Server Requirements to Run a Heavy WordPress Site

There’s so much more that goes into it. Are you using Apache or nginx? How is your php-fpm configured? Can you configure memcached or Varnish for caching? Have you turned your database server under load? And are you using MySQL or Maria? InnoDB or myISAM?

Please note that I can’t walk you through all of those decisions and configurations.

ON the positive side, it’s always easy to re-scale a VPS to add CPUs, memory, etc.

@sterndata
I use Apache.
I honestly have no Idea what php-fpm is… but I did check my phpinfo and here it is https://i.snag.gy/UVQaci.jpg & https://i.snag.gy/6TmYEN.jpg
I don’t know how this memcached or varnish works (sorry my knowledge on almost all of this is kinda poor)
I use MySql and yes I think my DB Server is under load cuz it has 6000+ posts plus some user accounts info, bookmarks and lot of custom fields in each of these posts. I use xml-rpc to bulk post all 6000+ posts.
Anyways, I was thinking if 2gb Ram would be enough to run? or would 4gb Ram be enough? and my vps provider doesn’t allow to re-scale the RAM or vCPU, only the storage can be re-scaled, so I have to launch another VPS and transfer the files and db, and that is why I am asking how good of a VPS do I need because I upgraded from 512mb to 1gb recently and it is quite troubling to go through backup and restore and then transferring domain.

Again, your really need to understand the whole thing. You might want to consult with someone with more sysadmin experience than you have or use a managed WordPress host who understands all that stuff, plus how it works with WP, and will configure, support, and secure it for you.

Well that is why I am here. If I have to consult someone and get this done and get the setup all done I would have done so if i knew anyone who could actually help me with that… I never thought WP is complicated to that level.

WP is not complicated, but you’re not asking about WP. You’re asking how to size and configure a server. That’s a whole different skill set. That’s why I’m recommending you use a managed WP hosting provider.

The official hosting recommendations are here: https://www.ads-software.com/hosting/

Thank you for helping @sterndata. I know I am going off topic here, but I am also *not* planning on using a Managed WP Hosting. I have my own reasons which includes budget. I would really like if you could help me by linking me to a website/guide for configuring a server to run WP smoothly. Thank you.

Hello @darksoul2069, unfortunately, we cannot provide that kind of assistance here as the support you need is more on the server-side of things. We are here to give assistance with WordPress instances. We have a page on our Codex that could be of help with what you’re experiencing:

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/High_Traffic_Tips_For_WordPress

You can also check the following resources from external third-parties about it:

https://www.wpbeginner.com/wordpress-performance-speed/
https://wpengine.com/blog/site-speed-make-wordpress-lightning-fast/

However, like @sterndata mentioned, it’s probably better if you can contact a hosting provider with the requirements you need. As we don’t offer hosting on the .org side, we cannot provide any further help at the moment.

very dependent on site profile.
News site may have high traffic but they mostly serve static pages
eCommerce may have low traffic but you cant play much with caching, every visitor will have their own cart and payment processing process

1Gb RAM is small, even your smartphone has more RAM, but even 1 Gb is viable, dependent on site profile.

for VPS i’d recommend the following (versatile):
PHP 7+ (7.1 is best choice for now)
and Redis cache with companion plugin on WP side: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/redis-cache/ , it works better than memcached and supported on PHP7+

If you’re getting 500 errors then you need more horsepower – More memory and a faster CPU… both!

But… you can sometimes offload some tasks from your server to other places or even scatter them around some.

The first place is to scatter tasks away from the built in psuedo-cron to an actual cron. What happens with psuedo-cron is You get a visitor… WordPress runs and looks at everything it needs to do including anything run by cron. If you install WPCrontrol and trigger cron from an actual crontab then those tasks will hopefully have finished before the visitor arrives.

Better yet is having some other server running cron for you. I use https://www.setcronjob.com/. A couple dollars a year and I have all my cron tasks running there for the whole ‘server farm’ I run here.

Another thing to look for is really intensive tasks. You mention XML RPC… I hope you’re not trying to reload all those posts via RPC everytime but you mentioned the huge number of posts and the RPC so I figured I’d ask.

You might look at the dollars involved in adding a second server vs moving everything. Sometimes two baseline VPS can handle the job and be competitive with the next level up if you consider the time (and downtime) required to move.

Usually, a good bet if the second server is in the same building and the internal network is super fast. Put your WordPress over there but leave database, email, DNS and other tasks behind. The only configuration change is usually telling wp-config to use the database at the old server instead of localhost and making sure remote MySQL is configured at the database server.

I often recommend using CloudFlare but you don’t want to bring capacity problems to CloudFlare. 500 hundred errors handed to CloudFlare just makes faster 500 errors.

But you can offload DNS to CloudFlare for a small gain (and a better DNS system to boot) and once you have the capacity issues covered CloudFlare can give you some ‘elbow room’ you didn’t have before.

Then the paid upgrades at CloudFlare can help you with future instantaneous capacity issues.

Don’t overlook the speed benefit of running PHP 7.X instead of PHP 5.6.

The proces to find out what the site needs is easy in theory, but hard in practice. Steve has told you everything that you could really be told on forums like these, but without you getting up-to-speed on the tweaking and setting up of a hosting server, anything that can be said here is very limited.

The process is three steps…

1. Tweak settings
2. Upgrade available server resources
3. Check

Now repeat that until the server is going fine. And after that keep on monitoring and tweaking pretty much until you stop running the site as things will always change, expecially when you get more visitors, and posts. That’s why a amanged benvironment works best – you can leave all of that to someone else. Yes it does cost more, but you’re paying for that expertise so that things run the way they should. I’m sure that everyone on here has seen servers that are not set up well… you end uppaying more in the long run with lost visitors/sales and the eventual need to fix everything up anyway.

That’s why no one can say “use 3CPU’s and 4.8GB of RAM”. Even saying how many posts and visitors you get, there’s no magic formula that is used. It’s trial and error to see what works and what doesn’t. It takes time and knowledge, and there’s no shortcuts.

I would suggest 4GB Ram server, with unlimited bandwidth.

@themebydp so tell me… what do you base that suggestion on? How do you know? What metrics are you using?

As this topic has become a spam magnet (AS EXPECTED) I am closing this topic. You can’t see the spam as it’s gone now.

Please do not bring up hosting topics again.