WordPress 3.4 Memory Usage

Also, please note that this memory usage is after I’ve upgraded the site and I do something within the dashboard like clear the cache via a caching plugin.

I was under the assumption that this newest update would decrease the amount of memory usage. Am I incorrect in this assumption?

You are correct, however that’s also pretty dependent on your plugins/themes.

Ipstenu wrote:

You are correct, however that’s also pretty dependent on your plugins/themes.

So the latest WordPress 3.4 version will cause my existing plugins/themes to consume more memory?

Not as such. The memory consumption of WordPress has risen but whether you ever hit memory errors depends upon what plugins and theme you are using. Some plugins & themes consume more PHP memory than others.

Thanks for the replies. I’m not getting any error messages. I just always monitor memory consumption whenever I add/change plugin/theme/WordPress version.

In all of my sites, updating to WordPress 3.4 caused a noticeable increase in memory consumption (that is without touching any of the plugins/themes).

What kind of increase?

Around 1mb.

That’s not bad. What sort of overall % rise is that?

Yeah, it’s not bad, but if you have a site that’s on shared hosting and you’re pushing your limit(s), than it can make a difference. On my dedicated server, I’m not worried about it, but on my developer’s shared server (which is like a managed VPS) I have to monitor stuff like that. Especially since one site there uses BuddyPress with commonly used plugins and it’s been pushing the max for sometime. Yeah I already know about BuddyPress……..

I just hope that this is not a WordPress trend. ??

Going down or maintaining current memory usage would be nice. ??

Not sure about percentage wise as I have to manage max memory consumption per site. ??

As WP expands and adds more functionality, you’re going to find that there will be some increase in memory consumption. I would have thought that was natural and expected. A 1M increase ain’t bad. If you want to reduce it, start cutting down on your plugins and try changing your theme.

Yes, I can understand that it will likely go up. But to what point? Will it continue to rise to the point where you must have a ‘good’ VPS or Dedicated server to use WordPress? It’s just something to think about.

I believe I saw this discussion with bbPress.org when they started adding more functionality (before plugin development). I believe _ck_ talked about it a lot.

That’s one reason I preferred WordPress over Joomla. Joomla comes packed with a lot of stuff most people don’t need, therefor the high memory consumption. I just thought WordPress would keep it light as possible and let the developer work in any needed functionality via plugins, themes, custom coding, or what-have-you.

Again, 1mb is not bad, but where will it stop?

But to what point?

I don’t think anyone can predict that. That said, there have been releases where the memory consumption dropped down. Somewhere around the 2.9 to 3.0 releases, I think. So it’s not as if every release pushes up memory consumption but I think the overall trend will be towards greater consumption as more & more features are added.

Hmmm. That means if WordPress continues to increase memory consumption, either hosts will have to account for that and allow users access to more memory (very unlikely), developers will have to spend more money on hosting, developers will have to sacrifice additional functionality, or developers will have to look for another CMS for their projects. Yikes! I really don’t look forward to think about using Joomla as a CMS again. It took me forever to learn how to optimize it.

Maybe this won’t be such a bad deal as servers come with more RAM as the future progresses. Who knows? I would just rather not have a client say to me that they would prefer not to use WordPress due to memory consumption, like many have said about Joomla.

if WordPress continues to increase memory consumption, either hosts will have to account for that and allow users access to more memory (very unlikely)

I disagree. I think the trend across web generally will be towards higher memory consumption. It’s just going to mirror what the home computer market has done longer term.

Maybe this won’t be such a bad deal as servers come with more RAM as the future progresses.

Exactly!

I would just rather not have a client say to me that they would prefer not to use WordPress due to memory consumption

You can still run WP 3.4 on 32M of PHP memory. Everything else is down to plugins & themes.

I disagree. I think the trend across web generally will be towards higher memory consumption. It’s just going to mirror what the home computer market has done longer term.

Maybe in the long, long, long, run. But not in the short run, which is right now.

You can still run WP 3.4 on 32M of PHP memory. Everything else is down to plugins & themes.

Problem is, most of the sites I develop (and many others) are not simple/plain sites using default themes/plugins/functionality. I don’t dare push any of my sites on shared hosting to that 32M barrier. Because when I do, I start having issues. What ever happened to less is more?