This plugin is meant to be used in situations where file-based caching is either not practical, or is not desired. According to Andy, development testing showed a 40x reduction in the time it took to generate pages. Pages that were generated in 200ms ended up being served from the cache in only 5ms.

Batcache uses Memcached to store and serve rendered pages. It’s not as fast as Donncha’s WP-Super-Cache but it can be used where file-based caching is not practical or not desired.

The basic premise of the plugin works similar to the other caching plugins that are available:

Batcache is aimed at preventing a flood of traffic from breaking your site. It does this by serving old pages to new users. This reduces the demand on the web server CPU and the database. It also means some people may see a page that is a few minutes old. However this only applies to people who have not interacted with your web site before. Once they have logged in or left a comment they will always get fresh pages.

Andy has also noted that the following features could be implemented in future versions of the plugin:

• Comments, edits, and new posts will trigger cache regeneration
• Online installation assistance
• Configuration page
• Stats

So if WP-Cache or WP-SuperCache is not helping your situation, give Batcache a try and please, let us know how it works for you in the comments.