explaingit

bloodyhill/feather

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

16PHPAudience · developerComplexity · 3/5LicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

Feather is a WordPress plugin that scans Elementor pages to safely remove unused assets, disables unneeded WordPress overhead, and cleans the database, all without any outbound network calls.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Feather))
    What it does
      Scans Elementor usage
      Removes unused assets
      Trims WordPress overhead
    Tech stack
      PHP
      WordPress
      Elementor
      React
    Use cases
      Site speed optimization
      Database cleanup
      Page weight tracking
    Privacy
      Zero outbound calls
      No telemetry

Code map

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Speed up an Elementor built WordPress site by removing scripts and fonts confirmed unused across the site.

USE CASE 2

Reduce server load by slowing or disabling the WordPress admin heartbeat and limiting post revisions.

USE CASE 3

Clean up database bloat by removing expired transients and orphaned Elementor revision rows.

USE CASE 4

Track page weight over time with before and after snapshots to measure performance improvements.

What is it built with?

PHPWordPressElementorReactTypeScript

How does it compare?

bloodyhill/featherf/pressmindkukuhtw/toko_kopi
Stars161615
LanguagePHPPHPPHP
Setup difficultyeasymoderatemoderate
Complexity3/53/53/5
Audiencedeveloperwriterpm founder

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Install from the WordPress plugin directory or a release zip, requires WordPress 6.0+, PHP 7.4+, and Elementor.

Free to use and modify, but any distributed modified version must also be released under the same GPL license.

In plain English

Feather is a WordPress plugin that makes sites built with the Elementor page builder load faster by removing unused code and turning off WordPress features that most sites never actually need. The core approach is scan first. Feather reads your saved Elementor page data and identifies exactly which widgets and assets each page uses. Based on that scan, it removes only the assets confirmed unused across the entire site, such as the Font Awesome icon shim, Google Fonts loaded by Elementor, and Elementor's own scripts on pages that were not built with Elementor. Nothing is removed by assumption, only after the scan confirms it is safe. Beyond Elementor specific trimming, Feather handles general WordPress overhead: it disables the emoji loader, removes the generator meta tag that reveals your WordPress version, slows the admin heartbeat interval to cut server load, limits how many post revisions WordPress saves, and adds lazy loading to iframes. A database cleanup tab lets you remove expired transients, prune old Elementor revision rows, and clear cached embed data. A built in measurement tool lets you take page weight snapshots, tracking bytes transferred, asset count, request count, and response time, then compare them over time from the dashboard to see the effect of each change. Feather makes zero outbound network calls in its default configuration. There is no telemetry, no remote check in, and no analytics. It requires WordPress 6.0 or newer, PHP 7.4 or newer, and Elementor installed for the asset aware features. It is released under the GPL 2.0 or later license, and works alongside common caching and image optimization plugins without duplicating what they already do. The full README is longer than what was shown.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Install Feather on my Elementor WordPress site and run the welcome scan to see which assets it recommends removing.
Prompt 2
Explain what Feather's database cleanup tab does before I use it on a production site.
Prompt 3
How does Feather avoid conflicting with my existing caching plugin like WP Rocket or LiteSpeed Cache?
Prompt 4
Set up Feather from source by building the React admin UI and copying the plugin into wp-content/plugins.

Frequently asked questions

What is feather?

Feather is a WordPress plugin that scans Elementor pages to safely remove unused assets, disables unneeded WordPress overhead, and cleans the database, all without any outbound network calls.

What language is feather written in?

Mainly PHP. The stack also includes PHP, WordPress, Elementor.

What license does feather use?

Free to use and modify, but any distributed modified version must also be released under the same GPL license.

How hard is feather to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is feather for?

Mainly developer.

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