18 Ways to Fix a Slow WordPress Dashboard

Is your slow WordPress dashboard giving you nightmares? Do you feel like you’re moving at a snail’s pace every time you try to do something on your WordPress site?

Indeed, a slow WordPress admin interface is the perfect way to kill your productivity. You want to finish an important task, but every time you click somewhere, it feels like you’re moving through quicksand.

Sometimes, it can even prevent your Dashboard from loading at all… Enough is enough!

Jump straight to the 18 fixes for a slow WordPress Admin ↓

Recently, for a WooCommerce site that also uses WPML, I experienced this slowness issue. After doing some research, I came across this article from WP Buffs: 13 slow WordPress dashboard remedies for a faster WP Admin. I appreciated it so much that I asked for their permission to use it as inspiration to share all these solutions with the French-speaking community.

💡 Summary of causes for a slow WordPress dashboard and easy solutions:

Main Problems/Causes	Solutions
🐌 The WordPress dashboard is slow	1. Check and diagnose potential server connectivity issues 2. Choose a better web host or upgrade your hosting plan 3. Check if the problem affects the entire site 4. Increase the memory allocated to WordPress 5. Set up server-side CRON jobs 6. Delete unnecessary, outdated, or unused themes and plugins 7. Keep WordPress, themes, and plugins up to date 8. Opt for modern technology solutions 9. Remove plugins that consume a lot of resources 10. Use the Heartbeat Control plugin 11. Optimize the WordPress database 12. Switch MySQL tables from MyISAM to InnoDB 13. Delete WooCommerce transients 14. Re-upload a clean version of wp-admin and wp-includes 15. Request a malware scan from your web host 16. Disable “database cache” and “object cache” in W3 Total Cache 17. Use the appropriate Page Rules in CloudFlare
🥜 Low-quality web hosting	Optimize site performance with the provided tips
🍔 A resource-hungry plugin	Use PHPX-RAY to detect plugins generating too many database queries

How to fix these slowness issues and speed up the WordPress back office?

Your WordPress admin is loading very slowly, and it’s high time to restore a decent loading speed.

18 remedies to solve WordPress Dashboard speed problems

How to fix a slow WP Admin backend?

Before we dive in, I want to give you a few suggestions on how to use these tips.

The order in which you apply these optimizations is important. I’m presenting them in order of importance. In other words, the ones most likely to positively affect the speed of your WordPress back-end are listed first!

For example, you’ll see that I suggest you disable “Object cache” and switch between themes. However, “Object cache” is much more likely to slow down your WordPress admin than your theme will. So, only try changing themes (the last tip on this list) if all other options haven’t given you satisfactory results.

Got it? Okay, let’s dig into the slow WordPress admin problem.

1. Check and diagnose any server connectivity issues

Before you start working on other issues, make sure your slow WordPress dashboard isn’t due to your internet connection. For example, if your internet browsing is slow, you usually just need to restart your router or test the connection with your mobile device (4G or otherwise).

For your server’s connection, the same network issues can occur.

If you’re on shared hosting, other sites might be using your bandwidth, which can cause slowdowns. On shared hosting, it’s also possible that you’re on a server that is currently overloaded, as it’s not easy for a hosting provider to know when to start filling up each new server.

For these kinds of issues, it may be necessary to contact or check with your web host to make sure the problem isn’t on their end.

You can start by visiting the host’s website and checking their public status page, where you’ll find all their servers, including yours.

Here, for example, is how the host EasyHoster provides its clients with a public page attesting to its quarterly “Uptime,” with information on its server performance:

2. Choose a better host or change your hosting plan

You’ll probably want to wait until you’ve exhausted all other options before moving on to the nuclear option 😁 However, the fact is, the slowness of your admin interface may be due to a Web Server whose resources are saturated or limited. And in such a case, there’s little you can do on your current hosting plan.

The following tips will help you reduce the strain you’re putting on your hosting account. However, it’s likely that your optimizations won’t be enough if you’re currently paying less than €100 per year for your hosting (sorry).

For example, if you’re using WooCommerce & WPML together, unless you’re already on a very good server, you will need to choose a plan that can handle your site.

