I run a few big sites on WordPress, and would totally recommend you use the simply static plugin, and configure nginx to serve those cached files directly so it never hits php. I also usually put cloudflare in front as well, but you can have a screaming fast wordpress site that scales really far by itself without it just with that trick.
If you need some dynamism, w3 total cache is also a great choice.
If you're not an nginx hacker, there are some great examples around the internet. This page is pretty helpful: https://wordpress.org/support/article/nginx/
