Question: I have Redis Object Cache activated on my server, but the WooCommerce cart doesn't feel any faster at all. Why is that?
This FAQ is not about asset unloading, CSS/JS optimization, Redis, page caching, or frontend rendering. It discusses a different layer of WordPress performance: preventing unnecessary plugin execution before the main document is generated. LiteCache Rush is mentioned because it is the implementation used here to explain this execution-layer approach.
Answer:
Because Redis Object Cache solves a different problem than the one slowing down your cart.
Redis is a database cache. It stores the results of database queries in memory so that identical queries don't have to hit MySQL repeatedly. That is genuinely useful - but it only helps where repeated, identical database queries are the bottleneck.
Your WooCommerce cart is not primarily a database query problem. It is an execution problem.
Every cart request still triggers a full WordPress bootstrap. Every active plugin still loads. Every hook still fires. Every service container still initializes. Redis sits further down the stack - it can only help after all of that has already happened. By the time Redis gets involved, WordPress has already done the expensive part.
Think of it this way: Redis makes certain database lookups faster once WordPress is already running. It does nothing to reduce how much of WordPress runs in the first place.
The WooCommerce cart is also structurally resistant to object caching benefits because cart data is inherently session-specific. Your cart is not my cart. There are no repeated identical queries to cache across users - every cart interaction is unique to that visitor, that session, that moment.
So Redis helps your site in general - it is worth having - but it cannot address the root cause of cart slowness, which is the volume of unnecessary code executing on every single cart request.
That root cause requires a different approach: reducing what loads before WordPress runs, not accelerating what happens after it already has. LiteCache Rush applies exactly this principle - intervening before the bootstrap to ensure that only the plugins genuinely needed for cart functionality are loaded for those requests. Everything else is prevented from executing entirely.
Redis makes the database faster. Rush makes the execution leaner. They solve different problems - and for WooCommerce cart performance, execution is where the real bottleneck lives.