Support
Where the speed comes from, and what people ask.
A short explanation of the caching mechanism, followed by the questions people actually ask once they have read it.
How it works
Where the speed comes from
WC_Cart hooks maybe_set_cart_cookies() to the wp
action unconditionally, whether or not anything on the page actually touched the cart.
Browse a category archive as an anonymous visitor and WooCommerce still hands you a
session. Your CDN sees that cookie and steps aside, which is the honest reason a stock
shop serves its catalog from PHP.
FastestWoo renders catalog pages identically for every anonymous visitor. No nonces in
the markup, no per-visitor personalisation, nothing that varies the response. The cart
moves into a server-side store addressed by a 128-bit token the browser keeps in
localStorage, so the page can be byte-for-byte the same for everyone and
cached at the edge.
Per-visitor state then loads after the cached HTML has painted. The mini-cart count is painted immediately from the last known value in local storage, before any script runs, and reconciled with the server a moment later. Adding to cart updates the count before the request is even sent.
FAQ
Questions people actually ask
Where does the speed actually come from?
WooCommerce sets a session cookie on nearly every front-end request, and a single
Set-Cookie header is enough for a CDN to skip its cache. FastestWoo
renders catalog pages identically for every anonymous visitor and moves the cart into
a server-side store addressed by a 128-bit token kept in localStorage,
so the page can be byte-for-byte the same for everyone and cached at the edge.
Per-visitor state such as the mini-cart count loads after the cached HTML has
painted. See the section above for the full explanation.
Will my prices go stale in the cache?
No. Changing a product's price, stock or status purges that product's URL along with the shop and category archives it appears on. Pages also carry a one-hour shared-cache lifetime as a backstop.
Is the cart token safe if it is not a cookie?
The token is 128 bits of random_bytes() entropy and is the only thing
addressing a cart, so guessing one is not practical. It is never written into the
cached HTML: the browser mints it and stores it locally, which is what keeps the
cached page identical for every visitor.
Can I use FastestWoo as a parent theme?
Yes. It is a classic PHP template theme, so child themes and standard template overrides work as expected.
What if I do not want to use Cloudflare?
The theme sets standard Cache-Control headers, which Varnish, Fastly,
nginx proxy_cache and browser caches all honour without any
vendor-specific setup. The Cloudflare integration is a convenience for the one thing
headers cannot do on that platform: Cloudflare will not cache HTML on headers alone,
it needs a cache rule.
Is FastestWoo free?
FastestWoo is currently in beta, and early adopters can download and use it at no cost while it is being finished. A paid tier is planned for after the beta. Details live on the pricing page.