For most small business websites, built-in hosting cache is easier. If the host has good server-level caching, you usually get better performance without spending hours adjusting plugin settings.

The danger is adding too many plugins on top of it. I’ve seen sites with hosting cache, plugin cache, CDN cache, and optimization plugins all fighting each other.

Plugins are good when you want control. For example, you may want to exclude certain pages, delay JavaScript, preload cache, or connect with a CDN. But if you don’t know what those settings mean, it is easy to break layout or forms.

I like hosting cache for beginners and plugins for people who are comfortable testing changes.

The best setup I’ve used is hosting cache plus one lightweight plugin that controls or clears that cache from WordPress. That way, you are not stacking three different page caches.

For regular WordPress sites, simple is better. If performance is still weak after good hosting cache, then look at images, database, theme weight, and plugins before adding more caching layers.

For client sites, I prefer hosting with built-in caching because support can help if something goes wrong. When every site uses a different cache plugin setup, troubleshooting becomes annoying.

Plugins are not bad, but I would avoid complicated caching stacks unless the website really needs them.