Also, check that your host uses the latest versions of its software solutions: Apache, PHP, MariaDB, etc.

Switching from PHP 7 to PHP 8 would be the icing on the cake 😉

How to negotiate better performance with your web host?

So, if your site is starting to get too heavy, you should either:

• choose a host that offers better performance (see my advice below ↓),
• or upgrade your current hosting plan (for example, RAM and CPU) while staying with your current host.

If you’re happy with your current host, you should do this:

• Open a ticket with their technical support to discuss it with the host
• Ask them if your hosting account is hitting its current limits or if your server has a high load
• Ask them if increasing the RAM and CPU of your hosting account could improve the speed of your WordPress Dashboard

And if your host isn’t the type to respond to such requests, read on! 🙂

So, if you’re disappointed with some aspects of your current hosting or if your host isn’t very cooperative, it’s a good time to take the plunge. Most WordPress Hosts will be able to migrate your site for free. You shouldn’t even have to invest your own time in doing the transfer.

Recommended Web Hosts for Maximum Performance

The host I recommend first and foremost is EasyHoster (it’s mine 😁).

EasyHoster, the quintessential WordPress host:

I think it’s the one that will provide you with the best support possible for optimizing your WordPress site’s loading speed, for both the backend and the frontend. EasyHoster has excellent customer service and offers everything you might need to make your site fast and secure. Plus, they will be happy to transfer your site for free, without you having to lift a finger.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for a big, well-known brand, I’ve got just the thing for you!

DigitalOcean, high-performance and cheap VPS:

DigitalOcean is a provider of high-performance cloud servers at unbeatable prices.

It doesn’t have technical support in the traditional sense, as they prefer to focus on their Documentation and Help Center. However, DigitalOcean has all the auto-installers you could dream of, and they are very functional.

In a few clicks, you can deploy a Plesk or cPanel installation on your Cloud VPS. You’ll end up with a user-friendly interface where you can install and manage your websites. DigitalOcean’s services even allow you to take snapshots of your virtual machines, so you can have your own backups. This just requires a bit more maintenance and technical skills than fully managed hosting. For example, with EasyHoster, backups are directly included in all hosting plans.

3. Verify it’s not the entire site

If your WordPress site is slow everywhere, including on the public part visible to visitors and without being logged in as an administrator, then the problem is different from just a slow WordPress backend.

If that’s the case, you should perhaps switch to a fast WordPress theme and install a caching plugin.

4. Increase the memory allocated to WordPress

Here’s a personal tip that wasn’t mentioned in the WP Buffs article.

Consider allocating more RAM to WordPress requests!

The default value for a standard WordPress site is 40M, which is way too little in my opinion.

To increase this memory limit, add these lines of code to your wp-config.php file, located at the root of your WordPress installation.

define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '128M');
/* Consider 256M only with a Premium Hosting plan */

define( 'WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT', '368M' );
/* Consider 512M only with a Premium Hosting plan */

For a standard installation, feel free to gradually increase it up to 128M.

Divi, WPML, and WooCommerce, for their part, ideally recommend going up to 256M, provided you have chosen a good host. This clearly shows how certain plugins are resource-hungry and require good hosting.

5. Set up server-side CRON jobs

WordPress has a built-in, PHP-based scheduled task system (CRON) called WP-Cron. However, this native WordPress system is far from optimal in terms of performance.

WordPress uses this system to avoid forcing all its users to manually configure the periodic execution of PHP tasks. Unfortunately, this means that all plugins and even your theme can take control of this CRON system, sometimes leading to the execution of very resource-intensive tasks every minute!

It’s often unnecessary to run these PHP tasks so frequently, especially when they are very resource-intensive. In the vast majority of cases, a frequency of 2 executions per hour is more than enough. So why not take back control over the execution frequency of Cron jobs?

Thanks to your cPanel hosting, which includes tools like WordPress Toolkit and a Cron job manager, you can easily optimize this situation without any IT knowledge.

6. Delete all unnecessary, outdated, or unused themes and plugins

WordPress plugins and themes can cause problems if you don’t use the right ones, if you use too many, or if an unforeseen conflict arises between them.

