Welcome to FrontPup, your CloudFront companion.

FrontPup allows you to maximize your WordPress website using the AWS CloudFront Content Delivery Network (CDN).

REQUIREMENTS

You must be using the Amazon Web Services (AWS) CloudFront service to utilize this plugin.

FrontPup Features

Non-intrusive Clear Cache (new) admin bar menu option, now you can clear the cache in any view without impacting other work.
Clear CloudFront Cache (creates an Invalidation request)
Utilize the new Cache Tags feature by WordPress post-type
Set no-cache headers for all pages (great for development or testing)
Set public and private Cache-Control headers for caching in CloudFront and Browsers
Set separate max-age (browser) and s-maxage (CloudFront) cache duration values

Non-intrusive Clear Cache (new)

The Non-intrusive Clear Cache admin bar menu option can clear your cache in any view without causing any disruption to your work. The Clear CloudFront Cache option is found under the “FrontPup” menu. Requests are performed behind the scenes. The returned status is added to the menu bar as an italics message in the menu. Feedback is reported with the icon to the left of the FrontPup menu option.

Turbocharge your WordPress Website with CloudFront

Using Amazon CloudFront in front of your WordPress website offers significant benefits by improving performance, security, and scalability. CloudFront is a Delivery Network (CDN) with over 750+ Points of Presence (PoPs) around the world plus over 1,100 PoPs within ISP networks. This highly optimized network makes it extremely efficient at delivering your website to your visitors anywhere around the world. “PoP” locations are designed to reduce latency by caching content closer to your site’s visitors.

Cache Tags by Post Type

The new Cache Tags in CloudFront paired with WordPress’s Post Types is a killer combination! If you have a lot of pages to your site and you only want to clear specific areas, this is the perfect option for you. For example, if you are using a custom post type for your shopping cart and you want to purge the cache for product pages but want your post and pages to not be impacted, this new feature is for you!

Performance

Faster Loading Times, static content (pages, images, CSS, JavaScript) is cached at “edge locations” around the world
Improved User Experience, Faster load times lead to higher user engagement, reduced bounce rates, and improved search engine optimization (SEO) rankings
Reduced Server Load, by serving cached content from edge locations, CloudFront minimizes requests to your WordPress website

When your website is optimized for performance your PageSpeed Lighthouse scores should improve.

Enhanced Security

DDoS Protection, includes AWS Shield Standard
SSL/TLS Security, force https only and includes free SSL Certificates
AWS WAF, a Web Application Firewall with a depth of options including specific WordPress protections (may incur additional costs)

You should achieve a grade of “A” on Qualys SSL Server Test when CloudFront is configured with the recommended TLSv1.2_2021 or newer security policy.

Scalability and Reliability

Global Reach with over 750 PoPs plus over 1,100 PoPs within ISP networks
High Availability, can serve cached content when site is down
Cost Efficiency, can be cost-effective, especially for websites with high traffic with the new CloudFront flat-rate pricing plans

Technology

IPv6, a superior protocol to IPv4 and in some regions of the world is the only protocol that is available
HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 improve web performance through faster loading speeds, enhanced security, and better resource handling
Gzip and Brotli compression, smaller file sizes improve application performance by delivering your content faster to visitors
Multi-Proxy, route specific path patterns to other web applications easily by adding additional “Origins”, allowing you to host more than just WordPress with the same hostname

Learn more about AWS CloudFront.

Developed by an AWS Community Builder

FrontPup is developed and maintained by Angelo Mandato, an AWS Community Builder. Angelo has been developing WordPress plugins and themes since 2005 and has been architecting applications including WordPress hosted on Amazon Web Services since 2007.