Two months ago, we quietly rolled out FlyingPress v5 as a private beta exclusively for our Facebook community group. The response has been incredible-we’ve received valuable feedback, tackled numerous issues, and introduced powerful enhancements. In just two months, over 14 million pages have already been optimized!
Introducing FlyingPress v5: Faster, Easier, Smarter
At FlyingPress, our core goal has always been to simplify WordPress speed optimization. With FlyingPress v5, we’ve taken a huge leap forward. By introducing advanced cloud-based optimizations, we eliminated the need for many manual configurations, making your experience simpler and your website faster.
All-New User Interface: Simplified and Intuitive
We completely redesigned FlyingPress to make it easier to navigate and use:
- A fresh, clean interface that’s intuitive and user-friendly.
- Real-time visibility of the number of URLs in your optimization queue.
- All optimization settings consolidated under a single tab for simplicity.
- Automatic saving of settings (without triggering cache purge or preload).
Powerful Cloud-Based Optimizations
FlyingPress v5 moves resource-intensive optimization tasks from your server to our robust cloud infrastructure, significantly reducing server load and enhancing performance. Here’s exactly how our cloud makes optimization easier:
Remove Unused CSS
Our cloud intelligently analyzes your pages in a real browser environment to detect and remove unused CSS – even CSS dynamically generated or altered by JavaScript. This keeps your stylesheets clean and lightweight while ensuring everything visible on load is styled properly.
Automatic Lazy Loading and Above-the-Fold Detection
Lazy loading is now smarter and easier than ever. With just a single checkbox in the settings panel, FlyingPress automatically:
- Detects which images, videos, and iframes appear above the fold.
- Excludes them from lazy loading to prevent delays in rendering critical content.
- Preloads critical visual assets to improve metrics like Largest Contentful Paint (LCP).
All of this is done via real browser rendering in the cloud, which allows FlyingPress to make accurate, content-specific decisions.
Background Image Preloading
CSS background images were always a challenge to optimize—they can come from inline HTML styles or be deeply embedded within CSS files. Identifying which background images load above the fold isn’t technically possible without rendering the page. With our new cloud optimizer, FlyingPress detects background images that appear in the above-the-fold viewport and preloads them automatically. This ensures faster paint times and a smoother loading experience.
Improved JavaScript Execution Delay
The JavaScript delay system in FlyingPress v5 has been completely reworked for greater accuracy and compatibility. Our new “Load when idle” feature defers non-critical JavaScript until the browser is idle. This means faster initial page rendering and significantly better Interaction to Next Paint (INP) scores. Best of all, it works seamlessly with most themes, plugins, and builders out of the box.
Automatic Third-Party Script Detection
FlyingPress now automatically detects third-party scripts and requests—such as those from analytics, ads, and social widgets—and delays them until user interaction (like scroll, click, or tap). There’s no longer a need to manually specify or whitelist third-party domains, making setup faster and more foolproof.
Automatic YouTube Thumbnail Optimization
FlyingPress scans each embedded YouTube video, finds the best available thumbnail resolution, and self-hosts it—ensuring fast loading while avoiding unnecessary third-party requests. This feature previously required a custom filter, but is now completely automatic.
Automatic Font Preloading
Forget manually specifying font URLs. Our system automatically identifies fonts actively used on your page and preloads them, improving render speed and ensuring text appears without delay.
Smart Lazy Rendering
We automatically detect ideal non-critical elements to be lazily rendered and assign their dimensions in advance. This prevents layout shifts and helps improve Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) scores.
Optimized Separately for Mobile and Desktop
Since mobile layouts are often very different from desktop, FlyingPress v5 creates two distinct sets of optimizations. This ensures the best possible performance on every type of device.
Robust and Reliable Cloud Infrastructure
Our cloud optimization engine is globally distributed, with API endpoints deployed in:
- Los Angeles, USA
- Washington D.C., USA
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Frankfurt, Germany
- Singapore
- Mumbai, India
Each of these regions is equipped to autoscale based on demand, ensuring consistent performance even during traffic spikes. We continuously monitor traffic and performance, and will expand to additional regions as needed.
What if the Cloud API Goes Down?
No worries—your site will still run smoothly. If our cloud services are temporarily unavailable:
- Unoptimized or uncached pages will be served without error.
- Once the cloud is back online, optimizations automatically resume in the background.
Browser-Native Link Preloading (Speculation Rules)
FlyingPress now uses native browser speculation rules to intelligently preload links as users hover or scroll. This makes navigation faster by preloading the pages a user is likely to visit next. If this feature is enabled, FlyingPress also disables WordPress’s built-in speculation rules to avoid conflicts and ensure the best possible performance.
Reduced Server Load
With most heavy processing handled in the cloud—including CSS cleanup, JS delay handling, and above-the-fold analysis—your server is freed from these tasks. This leads to significantly lower resource usage, making FlyingPress v5 ideal for high-traffic sites.
Updated Documentation for v5
To support the release of FlyingPress v5, we’ve completely rewritten our documentation. The new docs are more detailed, example-driven, and easier to follow than ever before. Whether you’re a beginner or a power user, you’ll find everything you need to get the most out of FlyingPress v5.
Explore the new documentation at docs.flyingpress.com
For a full list of all improvements and technical changes, check out our detailed changelog.
How to Upgrade from v4 to v5
To make your transition to v5 hassle-free:
- Test the update on a staging site before going live.
- Review your optimization settings in the new UI.
- You no longer need JS delay exclusions—our new system handles almost everything automatically.
- Ensure your site is publicly accessible (no HTTP authentication, login walls, or captchas).
- Finally, don’t forget to purge and preload the cache to regenerate all optimizations.
FlyingPress v5 brings together smart automation, cloud power, and simplicity – all designed to give you the fastest, most seamless WordPress experience possible. Upgrade today and take your site performance to the next level!