If you like to switch up themes and plugins (and I bet you do 😉), make an effort to restrain yourself to avoid installing ones that are unnecessary, outdated, or cause conflicts with other plugins/themes. This means deleting anything that fits one of the following categories:

• You don’t use it, or almost never.
• It provides a feature that is not vital to your project.
• It’s no longer updated (+1 year, you should question it; +2 years, find a replacement).
• It’s no longer supported by its developer, who no longer answers support questions.
• It creates more problems than it provides benefits.

The fewer plugins you have, the easier it will be to solve performance (and security) problems if they arise.

7. Update WordPress, the theme, and plugins

If your WordPress dashboard becomes slow right after updating WordPress, plugins, and the theme, or installing a new plugin, this recent change might be the cause of the slowdown.

Despite the quality of WordPress’s documentation for developers, it sometimes happens that different plugins conflict with each other. Some plugins can run particularly long MySQL queries, and this can be diagnosed with a free plugin like Query Monitor.

A poorly optimized plugin might not be enough to crash the website or display a white screen or critical error, but it can easily add several seconds to your WordPress dashboard’s loading times!

In this case, it is first necessary to identify the plugin responsible for the slowdown. For this, there is of course Query Monitor, but this plugin is quite complex to use and doesn’t always give clear and complete results.

Moreover, Query Monitor itself significantly slows down the WordPress dashboard!

To date, the best technology on the market for automatic performance audits seems to be PHP X-RAY.

As you can see in the screenshot above, PHP X-RAY is available with the host EasyHoster. This cPanel module can very clearly and quickly identify which plugin is slowing down your WordPress backoffice.

When you know which plugin is slowing down your WordPress admin, it can be useful to seek support from the plugin’s developer:

• Read the plugin’s documentation to see if there is a setting to reduce its resource consumption.
• Contact the developer, via their support forum or, if they don’t have one, via their contact form, to report the issue with their plugin.

In any case, always be mindful of updates to your WordPress site. If you manage an important site, like an eCommerce store built with WooCommerce, automatic WordPress updates might not be for you.

Before you start your update work on plugins, etc., make sure you have an easily restorable 1-click backup, like those offered by EasyHoster CodeGuard.

Such a system allows you to easily revert if your WordPress maintenance breaks or damages something.

Then, you could wait for a fix to be released before updating the problematic plugins.

8. Opt for modern technology solutions

Also, make sure to keep your hosting and your WordPress up-to-date with the latest versions of their software solutions such as Apache, PHP, MariaDB, etc.

For example, switching from PHP 7 to PHP 8 will have a significant impact on the performance of your WordPress dashboard. Don’t miss the opportunity to take advantage of the latest technologies available in the web hosting industry.

9. Remove resource-hungry plugins

Some WordPress plugins have a big impact on dashboard performance. The usual suspects are:

• WPML
• WooCommerce extensions
• Some SEO/Analytics plugins
• Broken Link Checker
• Query Monitor
• W3 Total Cache
• WP Rocket…

Indeed, WP Rocket, for example, can sometimes cause overload issues. There can be a preload loop (for example, if a form in the footer, which is impossible to cache, is present). Similarly, after a migration, the settings often need to be “Reset,” meaning completely erased and recreated, via a full uninstallation.

WPML and WP Rocket are not the only ones that can cause dashboard slowness due to misconfiguration or conflict.

It’s easy to see that diagnosing “Which WordPress plugin is slowing down the Dashboard” is no small feat. It can therefore be extremely useful to use diagnostic tools.

Using a free plugin like Query Monitor or P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler) can also help you find some resource-hungry plugins.

If you choose to install P3 Profiler, after activation, go to Tools → P3 Plugin Profiler:

Query Monitor is another quality plugin that can help you find the dead weight among your plugins (as well as other problematic areas on your site).

As mentioned earlier, always make sure to use the latest versions of your plugins by performing all updates just as you do for WordPress.

