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Make Your Drupal Site Faster

A slow site loses visitors. This guide shows simple changes that help your Drupal site load faster.

CMS and Apps2 min read14 steps

What is Drupal?

Drupal is a free CMS. A CMS (content management system) is a program for building websites without much code. Drupal builds each page from a database when someone asks for it. That takes time. Most speed tips try to save that work.

Warning: Back up your files and database before you change settings.

Step 1: Turn on caching

A cache is a short-term memory. Drupal keeps a ready-made copy of a page, so it does not build it again.

  1. Log in as admin.
  2. Click Configuration, then Development, then Performance.
  3. Find the setting for caching pages for anonymous users, or the browser and proxy cache maximum age.
  4. Choose a time such as 15 minutes or more.
  5. Click Save configuration.

Step 2: Combine CSS and JavaScript

CSS controls how a page looks. JavaScript makes it interactive. Many small files slow things down. Combining them makes fewer downloads.

  1. On the same Performance page, find the options for CSS and JavaScript.
  2. Tick the options to aggregate (combine) CSS and JavaScript files.
  3. Click Save configuration.
  4. Click Clear all caches and test your site.

On Drupal 7 these options may be called Aggregate and compress CSS files.

Step 3: Remove modules you do not use

A module is an add-on. Each active one adds work.

  1. Open Extend (called Modules in older versions).
  2. Look for modules you do not need. Disable ones you never use.
  3. Click Uninstall to remove them for good.

Turn off the Database Logging module on busy sites if you do not need it. Turn off Devel and other testing tools on a live site.

Step 4: Shrink your images

  1. Resize pictures before you upload them.
  2. Use image styles in Drupal to make smaller versions for each page.

Step 5: Keep things updated

Update Drupal core and modules. Also ask Hostvento support which PHP version your plan supports. Newer PHP versions are often faster, but check that your site works with them first.

Step 6: Run cron

Cron is a timer that runs jobs by itself. Open Configuration, System, Cron, and make sure it runs on a schedule. This cleans old data.

Tip: Measure first and after. Test your page with a free speed tool. This shows what helped.

Quick recap

  • Turn on page caching in the Performance page.
  • Combine CSS and JavaScript files.
  • Remove unused modules.
  • Shrink images.
  • Keep Drupal and PHP up to date.