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Super Light Cache Buster

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Super Light Cache Buster

by Mwale Kalenga

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Description

Can’t see the changes supposedly made by your developer? Or maybe you’re just tired of your site’s annoying cache? Use this plugin to cache a break!

With a compressed size of under 30KB, this simple plugin adds random version numbers to CSS & JS assets to prevent browser caching getting in the way of your happiness.

Super Light Cache Buster also prevents page caching by using Cache-Control directives.

You can completely disable the plugin from the settings page when you are not using it or keep it enabled if the site is under development. 😀

Available Hooks

Cache Buster is becoming more developer friendly. Below you can find the plugin’s first hooks and details about them.

slcb_allow_in_backend
  • Filters whether Cache Buster should run (randomize asset version numbers) in the back end.

  • Return true to enable Cache Buster. false is the default.

    slcb_version_name

  • Filters the version name for assets to allow using a custom version name (or number).

  • Return the version name e.g. you can use the value 2.0.1.
  • When this filter is in use, version numbers will not be randomized. Instead, you will have to change the version name manually to rename assets.
  • This filter overrides the “Version Name” setting in the dashboard.
  • The provided version name must be a valid query parameter. As a safety, if the provided string breaks any URLs, it will not be used.

Feedback

Do I have to clear my cache for the plugin to work?

Yes, you should clear your cache(s)! This plugin doesn’t clear pages that have already been cached (coming soon, shhh).

If you are still being served cached pages after activating the plugin, clear the cache at least once.

This will delete all pages/posts from the cache, and Cache Buster will prevent them from being cached again while the plugin is enabled :-).

Does this plugin work on Multisite?

No, Cache Buster hasn’t been tested on Multisite Networks.

  1. Upload the entire super-light-cache-buster folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
  2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
  3. Clear all caches on your site and server (hosting).
  4. Cache a break from caching :-).

One of the best plugins used so far

By VannDigital (VDN Staff) on March 28, 2025

We recently switched to WP Compress and the cache would stay stale even after content updates.

This plugin helped change that!!!

Nice

By Mark3121 on June 20, 2024

My litespeed cache has been driving me up the wall with browser cache not updating, this solved it

Lightweight and excellent support

By David Jensen (dkjensen) on March 18, 2024

Very useful plugin for development

Very good plugin

By restodo on March 3, 2024

Simple and works great. Thanks for this plugin.

You saved my life! :‎)

By Saif (babylon1999) on December 23, 2023

EZ 5 starts!

Perfect solution

By scmsteve on October 18, 2023

Especially after the update to allow a custom version string, either through a GUI setting or programmatic hook, this plugin fixes a persistent problem when doing site updates. Too often we have browsers holding onto cached CSS/etc after doing an update. We want them cached, but wanted a way to invalidate those when changes are made. This now allows us to use the version as a "point in time" refresh point. Caching will happen until we tell it a new version is installed. It works perfect for us. Thanks so much to Mwale for sharing this freely!

Very useful plugin

By John Webber (bilion) on June 4, 2023

Whether I'm working on the frontend or the backend, I don't want to change the version of my external files, each time I make a change.
If you're developing, this is a must-have!

Helpful!

By Sharif ME (smeunus) on November 22, 2022

Handy plugin while developing the site

works as intended

By Eduard Doloc (rwky) on January 21, 2021

works great, would be nice in the future to see for all assets (incl. images), not just css/js.

1.4.2

Release Date – October 19, 2025

Fixed

  • Removed WordPress 6.7 text domain compatibility warning.

1.4.1

Release Date – March 18, 2024

Fixed

  • Resolved PHP 8.2 deprecation warnings.

1.4.0

Release Date – October 17, 2023

Added

  • Introduce the “Version Name” setting to allow using a custom version name instead of a random one.
  • Apply a filter to the Version Name setting to allow overriding it.

Enhanced

  • Improve code architecture.
  • Add a link to SLCB settings next to the plugin description on the plugins screen.

1.3.0

Release Date – June 3, 2023

Added

  • Introduce a button to refresh the page without caching.
  • Apply a filter to determine whether Cache Buster runs in the wp-admin area.

1.2.0

Release Date – November 13, 2022

Added

  • Introduce Internationalization (Make Cache Buster translatable).
  • Introduce a notice to clear the cache when settings are saved.

Fixed

  • Patch XSS vulnerability.
  • Patch File-Handling vulnerability.

Enhanced

  • Improve inline code documentation.
  • Improve WordPress Coding Standards conformance.

1.1.2

Release Date – September 29, 2022

Fixed

  • Fix warning/error thrown when Cache Buster is uninstalled.

Enhanced

  • Use a static method when register_uninstall_hook is invoked.

1.1.1

Release Date – May 06, 2022

Enhanced

  • Don’t randomize asset version numbers in the admin area.
  • Hide Cache Buster’s status from non-admins.

1.1.0

Release Date – April 25, 2022

Added

  • Introduce plugin settings to enable/disable cache prevention and control its intensity.
  • Introduce a menu item to show Cache Buster’s status in the admin bar.
  • Introduce Cache-Control directives.

Enhanced

  • Delete database options when Cache Buster is uninstalled.
  • Improve overall code efficiency.

1.0.0

Release Date – June 24, 2020

  • Initial release
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