I use WP Fastest Cache.
That should have been enough, but you might want to run all of this by https://www.ads-software.com/support/plugin/wp-fastest-cache as they may have some thoughts.
I also disabled Jetback, the plugin I used to track page views, after reading that this can also cause excess server stress.
Actually, Jetpack is largely designed to offload stressful server processes onto WordPress.com’s servers. Things like the Photon image CDN which serves and resizes all images from WordPress.com’s servers not yours, Related Posts which are calculated and stored on WordPress.com’s servers not yours, Stats stored and calculated on WordPress.com’s servers not yours, email subscribers sent from WordPress.com’s servers not yours, and much more.
You might be causing *more* stress by switching off Jetpack.
Some fun numbers on that: https://bruteprotect.com/the-jetpack-bloat-myth/ and https://bruteprotect.com/jetpack-bloat-myth-followup-more-data/
Even after offering to pay for an upgrade, Bluehost essentially said there is nothing we can do to get your site up again asap.
That’s unfortunate, they’re the only ones who can re-allocate enough server resources to get you up and running, but I suppose they have to consider protecting the other accounts on the server instead. It really is in their hands at this point.
They said I could active to Cloudflare, which I did, and the site remained down.
Cloudflare is another caching service. As with the other, it will only help if Cloudflare has already been running *before* your site goes down, so it has something to cache.
I’m wondering though, was this poor service by Bluehost? Or is what I’m asking truly impossible for them to help me out with in a crunch.
I wouldn’t call it poor service necessarily. This is the front page of Reddit after all, most shared hosts won’t be able to handle that without caching. If Bluehost opened up more resources for you, it will put everyone else on the server at risk of going offline, and it still might not be enough. It’s a lousy situation, and it would be nice if they helped more, but I can also understand why they aren’t.
If anything, I’d consider putting the blame on the cache. It should have been able to handle the load, so either it wasn’t configured properly, or it’s not that good of a cache. I haven’t used WP Fastest Cache, so I can’t comment either way for sure.
I don’t anticipate front-page reddit again soon.
If it’s not expected, I recommend just waiting it out and re-visiting your caching configuration, possibly even enabling Cloudflare, rather than paying them for the VPS upgrade.
Cloudflare and/or a properly configured cache should be able to handle the front page of Reddit even without a VPS. If the front page of Reddit becomes a more regular occurrence for you, it may be time for a VPS.
I am also wondering, is more action needed on my part or will the site fix itself with time?
It will fix itself in time. Imagine your hosting provider is a truck, and Reddit is shipping packages to your house by way of that truck. At the moment, the truck is full on every single delivery run, hence the problem, there’s just not enough room on the truck for every package. Eventually, there will be less packages, no more full trucks, and every delivery will be fulfilled.
