Super Speedy Performance Analysis

Free performance analysis for WordPress and WooCommerce. Finds which plugins are costing you SQL time, RAM and page speed, with evidence.

Download the plugin zip from the Releases page. Once installed it checks for its own updates, so new versions appear on your Plugins screen like any other update.

What it does

Most performance tools tell you your site is slow. This one tells you who is making it slow, and proves it.

• Profiles your key pages - home, shop, archives, search, checkout, wp-admin lists and editors - with a lean built-in profiler. No Query Monitor required, and zero overhead on normal traffic: the capture layer is completely inert unless a request carries a signed profiling token.
• Attributes the cost to individual plugins and your theme: SQL time, query counts, returned rows, HTTP API time and peak RAM per plugin, per page, using shared-library-aware call-stack attribution (a plugin is never blamed for a vendor library another plugin called into).
• Plain-English findings: the slowest queries and who ran them, queries fetching hundreds of rows, N+1 query loops, blocking HTTP calls during render, autoload bloat, queries with no usable index (via EXPLAIN) and more - each with a recommendation.
• Plugin Impact Analysis measures, rather than infers. Suspects are virtually disabled for the plugin's own test requests only - visitors always get the full site, nothing is ever really deactivated - and each plugin's true cost is the measured difference. Plugins that speed your site up show up as measured savings.
• "Analyse this page" in the admin toolbar profiles the exact URL you are looking at and shows where the time went in a results panel: request phases, per-plugin costs, slowest queries, all expandable in place.
• Checkout and order analysis never touches a catalogue product. It reuses one hidden, non-stock-managed SSPA product, follows only same-origin redirects and keeps TLS certificate verification enabled while measuring the purchase and order-management requests.
• Function-level profiling when the free excimer PHP extension is present: every profile gains a by-function breakdown with self and inclusive time, attributed to its plugin or theme - including inside theme template files. The Tools tab generates the exact install commands for your server (or a ready-to-paste message for your host).
• Real database numbers where available: MySQL performance_schema digests reveal rows actually examined versus returned, catching hidden full scans no other measurement sees. The Tools tab writes out the one read-only GRANT needed.

For AI agents and the command line

The whole plugin is drivable without the GUI:

• WP-CLI: wp sspa run, wp sspa status, wp sspa findings, wp sspa impacts, wp sspa report, wp sspa cache-optimisation-report and the experimental wp sspa traffic start|status|stop|observations|compare|delete commands - JSON output throughout.
• WordPress Abilities API (WP 6.9+) with the same surface, exposed through the one shared Super Speedy MCP bridge without AI Engine or the WordPress MCP Adapter.
• SKILL.md teaches Claude-based agents the install -> run -> interpret workflow; .kb/agent-instructions-openai.md is the OpenAI equivalent. The report schema is documented in .kb/agent-api.md.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.2+ (6.9+ only for the Abilities API surface), PHP 7.4+
• Working loopback requests (the plugin detects security layers that block them and names what to whitelist)
• A writable wp-content/ for the conditional db.php drop-in and mu-plugin loader, both inert for normal traffic and removed cleanly on uninstall

The History tab includes an opt-in Delete all SSPA data when the plugin is deleted switch. When enabled, uninstall drops the profiling tables and removes SSPA options, transients, scheduled events, the hidden checkout product and the low-privilege test customer.

Installation

1. Download the zip and upload it via Plugins -> Add New -> Upload, or unzip into wp-content/plugins/.
2. Activate it through the Plugins menu.
3. Go to Super Speedy -> Performance Analysis and run your first analysis.

Or install the public release zip directly over SSH with WP-CLI:

wp plugin install https://github.com/superspeedyplugins/super-speedy-performance-analysis/releases/latest/download/super-speedy-performance-analysis.zip --force --activate

--force replaces an existing or incomplete copy. If WP-CLI is deliberately being run as root, add --allow-root to the end of the command.

Documentation

The knowledge base lives at superspeedyplugins.com/kb/super-speedy-performance-analysis/ - getting started, understanding results (including the attribution trap every profiler has), methodology, security whitelisting and the function-level profiling guide. The article sources are in .kb/ in this repo.

Community sharing

Sharing anonymised results is strictly opt-in, and the Share tab shows the exact payload before anything is sent. Never shared: your domain, URLs, raw SQL, emails or customer data - your site is a random ID. The public community database this feeds is still being built.

Licence

GPLv3. The plugin is free and the download is ungated.