Opencart, cache and cloudflare.

Hello

I have checked many topics with complaints about OC cache issue.

I am new to making website, but I dont understand:

1. in my opinion online stores shouldn't be cached. I am afraid customers can for example buy products that are not already available or at old prices

2. cloudflare is caching the website, right? is it safe to use it in terms of caching?

konsash wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 12, 2019 10:06 am

1. in my opinion online stores shouldn't be cached.

No busy online store can work without caching, the load would be too high. And caching done right works great.

konsash wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 12, 2019 10:06 am

2. cloudflare is caching the website, right? is it safe to use it in terms of caching?

If you use CloudFlare and have the cache turned on, then yes. We use it on several sites and it works fine with OpenCart.

You should read this:
https://www.antropy.co.uk/blog/how-to-c ... t-3-0-2-0/

I would advise against the usage of CloudFlare, the latter has too many issues. Best example: 'opencart.com' itself, we even had to change our IP-address to access 'opencart.com' again, all issues caused by CloudFlare.

It's usually better to give it a careful thought of where the majority of your customers will be. Are they mainly from Europe, North America, Autralia etc? Then make sure your webhost is located at the right place!

And make sure to use proper OpenCart caching where it makes sense.

Thank you paulfeakins and JNeuhoff for replies. I now agree with paulfeakins that caching should be made right. But how to is a question.

I checked some posts on forum. People say one of the big differences between OC 2.x and 3.x is that 3.x has integrated caching tools.

So it means there will be, potentially, three things affecting my website caching -
1. Opencart integrated tools
2. Cloudflare
3. some extensions

The question is how to configure them correctly?

About hosting - my audience is from my home country only so website will be located in this country.
However my hosting provider doesn't protect from DDoS attacks. That's why I would like to keep CF.

In other words, what to do if CF is a must? (I will have some sensetive content in blog, subject to DDoS attacks)
Is that correct that Cloudflare caching cant be turned off? If so, should I and can I turn OC caching off?

Did you check the caching section in Cloudflare?

There are various levels of caching that can be changed.

Cloudflare caches images, JS and CSS

OpenCart's cache cache's DB generated content to reduce DB load

If your server has OPCache or similar enabled it will cache PHP code, etc

In theory all 3 caching should be able to work together and help speed up the site.

Third party caching extensions should not really be needed if you have the above already in place.

We have used this for several clients and it is very good:
https://isenselabs.com/products/view/ni ... -framework

I have seen this and suspect it would be good but have never tried it:
https://www.litespeedtech.com/products/ ... celeration

paulfeakins wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 13, 2019 6:51 pm

We have used this for several clients and it is very good:
https://isenselabs.com/products/view/ni ... -framework

I have seen this and suspect it would be good but have never tried it:
https://www.litespeedtech.com/products/ ... celeration

Sorry for bumping this topic Up. I was searching for free cache solutions plus is it good to use cloudflare for opencart.
Now to your response. Thanks for the first recommendation. I was searching for some info for the isenselabs plugin NitroPack.IO its payd...ish but also have a free version good for small website with not a lot of products other ways looks not so cheap.

And Litespeed opencart plugin will work ONLY on servers that are using LiteSpeed, on web host that does not have LiteSpeed Servers wont work at all.

I will give a try to CLoudflare as well.

Cloudflare caches images, JS and CSS

So does your browser, as such a CDN is only effective on first page load.
After that they slow you down by adding an additional hop and all the other security stuff they do before passing the request along to your server.
Only use a CDN if you value 1st page load speed above subsequent page load speed, need their security stuff or when you sell digital content and serve that via CDN.

paulfeakins wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 12, 2019 6:41 pm

konsash wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 12, 2019 10:06 am

1. in my opinion online stores shouldn't be cached.

No busy online store can work without caching, the load would be too high. And caching done right works great.

konsash wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 12, 2019 10:06 am

2. cloudflare is caching the website, right? is it safe to use it in terms of caching?

If you use CloudFlare and have the cache turned on, then yes. We use it on several sites and it works fine with OpenCart.

You should read this:
https://www.antropy.co.uk/blog/how-to-c ... t-3-0-2-0/

I know this is an old topic but I would appreciate advice in re: CloudFlare. We currently us on one of the OpenCart stores NitroPack. I know that NitroPack uses CloudFlare in their product so my question is do need NitroPack if I can just use CloudFlare?

You are probably fine with just using Cloudflare.

However, don't expect too much from Cloudflare. In our experience Cloudflare can sometimes slow down websites. Quite often, especially if your customer base is located in the same geographic area or country, you are better off with a decent local webhost.