Updated
Varnish Cache is an open-source HTTP accelerator. It is a reverse caching proxy that sits in front of your origin server and answers repeat requests from memory.[1]
Varnish is a high-performance HTTP reverse proxy and web application accelerator. It works by caching HTTP requests in memory, significantly reducing the load on web servers and databases. Varnish offers features like flexible configuration through its domain-specific language (VCL), health checking of backend servers, and support for various caching strategies. Its ability to handle high traffic loads and improve response times makes it popular among large-scale websites and content-heavy applications looking to optimize their performance and reduce server load.
Varnish belongs toCachingcategory.
156websites
use it — 6.1% of the 2,560 websites we scanned in the last 12 months
#1of 8
tools in its category seen in our scans (we recognize 20)
54public pages
on UptimeCard — open any of them to see how that site is doing
In short: a free cache you run yourself in front of your web server. You write the caching rules, so it suits teams that manage their own servers; it runs on Linux only.[1]
5.11% of all websites we track run Varnish▼ 0.02 points since 20 Sep
Should you use Varnish?
The 10-second version, from the vendor’s own pages and what we see in our scans
Support and help for Varnish
How the vendor says you can reach it, and the public help community
What Varnish sites add on top
How many of the 156 Varnish sites we scanned also run each tool, grouped by what the tool does
Tag manager
Google Tag ManagerAnalytics
Google Analytics
Facebook Pixel
Linkedin Insight TagCookie consent
OneTrustSearch visibility
Yoast SEOThe full bar means every Varnish site. A site can run several tools for one job, so the shares of tools in one group can add up to more than 100%.
How Varnish sites protect themselves
Share of the 156 sites we scanned that run each protection
HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) informs browsers that the site should only be accessed using HTTPS
reCAPTCHA26% · 40 sitesreCAPTCHA is a free service from Google that helps protect websites from spam and abuse
Protections add up, they do not replace each other: a site can run all of them.
What sites use Varnish for
An estimate from UptimeCard's technology map of 47 public sites
acquia.com · acumatica.com · allopneus.com
airship.com · bamboohr.com · blend.com
granicus.com
Rough guide, not a measurement: each description is written automatically from the site’s technology stack and the site has not confirmed it. A site is counted once, in the first group its description fits (shop, help and docs, blog, marketing site; otherwise the whole site). Descriptions that only guess (“likely”, “may”) are left out.
The speed trap: what fast Varnish sites do differently
52 public Varnish sites we measured, split by how fast their page loads
Fastest quarter
2.9 stypical page load time
2.3 MB page · 140 requests
Slowest quarter
8.4 stypical page load time
5.2 MB page · 133 requests
What differs between the two groups
At a glance
UptimeCard's own scans and tests of 2,560 websites · refreshed weekly
How Varnish sites scoreout of 100 · hover or tap a score for details
Page load time
Loads about 26% slower than the average site
Most Varnish sites load in 4.1–7.2 s. Home page weight: 2.9 MB vs 3.3 MB for all sites. 52 public sites measured.
Where are they hosted?
Mostly Fastly and Amazon Web Services
- Fastly50%
- Amazon Web Services11%
- Cloudflare9%
- Google Cloud7%
- Other22%
Who uses it?
Technology and Software is the biggest group
Share of 54 classified public sites. “× average” compares with all 961 public sites.
Browser-security check
57% of graded sites pass
8of 14 score B or better
Rates each site’s own security settings, not Varnish. 14 public sites graded so far.
How Varnish sites are built
Closest partners. The number says how many times more often the tool runs on Varnish sites than on an average website. Hover a partner for its share of sites.
MariaDB16×
Pantheon16×
Fastly16×
Drupal8×
Nginx3×Stacks we see most. Tools that tend to run together with Varnish on the same websites. The percentage is the share of all 156 Varnish sites that run the whole stack.
Varnish + Fastly + WordPress + OneTrust + Yoast SEO
Varnish + Fastly + Yoast SEO + WordPress Block Editor + Max Mega Menu
Varnish + Fastly + Drupal + Marko
Similar tools in its category
Caching: 20 tools known, 8 seen in our scans
WP Rocket81 sitesAlternative
Redis Object Cache12 sitesAlternative
W3 Total Cache11 sitesAlternative
Google PageSpeed7 sitesAlternative
WordPress Super Cache6 sitesAlternative
NitroPack2 sitesAlternative
RackCache1 sitesAlternative
Azure CDN0 sitesAlternativeHow websites combine Varnish with other tools
Relationships found on the websites that use it, from the same map status pages show.
Questions about Varnish
- What is Varnish Cache?
- An open-source HTTP accelerator: a reverse caching proxy that sits in front of your origin and serves cached responses from memory.[1]
- Is Varnish Cache free?
- Yes. It is free and open source under the BSD-2-Clause license. Commercial support is sold by Varnish Software.[1]
- How do I install it?
- Varnish Cache is available as a Docker image, a Kubernetes Helm chart and native DEB and RPM packages.[1]
- Does it handle HTTPS?
- Yes. It terminates TLS in-process, without a separate proxy next to it.[1]
- How many websites use Varnish?
- We found Varnish on 156 of the 2,560 websites we scanned in the last 12 months (6.1%). 54 of them have a public status page.
- What is Varnish often used with?
- Among the websites we scan, Varnish is often found alongside Google Tag Manager (73.7% of its sites), PHP (50% of its sites), Nginx (44.2% of its sites).
- What are the alternatives to Varnish?
- Other caching tools we recognize include WP Rocket, Redis Object Cache, W3 Total Cache, Google PageSpeed.
Is your website built with Varnish?
UptimeCard checks it around the clock, tells you the minute it stops answering, and gives your visitors a status page.