Share Your Favorite Plugin: Slimpack

When you want to use the Jetpack WordPress plugin, but the site(s) you're creating can't connect to WordPress.com, take a look at the Slimpack – Lightweight Jetpack plugin.

Slimpack is a lighter version of Jetpack, with no requirement for a WordPress.com account.

I learned about Slimpack at our November 2016 Metro Detroit WordPress meetup when one of our members, Jim Luke, did a short talk and demo.

Slimpack – Lightweight Jetpack

According to the developer, Slimpack offers faster performance than Jetpack. In addition, it includes many, but not all, of the modules Jetpack offers.

And it does it without requiring a WordPress.com account.

As Luke explained in his demo, the reason he chose Slimpack was because setting up Jetpack with WordPress.com accounts in a WordPress multisite environment is problematic.

With his higher education work setting up multisite environments, Luke needed to find another solution that offered fast performance with a wide range of modules, but no need to connect to WordPress.com.

Why Choose Slimpack?

Fast performance

No need to connect to WordPress.com

15 modules offer similar functionality to Jetpack

How the Plugin Works

Once the plugin is installed, be sure to deactivate Jetpack before you activate Slimpack.

After Slimpack has been activated, you'll find a new Slimpack menu option available in Settings.

If you previously installed Jetpack, all your settings and module status will be enabled (for the modules Slimpack supports) and work as they did in Jetpack.

If you weren't using Jetpack previously, enable the modules you would like to use on your site(s).

What You Need to Know

As of December 2016, Slimpack supports the following modules:

Carousel

Contact Form

Custom CSS

Custom Content Types

Gravatar Hovercards

Infinite Scroll

Beautiful Math

Markdown

Omnisearch

Sharing

Shortcode Embeds

Site Icon

Site Verification

Widget Visibility

Widgets

Some other items to know about Slimpack:

Slimpack doesn't support all the modules that Jetpack supports. For example, if you want the Tiled Galleries, Photon, or Site Stats modules, you'll need to use Jetpack

Slimpack is not compatible with Jetpack. Only one of the plugins can be activated at a time.

VaultPress doesn't work with Slimpack

Summary

For WordPress users who like the different modules that Jetpack offers, but don't want to or can't connect to WordPress.com, Slimpack is a good alternative.

In addition, you may find your site performance improves.

Have you used Slimpack? Or have you found another method to provide similar functionality that Jetpack offers? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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