Forge12 Interactive GmbH

F12 Profiler analyzes your WordPress site comprehensively and delivers concrete, prioritized recommendations to improve load times. The plugin combines server diagnostics, asset analysis, database optimization, and plugin impact assessment in a modern, clean interface.
<h4>Features</h4>
Analysis & Diagnostics
<ul>
<li>Server analysis (PHP, MySQL, OPcache, web server, SSL, HTTP/2, compression)</li>
<li>Automatic site crawler with load time measurement (desktop & mobile)</li>
<li>Asset analysis (CSS, JS, images) with optimization potential</li>
<li>OPcache status & configuration recommendations</li>
<li>PHP profiler (runtime, queries, hooks, plugin ranking, culprit analysis)</li>
<li>Plugin impact analysis (assets, hooks, queries per plugin)</li>
<li>PageSpeed Insights integration (Lighthouse Scores + Core Web Vitals + CrUX)</li>
<li>Performance score with 6 weighted categories (A-F grades, trend delta)</li>
<li>Recommendation engine with automatic optimization suggestions</li>
</ul>
Optimization Tools
<ul>
<li>Lazy Loading (images and iframes)</li>
<li>Font Display Optimization (font-display: swap/optional/fallback/block)</li>
<li>Script Defer Manager (automatic defer for scripts with exclusion list)</li>
<li>Auto Image Dimensions (prevents Layout Shifts / CLS)</li>
<li>HTML Minification (whitespace, comments, empty attributes)</li>
<li>CSS/JS Minification (file-based cache)</li>
<li>WordPress Bloat Removal (emojis, embeds, Dashicons, jQuery Migrate, XML-RPC, Heartbeat, and more)</li>
<li>Browser Cache (.htaccess-based)</li>
<li>DNS Prefetch & Preconnect (domain detection from asset scan)</li>
<li>Database Analysis (8 categories with detail view)</li>
<li>Autoload Manager (granular wp_options management)</li>
<li>Background Asset Scanner with conflict detection</li>
<li>File-based Page Cache with TTL and URL exclusion (Pro)</li>
<li>CSS/JS Asset Manager – disable, defer, async per page or globally (Pro)</li>
<li>Conditional Loading – shortcode, block, regex, archive, login status, post type, plugin (Pro)</li>
<li>Smart auto-suggestions with source-based plugin detection after full scan (Pro)</li>
<li>Asset Preload Manager – Link headers for critical assets (Pro)</li>
<li>Critical CSS Generator & Applier – above-the-fold CSS per template (Pro)</li>
<li>Unused CSS Removal – per page template, safelist, regex safelist (Pro)</li>
<li>WebP Image Conversion with batch queue and backup (Pro)</li>
<li>LQIP Image Placeholders – 20px blur-up previews with IntersectionObserver (Pro)</li>
<li>Preload Key Requests – LCP images, fonts, critical resources (Pro)</li>
<li>Script Delay – delays third-party JS until first user interaction (Pro)</li>
<li>Local Google Fonts – GDPR-compliant WOFF2 self-hosting (Pro)</li>
<li>YouTube/Vimeo Facade – thumbnail + play button instead of iframe (Pro)</li>
<li>Database Cleanup – one-click per category or bulk action (Pro)</li>
<li>Redis Object Cache Management – drop-in installation/removal (Pro)</li>
<li>Scheduled Crawls & Cleanups via WP-Cron (Pro)</li>
<li>Performance Budgets with email/webhook notifications (Pro)</li>
<li>Settings Import/Export as JSON (Pro)</li>
<li>One-Click Optimizer – automated optimization with backup & restore (Pro)</li>
<li>License Management with activation/deactivation (Pro)</li>
</ul>
User Interface
<ul>
<li>Modern iOS-style design system</li>
<li>React 18 + TypeScript SPA</li>
<li>30+ pages/tools with dedicated configuration</li>
<li>Context-sensitive info sections on all pages</li>
<li>Pro features visible with lock icon and upgrade prompt</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://www.forge12.com/f12-profiler-pro/" rel="nofollow ugc">Get F12 Profiler Pro</a>
<h4>System Requirements</h4>
<ul>
<li>WordPress 6.0 or higher</li>
<li>PHP 8.0 or higher</li>
<li>MySQL 5.7 / MariaDB 10.3 or higher</li>
</ul>

F12 Profiler

Excellent! After P3 doesn’t work with PHP7+ anymore, F12 seems finally the one stepping in to fill that gap.

Update [18-Jun-19]. After some small contributions of mine to the dev efforts, the plugin developer has decided to add me to the team, long after this review was written.

Finally an alternative to P3

Comprehensive WordPress performance analysis with crawling, load time measurement, server diagnostics, and integrated optimization tools. Free.

Tonya Mork

This WordPress plugin is a wrapper for the <a href="https://kint-php.github.io/kint/" rel="nofollow ugc">Kint</a> PHP Debugger utility version 1.x. Now instead of using var_dump() or print_r(), you simply use d() with zero, nadda, no formatting required.
Use this tool when you are debugging your website, in place of <a href="http://php.net/manual/en/function.var-dump.php" rel="nofollow ugc">var_dump()</a>, <a href="http://php.net/manual/en/function.print-r.php" rel="nofollow ugc">print_r()</a> and <a href="http://php.net/manual/en/function.debug-backtrace.php" rel="nofollow ugc">debug_backtrace()</a>.
<h4>Handy Tools</h4>
Some handy tools just for the PHP Developer:
<ul>
<li><code>d( $var );</code> to render a collapsible UI container which displays your variable data in “the most informative way”</li>
<li><code>ddd( $var );</code> same as d() except that it also executes <code>die()</code> to halt execution.</li>
</ul>
Here are some variations of <code>d()</code> to give you the display you want:
<ul>
<li><code>~d( $var );</code> outputs in plain text format.</li>
<li><code>+d( $var );</code> disregards depth level limits and outputs everything</li>
<li><code>!d( $var );</code> shows expanded rich output</li>
<li><code>-d( $var );</code> attempts to ob_clean() the previous output (dump something inside of HTML)</li>
</ul>
<h4>Profiler</h4>
Kint even includes a naïve profiler, which can help you analyze which blocks of code take longer than others:
<pre><code>Kint::dump( microtime() ); // just pass microtime()
sleep( 1 );
Kint::dump( microtime(), 'after sleep(1)' );
sleep( 2 );
ddd( microtime(), 'final call, after sleep(2)' );
</code></pre>
See <a href="https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/kint-php-debugger/screenshots/" rel="ugc">screenshot 2</a> for what is rendered out in your browser.
<h3>Admin Bar</h3>
“KINT ACTIVE” indicator displays in the WordPress admin bar to alert you when the plugin is active.

Kint PHP Debugger

Really like to debug with Kint, and this plugin makes it much easier.



Useful

Love this plugin. Displays more than var_dump does and is so much easier to read the output. Handy toggle to display more information is very helpful. Love that ddd() option to display and stop execution. Thank you!!!



Improves Workflow and Troubleshooting

Thanks for this plugin. It makes debugging my arrays of arrays of arrays much simpler. ;)

Works great!

Saves a lot of time when writing plugins and themes.
Thanks!

Update 2/11/2021 - even though this plugin hasn't had any updated in more than 2 years, it is still working just great.

Does what it says

Kint is a modern and powerful PHP debugging helper, which requires zero-setup and replaces var_dump(), print_r() and debug_backtrace().

F12 Profiler vs Kint PHP Debugger