Does s2member make sites slow?

I’m taking a look at s2member — I have it running, and my site is very slow — it’s taking on average about 9 or 10 seconds to load.

This is the site: http://richardclunan.net

I want to figure out if the s2member plugin is causing it to be slow. And whether there are other faster plugin options…

3 questions:

1. Are there particular settings or things specific to s2member that I should take care of to ensure s2member doesn’t make my site slow?

2. If I deactivate the plugin to test the speed of the site with the plugin deactivated, will that mean I’ll have to respecify s2member settings when I reactivate it? After it’s reactivated will members’ accounts work ok?

3. Anybody have observations on s2member or other wordpress membership site plugins and their affect on site speed?

Hi Richard,

Please see my replies below:

1. Are there particular settings or things specific to s2member that I should take care of to ensure s2member doesn’t make my site slow?

No, the default settings are optimal.

2. If I deactivate the plugin to test the speed of the site with the plugin deactivated, will that mean I’ll have to respecify s2member settings when I reactivate it? After it’s reactivated will members’ accounts work ok?

As long as Deactivation Safeguards are enabled (see Dashboard -› s2Member® -› General Options -› Deactivation Safeguards), you can disable s2Member and then re-enable it with no loss of settings.

3. Anybody have observations on s2member or other wordpress membership site plugins and their affect on site speed?

I looked at your site and it loaded very quickly. I tried several pages and all of them loaded within 1 second. If it’s really taking 9 to 10 seconds for you, then I suspect it’s a problem with your computer or your internet connection.

Thanks Raam,

I’ve tested this approx 150 times and I’m getting the same result.

I’m not testing with my internet connection. I’m testing using site-speed services, at different locations around the world, at different times of the day.

With the s2member plugin activated, the site typically takes between 9 and 12 seconds to load. Often around 12 seconds. Often more than that.

With the s2member plugin deactivated, the site typically takes between 1 and 2 seconds to load.

I’ve tried deactivating all plugins except s2member, and this doesn’t help — so I guess that indicates the problem is not a conflict with plugins.

Any ideas?

I asked about this on another forum and somebody said that my site is connecting to s2member.com — He said he runs s2member and it doesn’t connect to s2member.com, and his site is faster.

I’m not sure exactly what that means. Does that make any sense?

Is there something I can do to make my site not connect to s2member.com ?

Does the upgrade work in a different way re this?

My site is http://richardclunan.net

I *think* his site is http://articleleaf.com/

Richard, the badge would try to connect to s2member.com. Although I don’t see it displayed in your site, I see it in the source code. Try disabling the badge and see if it makes a difference: [hilite path]Dashboard -› s2Member® -› General Options -› Security Badge[/hilite]

Then it’d be good to find out why your site is having trouble with it. Please follow the tips in this article: Knowledge Base » Common Troubleshooting Tips

I hope that helps. :)