CMS: Managing Data Caching for Your Collections
4 min
In this article
- Understanding CMS data caching
- When you should disable caching
- Enabling and disabling data caching
- FAQs
CMS data caching helps your site load faster by storing and serving data from a caching layer instead of directly from the database. This significantly reduces the load on your server and improves page load times for visitors.
However, caching can cause slight delays in showing updates to your site’s dynamic content. For example, if a visitor submits a comment or updates an item, it may take time for others to see the changes.
To solve this, you can now use a toggle in the CMS to turn caching off for your entire site's collection data. This ensures that data is fetched directly from the database and updates are reflected more quickly. By default, CMS data caching is enabled unless you turn it off in the CMS advanced settings.
Understanding CMS data caching
Caching in the CMS works by speeding up data requests through a caching layer that stores results temporarily, improving your site’s performance and load times. However, caching can cause slight delays in displaying live content updates. For example, if a site visitor submits a form or posts a comment, their updates might not appear immediately to others due to caching.
To minimize these delays, the caching system is designed to refresh periodically. Cached data is invalidated and refreshed whenever changes are made to the relevant collection, such as when adding or updating items. Additionally, the cache is cleared whenever you click Publish in your editor, ensuring the most up-to-date content appears on your site. Cached results are also automatically refreshed after one week, helping maintain data consistency.
Caching applies selectively under specific conditions. For example, it works when the data request doesn’t change items in the collection, the collection is created in the CMS (a native Wix Data collection), or the request is made on behalf of anonymous visitors. However, caching is bypassed if the request modifies the collection, includes Personally Identifiable Information (PII), or uses backend services. It’s also disabled for logged-in users, who always see the latest updates instantly and when item visibility is enabled.
For more detailed information about when caching is applied or bypassed, refer to the About Caching Data Query Results documentation.
When you should disable caching
Disabling caching is useful when your site involves updating dynamic content and displaying the updates as soon as possible. For example:
- Live comment sections: If updates need to appear quickly for anonymous visitors.
- Voting systems: Ensuring results are as up-to-date as possible.
- Dynamic marketplaces or event platforms: Reflecting frequent submissions, pricing updates, or user-inputted data.
If caching is disabled, data requests will bypass the caching layer and retrieve information directly from the database. This ensures that updates are displayed shortly after they are made. However, disabling caching may result in slower load times, especially for high-traffic sites, as direct queries take more time than cached reads.
If you're uncertain about disabling caching, consider testing it temporarily on your site to evaluate its effect on performance and update speed. You can log in to your live site to test it since logged-in users continue to see non-cached updates as soon as possible.
Enabling and disabling data caching
Go to your CMS settings to turn the Data caching toggle on or off.
Tips:
- Disabling caching applies to the entire site's CMS collections as long as the conditions for data caching are met. Learn more about when data caching occurs.
- Default caching is designed to maximize performance for most use cases. Disabling should only be done when updates need to be reflected on the live site as soon as possible.
To manage data caching:
- Go to CMS in your site's dashboard.
- Click the More Actions drop-down at the top and select Advanced Settings.
- Click the Data caching toggle to enable or disable caching on all your collections:
- Enabled: (Default) Caching is on, making collections load faster, but updates may take time to appear on the live site.
- Disabled: Caching is off, allowing updates to appear as soon as possible on the live site, though loading times may be slower.
FAQs
Click below for answers to common questions about caching your CMS data.
How does disabling caching impact site performance?
Can I selectively enable caching for specific pages or collections?
How does the caching toggle ensure data accuracy for frequently changing content?
What happens when cached data is invalidated (cleared)?
Does data caching apply to Wix App and Wix Form collections?