To perform an effective diagnosis based on this type of plugin, conduct a manual test by deactivating all plugins and reactivating them one by one. This way, if a particular plugin is causing a problem by slowing down your WP Admin, you should be able to find it. As soon as the problematic plugin is deactivated, you will immediately see your dashboard and your hosting get relief.

X-RAY, the best diagnostic solution on the market for WordPress and other CMS

If you have chosen a Premium cPanel Host like EasyHoster, which has all the advanced modules in cPanel, you should be able to find the X-RAY performance audit module there.

This external diagnostic tool linked to your cPanel Hosting allows you to create audits for up to 2 days, to easily reveal all the WordPress plugins that are slowing down your site or your WP Admin.

See this screenshot that very simply shows the problematic plugins:

Ultimately, if a plugin is not essential to the functioning of your site, you should consider ditching it.

Especially if X-RAY tells you that:

1. the plugin significantly increases the dashboard loading time
2. the plugin runs constantly, with every page load of the Dashboard 

If you can’t abandon the plugin responsible for slowing down your wp-admin after identifying it, you may find useful information on the wordpress.org forum or via the extension’s official support. This may allow you to solve the slowness problem while keeping the plugin.

My real-world case with WPML

For example, while experiencing slowness due to WPML, I searched for “wp-admin slow wpml” on Google. I was able to read on their support forum that there are 3 options in particular that are a source of slowdown…

• WPML > Languages: disable “Adjust IDs for multilingual functionality”
• WPML > String translation: disable “Track where strings appear”
• WPML > String translation: disable “Auto-register strings for translation”

In short, disable all of this:

Watch out for Wordfence & iThemes Security logs

When you identify a slow plugin, you can choose to take the time to become more familiar with this resource-hungry plugin, instead of abruptly abandoning it.

Indeed, there might be a setting you can easily disable to speed up your WP Dashboard.

We’ll see an example with W3 Total Cache later, but here’s another one with Wordfence:

Wordfence is well-rated, reliable, and it delivers on its promises! However, it has a setting called Live Traffic View, which, according to many users, causes performance issues on the WordPress Admin interface.

iThemes Security is another plugin that logs a lot of data.

If you don’t want to end up with a huge database that slows down your WP Admin, you’d be better off disabling the iThemes Security logs and cleaning up old existing logs.

The moral of the story: Google is your friend, so Google your plugins to find the causes of performance degradation!

10. Use the Heartbeat Control plugin

The “heartbeat” API (admin-ajax.php) is great for its Automatic Content Saving feature when you’re writing in WordPress. You know, the system that allows you to recover your precious text when the WordPress editor crashes.

Similarly, WP offers an excellent Revisions service to find old versions of content. The CMS also manages Multiple Sessions between several WordPress users.

All of this is possible thanks to the Heartbeat and it’s great! But, not for performance 🙂

The heartbeat API will send a number of PHP requests, and this can cause a high level of CPU usage on your hosting account. This can therefore slow down your WordPress admin.

To reduce the load caused by the “heartbeat” API, you can use the free plugin Heartbeat Control.

Install and activate the plugin. Then, go to Settings → Heartbeat Control.

I recommend selecting “Allow only on post edit pages” and setting the beat frequency to 45 to 60 seconds for best results.

This will have the effect of lengthening the delay between Beats everywhere on your WordPress, and it will totally disable the API on other pages of your WordPress back office.

This way, you will still benefit from regular automatic saves of posts being edited (very useful to avoid losing your work), but you will limit the little hammer blows on your CPU’s head 😉

11. Optimize your WordPress database

Okay, I doubt this can completely fix a slow WordPress Dashboard on its own… but optimizing your WordPress database can sometimes give you a small performance boost.

By default, WordPress saves less-than-useful data like revisions and trashed comments, all stored in your database. Using a plugin like WP-Optimize will allow you to clean up all this junk and streamline your database.

WP-Optimize also allows you to delete transients, but WP Rocket does it very well too!

I prefer the latter because it is accessible to everyone (not too complex) and allows you to schedule cleanups, for example, every month.

Then, while you’re focused on your database, it’s worth taking a quick look at phpMyAdmin!

In phpMyAdmin, by sorting the Tables of your WordPress database by Size, you can quickly detect if one of your tables has become huge (more than 300 MB).

