Speed up your store

Speed up your store by combining, compressing and caching Javascript and CSS files.

Fooman Speedster combines multiple Javascript and CSS files into a single Javascript file and single CSS file, for faster page load times.

This reduces the total size of files to be loaded, as well as the number of HTTP requests (for both empty and primed caches).

A faster customer experience

Page load speed is a big factor in how long customers spend browsing your store. Faster page load times have been proven to improve customer satisfaction and increase sales.

Fooman Speedster speeds up your store, delivering an improved customer experience to keep customers browsing your store for longer. 

Feature List

• Fully automated once installed, with automatic versioning when Javascript/CSS files are updated
• Compresses files without requiring gzip support on your server
• Creates far future expire headers for the combined Javascript and CSS files
• Multi store capable
• Uses the Minify library by Steve Clay (released under a BSD license)

Fooman Speedster is now controlled by an advanced self testing framework. You can only enable Speedster once the configuration has been set up correctly and all self tests run successfully.

Note that the self test does not include testing for existing Javascript errors on your site - it's still important to do this separately before installing Fooman Speedster (see below for details).

Before/After Comparison

System Requirements

Fooman Speedster works out of the box using an Apache platform run on Linux. In addition:

• Mod_rewrite (a standard Apache module installed by default on most Linux servers) must be enabled
• .htaccess must be supported
• CSS images must be available under the same domain as the store
• No existing Javascript errors on the store

Several developers have also successfully installed Fooman Speedster on different platforms by adapting the installation process. For further reading see Configuring nginx for Magento documentation.

Is Fooman Speedster Right for my Store?

Fooman Speedster is a free extension which has been tested with the default Magento themes and successfully installed on thousands of Magento stores. However, there is always a risk that minifying and combining Javascript files can produce Javascript errors. We do not recommend using Fooman Speedster without thorough testing on a test site if:

• Your store already contains minified files
• Significant Javascript customisation work has been done on your store and the added non-default Javascript files do not follow best practice Javascript (you can test with http://jslint.com/)
• Your store uses Jquery (or has extensions installed which use Jquery) - although a workaround is provided in the instructions, almost 100% of reported errors are from stores which also use Jquery

Customer Case Study

Meanbee are a small and talented team of eCommerce developers with Magento Certified Developer and Frontend Developer certifications - the gold standard of Magento developer competence. Working with Magento since its beta version in 2007, Meanbee developers have deployed over thirty successful sites. In addition to full-site builds, Meanbee are also active in the Magento extension market.

Meanbee uses Fooman Speedster as a standard installation on client store builds. "It's simply the best asset merging technique out there for Magento. It's very well thought out and implemented", Meanbee Managing Director Tom Robertshaw.

Featured In

• The Golden Master List of Magento Performance Enhancements (by Mark Shust)
• Ten Killer Magento Extensions (by Ebay Developers Program)
• 7 Worthy Magento Extensions (by Practical Ecommerce)
• Top 10 must-have free Magento extensions (by Neweb)
• Fooman Speedster gives Magento Legs (by Neuerfindung) - in German