How-to · Beginner · 20 minutes
How to Enable LiteSpeed Caching
Everything you need to switch the server's cache engine on and prove it is actually serving hits — the steps in order, the snag to watch, and the tip our support desk gives everybody.
Straight answer first
In a line: switch the server's cache engine on and prove it is actually serving hits — a beginner-level task that takes 20 minutes.
Below you get the exact steps, the classic snag, and a tip from the support desk. Where our platform handles a step for you, the guide says so rather than making you do the robot's work.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
Beginner
Skill needed
5
Stages to finish
Free
Help included
Tested
On our own kit
You do not need to be technical for this. The walkthrough is written for first-timers, tested on our own platform, and honest about which parts are genuinely fiddly and which are merely unfamiliar.
Rule of the road: read the snag section before you begin rather than after. It is harvested from the tickets of people who did it the other way round.
The shape of the work
From start to finish, you will add the litespeed cache plugin, leave the defaults alone at first, check the response headers, confirm the exclusions are right and purge after design changes.
No stage needs code or a terminal unless the guide says so outright, and where it does, the exact commands are printed. The full step-by-step sits below; the sections around it give the context that makes it stick.
The classic snag
Judging the cache while logged in as an administrator. Admins bypass it by design, so the owner's browser is the one place the speed-up is invisible. Test logged out, or in a private window.
Forewarned really is forearmed here. This one mistake accounts for most of the frustration the subject produces, and it is entirely avoidable once somebody names it.
The tip we hand out to everybody
Pair page caching with the plugin's browser-cache headers. First visits are answered from the server cache, repeat visits skip the network entirely, and the two layers stack rather than overlap.
It costs a minute now and pays that back every time the job comes round again — which, like most hosting jobs, it certainly will.
What runs by itself here
Several steps in this guide exist only because hosting historically made you do them. On our plans SSL issues itself, backups run daily without being asked, and one-click installers replace the manual setup entirely. What is left is the part that is genuinely yours.
Stuck halfway through at an odd hour? That is exactly what round-the-clock human support is for — tell us where you are in this guide and we will pick it up from there.
The hosting this guide is written against
Every walkthrough on our how-to shelf is tested on the platform we actually run — cPanel, LiteSpeed, NVMe, one-click installs — so the instructions match your screen instead of gesturing vaguely at it.
SSL comes free with every plan and reissues itself before it lapses, so nobody has to diary the padlock.
- Step by step, tested exactly as printed
- The snag flagged before you reach it
- The dull steps are already automated
- People on hand at any hour if you stall
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
Scoped honestly
Switch the server's cache engine on and prove it is actually serving hits is a beginner-level task — this guide budgets 20 minutes and says which steps the platform absorbs.
Help on the counter
Stuck on step three at midnight? Support answers at any hour, mid-guide included.
Written from real tickets
Our guides come off the support desk, so the snags flagged here are the ones people genuinely hit.
5 steps, no filler
Each stage is a few minutes of steady clicking, with the fiddly parts marked as fiddly.
Works exactly as written
Every step tested on the platform we run — no 'your host may differ' hand-waving anywhere.
The undo is always named
Where a step could bite, the guide says so and tells you how to put it back again.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Add the LiteSpeed Cache plugin
On WordPress running atop our LiteSpeed servers, the plugin is the control panel for the server's engine. Install it, activate it, switch caching on.
- 2
Leave the defaults alone at first
The default lifetimes and rules suit most sites perfectly well. Resist the urge to tour every setting before you have confirmed the basics are working.
- 3
Check the response headers
Browser dev tools, network tab, look at the page's headers. x-litespeed-cache: hit on a second visit is your proof. A 'miss' every time means the configuration needs a look.
- 4
Confirm the exclusions are right
Cart, checkout and account pages exclude themselves automatically with WooCommerce. Check that they did, and add any custom dynamic addresses to the never-cache list.
- 5
Purge after design changes
Changes to design and content structure need a purge before anybody sees them. That button is the answer to most 'my changes are not showing' mysteries.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- A domain free for year one when you order annually
- Real people on the counter, every hour of every day
- A 30-day money-back guarantee on every hosting plan
- The Softaculous installer for one-click application setup
- SSH, Git and Composer on the plans built for developers
- Webmail in the browser plus IMAP, POP and SMTP for your own client
- One-click installs for WordPress and 400+ other applications
- A 99.9% uptime commitment, watched by monitoring day and night
- The renewal price printed on the tag matches the order price
- NVMe SSD storage on every shelf, not just the top one
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
The header says miss every time. What is wrong?
The usual order of causes: caching not actually enabled in the plugin, a cookie from another plugin marking every visitor as dynamic, or you are testing a page that excludes itself. The plugin's environment report tells you which one it is.
Will caching break my forms or my shop?
Configured properly, no. Form submissions post straight past the cache and commerce pages exclude themselves. The rare conflict — an expiring cached nonce, usually — is solved with one targeted exclusion, not by giving up on caching.
What if the site outgrows the plan I bought?
You move up in place. Plan changes are made from the client area with no migration and no downtime, and the range runs from small shared accounts through VPS to whole dedicated servers. Growing becomes a line change on your account rather than a hunt for a new host.
Can one plan hold more than a single website?
From the Pro tier upward, yes — several sites, each with its own domain, mailboxes and certificate, all under one account. If those extra sites belong to clients rather than to you, reseller hosting is the better fit: it gives each one proper separation.
Is there a refund if it does not suit?
Yes — thirty days. Put the hosting through real work, and if it is not right, ask for the money back and you get it; there is no retention script to survive first. Domain registrations are the one carve-out, because registries take that fee the moment the name is placed.
Can I set the PHP version myself?
Yes — PHP versions are chosen per site from the control panel, so an old application and a current one can sit side by side on the same account. Extensions and per-site settings live in the same screen, and none of it needs a support ticket.
Is the SSL certificate genuinely free?
On every plan, with nothing held back. The certificate is issued the moment your domain points here and reissues itself well before expiry. The encryption is the same as a paid DV certificate — paid tiers exist only for wildcard coverage or organisation validation, which most sites never need.
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