If one of your Tables seems excessively large without justification, enter the Table to check what’s happening more closely. As we saw earlier, some plugins save an astronomical amount of entries in the database, sometimes for no good reason.

12. Switch MySQL tables from MyISAM to InnoDB

The MyISAM MySQL storage engine is now obsolete. MyISAM is, indeed, an old storage technology that should be replaced now by InnoDB.

InnoDB, on the other hand, is a storage engine that offers a more modern and high-performance mode of operation. By opting for InnoDB, you can enjoy advanced features such as transaction management and row-level locking, which ensures better data reliability and consistency.

It is highly recommended to migrate your databases to InnoDB to benefit from the advantages offered by this newer storage technology and to ensure an optimal experience for your visitors.

13. Delete WooCommerce Transients

If you use WooCommerce, sometimes the “transients” created can slow down your dashboard. In short, transients are used to store the results of certain function calls in the database. It’s another form of cache, to go faster.

These Transients have a reason to exist, but they can also clutter your database if you don’t pay attention.

The free plugin Transients Manager from WP Beginner allows you to manage your transients and delete expired ones. If you have a large WooCommerce site, run it once to see if it improves anything for you.

14. Re-upload a clean version of wp-admin and wp-includes

Here is a last resort. If you’re still struggling with a slow dashboard, you can try uploading a clean version of wp-admin and wp-includes to your server.

Manually, you can simply download the latest version of WordPress and re-upload only these two folders to your hosting space, for example, via the File Manager in cPanel.

Semi-automatically, in the Updates tab of WordPress, you can reinstall a fresh copy of the CMS core files, and since you haven’t hardcoded anything into the WordPress files, you don’t risk breaking anything on your site.

Of course, even if you shouldn’t break anything by refreshing these two directories, it’s always better to make a backup of your entire site before overwriting anything.

15. Ask your Web Host for a malware scan

In some cases, a slow WordPress admin interface can be due to a hack of the website. Often, it’s a malware infection.

This type of malicious software can publish spam on your WordPress site, without you even realizing it.

Meanwhile, thousands of pages in Japanese are being indexed on Google, sending you thousands of unqualified visitors who are overloading your Web Hosting.

In reality, it’s actually Google and its Googlebot that will saturate your site while trying to index these thousands of useless pages that are damaging your SEO.

The best solution for this is to ask your Host to run a malware scan on your Hosting account.

Some hosts like EasyHoster even have a very powerful premium anti-malware called Imunify360 (not to be confused with the free version, ImunifyAV).

As you can see in the screenshot below, this WordPress user benefited from the automatic cleanup of 2 malwares.

He didn’t have to worry about anything. He’s not even aware that his WordPress site was a victim of a security breach.

Imunify360 took care of cleaning and securing everything for him ↑

Indeed, Imunify360 detects in real-time all malware present on the account and cleans it automatically without causing damage to the web application that benefits from the cleanup.

16. Disable “database cache” and “object cache” in W3 Total Cache

Although W3 Total Cache can be an effective plugin, it’s also a pretty massive one. A beast, some might say 🙂

W3TC includes a staggering number of settings you can play with.

That’s all well and good for experts. But for beginners, it can be a source of a lot of confusion.

Page cache, Browser cache, Database cache, Object cache, Opcode cache, Memcached… 😁 you get the idea.

I consider myself an advanced user when it comes to WordPress, but all these options still make my head spin. I can’t imagine how beginners must feel with all of W3TC’s options.

Want to know how beginners react? They see this…

And they assume that “the more cache, the better.” So, they check that box and go about their business… It’s that simple!

No wonder a plugin like WP Rocket is so successful, because it combines power, efficiency… and simplicity!

Unfortunately, W3 Total Cache users who make clumsy adjustments sometimes end up with an admin interface that starts to be as slow as a turtle with arthritis.

Does this sound like your situation? Are you using W3 Total Cache?

The problem with enabling all the cache options in W3 Total Cache is that it enables two bad options: “Database caching” and “Object cache”.

