Jetpack works fine on Counterwave Hosting, but some of its features overlap with the tools already built into your account. This guide explains when Jetpack is a good fit, when it can cause problems, and what Counterwave’s default policy is.
What Jetpack is #
Jetpack is a “Swiss Army knife” plugin made by Automattic that bundles many features, including stats, backups, security, image optimization, performance tools, and some front‑end enhancements. Counterwave Hosting, powered by a WPMUDEV stack, already includes its own set of tools for backups, security, performance, image optimization, forms, and more. Because of this, using all of Jetpack’s modules at once can duplicate what your hosting already does and sometimes cause conflicts.
Jetpack features that are safe to use #
These Jetpack features usually work well with Counterwave Hosting and do not directly overlap with the tools we provide:
- Site stats and analytics (if you prefer Jetpack’s stats dashboard).
- Subscriptions and “follow” email notifications.
- Social sharing and auto‑posting (Publicize‑style features).
- Related posts and visual front‑end extras like infinite scroll, responsive videos, and some widgets, assuming your theme supports them.
- WordPress.com and mobile app connection, or the Jetpack JSON API, for tools that need Jetpack to talk to your site.
If you only need these types of features, you can safely connect Jetpack and enable just these specific modules.
Features that can conflict with Counterwave tools #
Counterwave already includes a full toolset on your sites, so some Jetpack modules can overlap or interfere:
- Image optimization and CDN
- Counterwave uses Smush Pro and an integrated CDN for image compression and delivery.
- Jetpack’s “Site Accelerator/Photon” does something similar. Running both can cause broken images, inconsistent quality, or confusing caching.
- Recommended: Use Counterwave’s image tools and CDN. Keep Jetpack’s image optimization and CDN turned off.
- Performance and asset optimization
- Hummingbird Pro and the hosting layer already handle page caching, minification, and performance tuning.
- Jetpack’s performance options can add another layer of optimization and make it harder to debug layout or script problems.
- Recommended: Let Hummingbird and the server handle performance. Do not enable Jetpack’s extra performance features.
- Security and firewall features
- Counterwave includes Defender Pro plus a server‑level Web Application Firewall (WAF), brute‑force protection, and XML‑RPC protection.
- Jetpack also offers brute‑force protection, basic firewall‑style checks, and sometimes downtime alerts.
- Recommended: Rely on Counterwave’s security stack. If you turn on any Jetpack security features, avoid enabling overlapping login protection and firewall rules.
- Backups
- Counterwave provides integrated site backups through the hosting dashboard.
- Jetpack offers real‑time and scheduled cloud backups. Running both can add extra load and unnecessary storage usage.
- Recommended: Choose one backup system. By default, Counterwave supports and monitors the built‑in backups, so Jetpack backups are usually unnecessary.
Multisite, staging, and dev environments #
If you clone or stage a site on Counterwave:
- Jetpack may think the staging site is “live” once it connects, which can skew stats, send unwanted emails, or duplicate social posts.
- Jetpack has a “development mode” you can turn on so you can safely work on staging or local copies without connecting them to WordPress.com.
For most staging or dev sites on Counterwave, it is best to either leave Jetpack disconnected or enable development mode.
Counterwave’s Jetpack policy #
To keep sites fast, stable, and easy to support, Counterwave Hosting uses this simple rule set:
- Jetpack is welcome for:
- Site stats
- Subscriptions/follow features
- Social sharing and auto‑posting
- Related posts and cosmetic front‑end features
- WordPress.com/mobile app connectivity
- Jetpack is discouraged or disabled for:
- Image optimization and CDN (handled by Smush Pro and our CDN)
- Performance and speed modules (handled by Hummingbird Pro and server caching)
- Security/firewall/brute‑force features (handled by Defender Pro and our WAF)
- Backups (handled by Counterwave’s backup system)
If you are a Counterwave customer and you are unsure whether to enable a specific Jetpack feature, you can open a support ticket or live chat and mention which module you want to use. The team will confirm whether it is safe on your specific site setup and help you configure it.
