Drupal Advanced Caching Strategies

Drupal websites can be improved in performance using the caching technique. Caching enhances user experience since it reduces server load and improves page load times, which also improves SEO rankings. This guide is a complete one encompassing different caching strategies for Drupal 10 with examples from real world and detailed steps of implementation.

Why Caching is Important

Caching is essential for enhancing the user experience. Faster load times make browsing more enjoyable. Reducing Server Costs: Effective caching results in lower server loads and operational costs.
Improving SEO Rankings: Speed is a major determinant of search engine rankings.

Types of Caching Strategies in Drupal 10

1. Page Caching

Page caching involves storing the fully rendered HTML of a page, allowing it to be served to users without the need for dynamic generation each time. This is particularly useful for static pages or pages that do not change frequently.
Suppose that your corporate website’s “About Us” page rarely changes. By using page caching, the server can deliver this page almost instantly to users, reducing load times and server strain.

For enabling pages cache , you have to perform following steps in Drupal

Enable Page Cache Module:

Ensure the Page Cache module is enabled in your Drupal 10 installation.

drush en page_cache -y

Configuration

Navigate to /admin/config/development/performance and enable page caching.
Set the cache expiration time based on how often your content changes.

2. Block Caching

Block caching is the storage of already rendered blocks that are reusable pieces of content that can be displayed on various pages. This helps to decrease rendering of the same block several times.

A site wide footer having similar content on every page can benefit from the block caching feature. Rather than dynamically generating footer for each page request, it is cached and reused.

Drupal 10 has block caching built in. For individual blocks, you can configure caching settings.

Configure Cache Settings for Each Block:

When configuring blocks in the admin UI, set appropriate cache settings under the “Advanced” tab.
You can specify cache contexts, tags, and max-age to control the cache behavior.

3. Entity Caching

Entity caching is where rendered entities like nodes, taxonomy terms and users are stored. This is particularly true for sites with a lot of content that makes many database queries.

For example, a news website with thousands of articles might save rendered nodes using entity caching so they don’t have to re-render and query them again and again.

By default entity caching comes as part of Drupal 10 core.

Configure Entity Cache Settings:

Navigate to /admin/config/development/performance and configure entity caching settings.
Ensure that the “Render cache” and “Dynamic Page Cache” modules are enabled.

4. View Caching

View caching keeps the output created by views which are custom queries to the database that show lists of content. This means less pressure on your database leading to faster load times for your pages.

An e-commerce website with a “Latest Products” view can cache its output, thus avoiding running the same query against its database every time a user opens any page.

Configure Cache Settings for Views:

When creating or editing a view, go to the “Advanced” section and configure the caching settings.
Set appropriate cache lifetime and invalidation conditions.

5. Dynamic Page Cache

Dynamic Page Caches store aspects of web pages that are unlikely to change, yet still enable dynamic information to be shown. This strikes a balance between full page caching and serving up dynamic content.

A user dashboard may employ dynamic page caching to optimize performance when it includes both static content like welcome message and dynamic content like recent activity.

Enable Dynamic Page Cache Module

Ensure the Dynamic Page Cache module is enabled.

drush en dynamic_page_cache -y

Configuration

Navigate to /admin/config/development/performance and enable dynamic page caching.
Use cache contexts and cache tags to control what parts of the page are cached.

Advanced Caching Strategies And How To Pick The Right One

Configuring Cache Tags

Cache tags allows for fine-grained invalidation of cached contents which means you can remove specific sections of the cache without affecting other caches. That is especially useful for large websites with frequent updating contents.

Imagine an e-commerce site where prices of products change frequently. You can invalidate only the cache of changed products using cache tags without affecting any other part of the website.

Set Cache Tags in Code

Use the addCacheTags method in your custom modules or themes.

$render_array['#cache']['tags'][] = 'node:1';

Invalidate Cache Tags

Use the cache_tags service to invalidate specific cache tags.

\Drupal::service('cache_tags.invalidator')->invalidateTags(['node:1']);

Implementing BigPipe

BigPipe improves perceived performance by delivering the initial page content quickly, followed by the rest in a different manner. This technique was first used by Facebook and can greatly enhance user experiences on heavy content sites.

Bigpipe is often used on news websites so as to load static contents such as headlines or images first while loading personalized recommendations dynamically.

Enable BigPipe Module

Install and enable the BigPipe module.

drush en bigpipe -y

Configure BigPipe

Navigate to /admin/config/development/performance and enable BigPipe.
To use BigPipe in custom code, use the #lazy_builder property to mark parts of your render array as lazy-loaded.

$build['content'] = [  
  '#lazy_builder' => ['\Drupal\my_module\MyService::lazyBuilder', []],  
  '#create_placeholder' => TRUE,  
];

Leveraging External Cache Systems (Varnish)

Varnish is a reverse proxy that stores HTTP requests and from which there is a significant reduction in backend load. This works particularly well for highly trafficked websites.

To achieve this, the New York Times uses Varnish to process millions of requests every day so that their content can be quickly delivered throughout the world.

Implementation

Install Varnish: Follow the official Varnish installation guide .
Configure Varnish: Create a Varnish configuration file (default.vcl) according to your Drupal site.

vcl 4.0;  
backend default {  
  .host = "127.0.0.1";  
  .port = "8080";  
}

Integrate Varnish with Drupal: Configure Drupal to work with Varnish by enabling the varnish_purge module and setting cache headers.
Set Cache Headers: Modify your settings.php to include appropriate cache headers.

$settings['reverse_proxy'] = TRUE;  
$settings['reverse_proxy_addresses'] = ['127.0.0.1'];  
$settings['cache']['bins']['page'] = 'cache.backend.varnish';

Using Caching with Redis

Redis is an in-memory data structure store that doubles up as cache for accelerating database queries and other tasks. It has good performance plus low latency when dealing with voluminous amounts of data.

For instance, Stack Overflow uses Redis to keep its frequently requested pages in cache so as to serve millions of users faster with minimal latencies.

Implementation

Install Redis: Follow the official Redis installation guide .
Install and enable the Redis module.

composer require drupal/redis  
drush en redis -y

Modify settings.php: Add Redis configuration to your settings.php.

$settings['redis.connection']['interface'] = 'PhpRedis';  
$settings['redis.connection']['host'] = '127.0.0.1';  
$settings['cache']['default'] = 'cache.backend.redis';

Configure Redis for Session Storage: Modify your settings.php to use Redis for session storage.

$settings['session_storage'] = [  
  'class' => 'Drupal\redis\Cache\PhpRedis',  
  'name' => 'sess',  
];

Conclusion

This will make caching more advanced within Drupal 10 such that it can increase user experience, scalability as well as site speed. By using these tags in connection with BigPipe and other external cache systems like Redis and Varnish; Drupal sites will be highly optimized allowing them run at peak performances.

Therefore, based on the drupal community recommendations and best practices, the strategies mentioned in this guide are dependable and efficient enough.

So by following these advanced caching tips you can step up your Drupal site’s performance for a quicker user experience.

References

You May Also Like