Although these methods can improve your performance in some situations, they are just as likely to slow down your site. The reason is that “Database caching” and “Object cache” will fill up your server’s Memory in order to take the pressure off your Database.

If you have a dedicated server, this can speed up your site. But if you’re on cheap shared hosting like most people, it will slow down your site, because you’re more likely to hit the limits of your RAM, and those of your hosting server’s MySQL database.

So! First step: if you use a caching plugin (especially W3 Total Cache), make sure to disable “Database caching” and “Object cache”.

To see if this fixes your problem:

Performance plugins like W3 Total Cache, or even Asset CleanUp (which I really like), will make profound changes to how your WordPress site works. So be careful about the options you enable.

17. Use smart “page rules” in CloudFlare

If you don’t use CloudFlare, you can skip to the last tip. Otherwise, you absolutely need to check the following.

Most people go through the CloudFlare setup process, check that it works, and call it a day.

But to maximize your site’s performance, you should really take a little more time to modify the following settings.

One lever to pull is to Exclude your “wp-admin” from CloudFlare.

The famous CDN itself recommends making this adjustment to avoid degrading your WordPress Dashboard experience.

To do this, go to Page Rules in your CloudFlare account:

Then, create a new rule for “example.com/wp-admin*”. Disable Performance and Apps.

Reminder: these changes will only affect your WordPress admin – all of Cloudflare’s benefits will still be active on the public part of your site.

That’s it! Cloudflare will now ignore your WordPress dashboard, and you’ll benefit from an experience unaltered by Cloudflare in your WP Admin.

18. Try switching back to the default Twenty Twenty-Two theme and disabling your Page Builder

This is a bit of a last-ditch effort, but if nothing else has worked, try switching back to the default Twenty Twenty-Two theme, as well as disabling your Page Builder (Elementor, Divi, etc).

Sometimes, Themes and Page Builders, especially those that come with a lot of features, can create a lot of requests or contain errors (jQuery, among others) that can slow down your site. If the current version of your theme is buggy, it can even affect your visitors’ performance (Front end), in addition to your admin-side speed (Back end).

If temporarily switching to Twenty Twenty-Two and disabling your Builder coincides with a noticeable speed boost in your dashboard, then you’ve almost found the culprit. You just need to take specific measures for your theme and/or your Page Builder.

Let’s summarize the solutions for fixing a slow WP Admin…

It’s a matter of your quality of life! A slow WordPress admin interface can be a real daily nightmare, right? 😁

Your WordPress site works (more or less), but these slowdowns make working on WordPress extremely painful!

In this article, I’ve covered 18 points that could help you optimize the loading speed of your WordPress backend.

The two main causes are:

• Low-quality Web Hosting (go check out EasyHoster for goodness’ sake! 😁)
• A resource-devouring plugin

How can hosting cause a slow WP Admin?

To be able to share their servers among clients, web hosts are forced to limit your hosting resources.

How can installed plugins cause a slow WP Admin?

Some plugins (or some of their options) can create a lot of requests to the database. Detect them with PHP X-RAY! 

To speed up your WordPress Admin panel, you can try to save money on your Web Hosting by optimizing your site’s performance with the 18 tips I’ve given you above. But remember what I told you at the beginning, even with a thick layer of lipstick and a blonde wig, a pig is still a pig 😁

If nothing on this list has solved your problem, you may just need to put a few more bucks into a fast and secure WordPress Hosting.

Take a look at the offers from…

1. EasyHoster: for the support and the countless services included for free for WordPress.
   Thanks to the promo code BIENVENUE15, you get a 15% discount on your first EasyHoster order.
2. DigitalOcean: for its cheap VPS offering excellent performance, snapshots (backups), as well as its efficient automatic installers (for example, to install cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, etc).
   By signing up for DigitalOcean via my affiliate link, you’ll receive $100 in free credit with no commitment (perfect for testing a VPS) →

Many thanks to Colin Newcomer (freelance English writer) for his original article “9 slow WordPress dashboard remedies for a faster admin panel” and thanks to the WP Buffs blog for allowing me to publish this translation slightly adapted with a Mr. WP twist. Cheers 😉

This post is also available in: Français (French)