which can help your site run faster and more securely.

WordPress has had hundreds of updates over its 20-year history, with the current version being WordPress 6.7. To see which version of WordPress your site is using:

• Go to your WordPress admin dashboard.
• Locate the “At a Glance” widget.

If your WordPress version is outdated, you can update it manually by going to Dashboard > Updates and following the instructions. We have a guide on how to check and update your WordPress version that you might find useful.

For Cloudways customers, we offer the SafeUpdates add-on for just $2/mo per application, that automates this process. It updates WordPress core, theme, and plugins without manual effort. It also tests updates to make sure they don’t cause issues before applying them.

Also read: How to Safely Update Your WordPress Sites.

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16. Update Your WordPress Theme

WordPress themes can impact your website’s performance. I’m obviously talking in terms of speed. If elements of your theme like custom animation, typography, and features aren’t poorly optimized, they can slow down the WordPress admin.

To check if your theme is causing issues, you can temporarily switch to a default WordPress theme, such as Twenty Twenty-Five. Since these are lightweight themes, they’re good for testing.

But keep in mind not to switch themes directly on your live site. Instead, use a staging site where you can test changes without affecting visitors.

If you’re a Cloudways customer, we offer a 1-click staging environment for all applications and plans.

17. Remove Memory Consuming Plugins

When WordPress is new, the dashboard is usually fast. However, over time, certain plugins can slow it down. I’m talking about resource heavy plugins.

To find out which plugins might be slowing things down, you can use the Query Monitor plugin. We have a guide on how to debug WordPress performance issues with Query Monitor that you’ll find really useful.

Anyway…after activating it, you can check the Queries by Component section to see which plugins are taking longer to run.

If you see a resource heavy plugin, you can remove it if it’s unnecessary or replace it with a more efficient plugin.

Also read: 15+ Best WordPress Performance Plugins for 2023

Monitor and Troubleshoot Performance

18. Improve Heartbeat, Autosave, and Post Revision Settings

WordPress features like Heartbeat, autosaves, and post revisions are useful but can slow down your admin if not managed. I talked about old post revisions creating bloat in your database earlier as well in this blog.

If you don’t know, the Heartbeat API runs in the background, handles tasks like notifications, and uses a lot of resources.

You can limit or turn off Heartbeat for the dashboard to prevent your WordPress admin from slowing down. This can be done with plugins like Heartbeat Control or by adding simple code.

In the functions.php file, for example, I can add this code, which will stop the Heartbeat API from running in the WordPress admin:

add_action( 'admin_init', 'disable_heartbeat_admin' );

function disable_heartbeat_admin() {

remove_action( 'admin_enqueue_scripts', 'wp_heartbeat' );

}

If you’re using the plugin, you can do the same as well:

WordPress autosaves drafts every minute, which is more than what anyone needs. You can increase this interval to 5 minutes or even more.

As for post revisions, WordPress saves multiple versions of your content which can fill up your database. Limiting them to a few versions is a smart idea. To do this, you can edit your wp-config.php file.

Here are the code snippets you can use:

define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3);

define('AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 600); // 10 minutes in seconds

Conclusion

WordPress admin dashboard can become sluggish due to various reasons. And in this blog, we looked at 18 different ways to speed up and resolve WordPress admin slow issues.

From using Cloudways with built-in Object Cache Pro to using SafeUpdates to automatically update WordPress core, themes, and plugins, we looked at many tested strategies for fixing a slow WordPress admin.

Remember, website management is an ongoing process. Constantly audit your website performance and make adjustments to keep your website running optimally.

For best performance, consider switching to Cloudways-managed WordPress hosting that is optimized for speed, starting at just $11/mo.