WordPress Heartbeat API is a great feature and opens the door to some great possibilities for plugin developers. However in some cases, it can increase your CPU usage and slow down your website. In this article, we will show you how to limit Heartbeat API in WordPress or even completely stop it.
Introduced in WordPress 3.6, Heartbeat API allows your browser to communicate with the server using AJAX calls when you are logged into WordPress admin area. This allows WordPress to show other authors that a post is being edited by another user and enable plugin developers to show you notifications in real-time.
This sounds great but if you have too many requests, then your server will slow down. Let’s take a look at how to limit or completely stop WordPress Heartbeat API.
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the Heartbeat Control plugin. Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Heartbeat Control to configure the plugin.
From the ‘Control heartbeat locations’ option, you can select where you want to control heartbeat settings. You can disable it on dashboard, allow it on post edit pages, or completely disable it everywhere.
The next option allows you to control the frequency of heartbeat. By default, heartbeat makes a post call every 15 seconds on post edit pages, and every minute on the dashboard. You can choose a higher frequency.
Click on the save changes button to store your settings. That’s all you have successfully limited heartbeat API calls on your site.
Disable Heartbeat API in WordPress Without a Plugin
If you are a single user on your site, and you are sure that you will not be needing any features made possible by the API, then you can disable it. You can use heartbeat control plugin, we mentioned above, or you can simply copy and paste this code snippet into your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin.
add_action( 'init', 'stop_heartbeat', 1 );
function stop_heartbeat() {
wp_deregister_script('heartbeat');
}
We hope this article helped you learn how to limit heartbeat API in WordPress. You may also want to checkout these tips and hacks to protect WordPress admin area.
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Jiří Vaněk
Can the heart beat have an impact on generating URLs in WordPress? I disabled the heart beat on my website using the WP Rocket plugin. Unfortunately, I then started experiencing that WordPress would “forget” the URLs of pages, and it began returning a 404 error for every existing page. I always had to regenerate the permalinks. However, the error reappeared after some time. In the end, turning the heart beat back on helped. After that, the issues stopped.
WPBeginner Support
It should not unless there is something specific to your site that is using the Heartbeat API to generate the post URL.
Admin
Jiří Vaněk
Yes, I do. I use Polylang for language mutations on the website. The issues occurred only in one language mutation, not in the other. I think the problem was in the URL because the English language mutation had “/en” in the URL, while the Czech mutation did not have this suffix at the end. Therefore, disabling the heart beat may have had such an effect. However, thank you for the response; at least I will know that I can disable the heart beat on another website without necessarily encountering such issues again.
Arize
Also i am running a membership site and so many people will be logged in at the same time. Is it OK to disable it?
Jaswinder Kaur
Nice article with good information!!
I want to use it for my site, but the plugin suggested by you, is not activated for a year. Please can you suggest something else.
Dave Kessler
Is there any possibility of this impacting SEO results?
O. Live
Yes!
Thank you so much. My site crashed last night, and after a couple of hours on support with HostGator told me that I needed to solve this issue.
Adding the plugin shaved two full seconds off homepage load time (4sec -> 1.9sec), and about 200kb off of total page size, and a 2-point bump in PageSpeed score.
THANK YOU.
WPBeginner Support
You are welcome
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Admin
Kien
I use the plugin kk star ratings follow your instructions are not removed admin-ajax.php
Blair2004
WPBeginner is not only about beginners tutorials…
Kate_H
This article, whilst informative, seems to be a little misplaced on a website named WPbeginner…