Everything You Need… But… Think Twice.

The plugin, itself, is nice. It’s big and could be made more intuitive/user-friendly, but it is nice. I would not, however, install it prior to a site being completely developed and ready for launch, as all the caching and latent files even when disabled going on during development can become a real nightmare. Better to install it after the fact so pinpointing what it is about the plugin messing something up can be more easily isolated then disabled. And even then, be prepared for yourself or someone on staff to have to dedicate a considerable amount of time learning the things’ in-and-outs.

This is not to say that waiting for a site to be fully developed and dedicating the requisite time to the plugin will alleviate all worries, because it will not. In fact, W3TC is currently causing mixed content warnings and breaking SSL pages on our site even though we have “Disable CDN on SSL pages” enabled in Performance–>CDN–>Advanced. How to solve this, I don’t know. Neither does MaxCDN (our CDN provider). I’d like to know, but..

which brings me to why this review is 3 and not 4 stars:

We purchased the $150 Plugin Configuration and Theme Optimization package from these guys, then immediately decided we wanted to try WP Supercache before committing to such a massive plugin. An email received from Willie after the purchase was replied to, stating what our intentions were and that a refund needed to be processed since no work had commenced. A string of emails then ensued, wherein Willie, without actually saying so, gave every implication that no refund would be tendered until and unless he approved of why we wanted to try a different caching plugin. Being obviously unacceptable (if not surreal), the situation was bottom-lined for Willie and emphasis was placed on the expectation of an immediate refund. He replied, thanking us for the explanation given. 4 or 5 days passed from that point — no refund was made.

…More time passes, and as often happens in the website business, we were more pleased with the former plugin than with the latter (even though WP Supercache was not breaking SSL pages), so we re-installed W3TC. Good news for W3TC, right? So Willie was again contacted, letting him know that we would in fact be committing to W3TC and to respond letting us know if he’d still like to perform the configuration and theme optimization. And, if not, when we could expect our now-very-late refund…. nothing. Nada. We can’t get this dood to respond to anything. Days go by — absolutely no communication. More days go by. Nothing.

Once again: it’s a good plugin so long as you learn it; there are still caveats to that, however, as initially described in the opening paragraph. But as far as giving them money for anything, I would indeed, and at this point, have to strongly advise against it. In fact, these people have very little time left to respond to our correspondence(s) before we have no other option but to initiate a charge-back.

I am willing to change the given rating, up or down, depending on what happens next.

As an aside: I have yet to ask in the plugin’s support forum about the SSL page issue we’re having for 2 reasons: 1.) if this goes the way it looks like it is, we won’t be using the plugin — ergo, SSL pages problem solved; and 2.) after looking over the support forum, they do not appear all that responsive there, either. Time is money: I have to at this point conclude that I have wasted quite enough of both on what has been, and have every reason to believe would continue to be, an amateurish and woefully unrefined understanding of customer service and support.