Magento Performance Optimization: The Complete Checklist

Why Magento Performance Matters

A 1-second delay in page load time can reduce conversions by 7%. Magento's flexibility comes at a cost — a poorly tuned store can be slow. The good news: most performance wins are configuration, not code.

1. Enable All Cache Types

bin/magento cache:enable

Magento has 17 cache types. In production, all should be enabled. The most impactful:

• full_page — full-page cache (FPC), the biggest win
• block_html — individual block output
• config — merged configuration XMLs

2. Use Varnish for Full-Page Cache

The built-in FPC is good. Varnish in front of it is better — it serves cached pages without hitting PHP at all.

bin/magento config:set system/full_page_cache/caching_application 2
bin/magento setup:config:set --http-cache-hosts=varnish:6081

Our environments come with Varnish pre-configured and ready to enable.

3. Redis for Session and Cache Backend

Store sessions and the cache pool in Redis instead of the filesystem:

// app/etc/env.php
'session' => [
    'save' => 'redis',
    'redis' => [
        'host' => 'redis',
        'port' => '6379',
        'database' => '2',
    ],
],
'cache' => [
    'frontend' => [
        'default' => ['backend' => 'Cm_Cache_Backend_Redis', 'backend_options' => ['server' => 'redis', 'database' => '0']],
        'page_cache' => ['backend' => 'Cm_Cache_Backend_Redis', 'backend_options' => ['server' => 'redis', 'database' => '1']],
    ],
],

4. Elasticsearch Index Optimization

Run a full reindex regularly and optimize your Elasticsearch indices:

bin/magento indexer:reindex catalogsearch_fulltext
bin/magento indexer:set-mode schedule catalog_product_price

Setting indexers to schedule mode means they update asynchronously in cron instead of blocking the save operation.

5. JavaScript Bundling and Minification

bin/magento config:set dev/js/minify_files 1
bin/magento config:set dev/js/enable_js_bundling 1
bin/magento config:set dev/css/minify_files 1

For even better performance, consider Hyvä Themes which replaces RequireJS with Alpine.js and reduces JS payload by ~90%.

6. Database Query Optimization

Enable MySQL slow query log in your MagentoEnv environment to spot N+1 problems:

SET GLOBAL slow_query_log = 'ON';
SET GLOBAL long_query_time = 0.5;

Then use the Magento Profiler (?profiler=1 in dev mode) to correlate slow queries with specific page blocks.