Hummingbird

Item: Hummingbird
Rating: 4.7
Author: Fast WordPress

by WPMU DEV

Scans a page, ranks what is slowing it down and then applies caching, minification and critical CSS fixes.

4.71,487 WordPress.org reviewsPerformanceFreemium

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What Hummingbird does

Scans a page, ranks what is slowing it down and then applies caching, minification and critical CSS fixes.

It sits in the performance part of a WordPress stack and is sold by WPMU DEV on a freemium basis. We recommend it in our performance guides because it does that one job well without asking you to rebuild the rest of the site around it.

Every plugin adds work to a page request, so treat this as a decision with a cost. Record a speed test before you install it and run the same test afterwards, on the same page, so you know exactly what it charged you.

Real user ratings

Score

4.7/5

Reviews

1,487

Active installs

70,000+

Downloads

5.8M

Latest version

3.21.2

Last updated

2026-09-01

These figures come straight from the public WordPress.org plugin directory API for version 3.21.2, not from us. Check them yourself on the WordPress.org listing. Our own editorial score is 4.7/5.

Where Hummingbird ranks elsewhere

Hummingbird does not appear in the published "best of" lists we track from WPBeginner, TechRadar, Kinsta, Themeisle and similar sites. That is not a mark against it - those roundups are short and skew towards the biggest names.

What changed in the latest version

v3.21.2Latest release2026-09-01

Fix: Performance Test Notification Report is not sent
Fix: Security hardening

v3.21.12026-09-01

Fix: Network-scoped option writable by a subsite administrator

v3.21.02026-09-01

Improvement: Improved Safe Mode UX and stability
Fix: JavaScript delay exclusion list not working as expected
Fix: Disabling Safe Mode after changing Advanced Tools settings does not refresh or clear active state
Fix: Divi hamburger menu unresponsive when Delay JS is enabled
Fix: Divi blog post featured image failing to load
Fix: Safe Mode notice incorrectly shown when the feature is not enabled
Fix: Console error when removing a file from Asset Optimization exclusions

Release notes are the developer's own words, published on WordPress.org. Read the full changelog

Pros and cons

The scan explains each fix in plain language
A free tier you can trial before paying
Actively maintained and used on production sites we test

Full asset optimisation needs the paid membership
The features most sites need sit in the paid tier

How to use it

1Record a baseline with our speed test before you change anything.
2Activate the plugin with its default settings and clear every cache layer.
3Re-run the test on the same page and template to see the real delta.
4Turn on one optimisation group at a time, testing after each change.
5Add exclusions for cart, checkout and logged-in pages.

How it compares

Other performance plugins we recommend, with their rating and pricing model.

Plugin	Our rating	WordPress.org	Pricing	Best for
Hummingbird	4.7	4.7 (1,487)	Freemium	The scan explains each fix in plain language
AMP	3.9	3.8 (367)	Free	Very fast mobile pages by construction
Autoptimize	4.7	4.7 (1,428)	Free	Free asset optimisation that pairs with any cache
Breeze	3.6	3.6 (126)	Free	Works well on Cloudways servers with Varnish
Jetpack	3.7	3.7 (2,407)	Freemium	One plugin replaces several smaller ones
WP Super Cache	4.3	4.3 (1,346)	Free	Simple, dependable static caching with no licence