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VPS specs for 3 large wordpress sites?
This is for a client of mine. He is on shared hosting but response is very slow. I suggested a VPS, actually, part of a VPS as I will be hosting his 3 websites ;-)
If need be, I'll get them their own VPS and manage it so I can charge extra, it's only fair, I'm doing all the background work.
What do you think the specs should be? I mean other than bandwidth?
Comments
How large? How many hits?
Are they woocommerce as well or just wordpress?
depends how big. Depends if he will use a cdn.
1 is woocommerce, the others rely on heavy plugins. Total pages are a little over 45 spread across 3 sites. About 300K hits per month. I installed analytics so I can get a better idea.
They are at knownhost now.
which plan at knownhost are they?
Professional plan
Depends how well optimised they are, but I'd be thinking or 4 core 4gb RAM as a base point.
You'll be better off doing some optimisations (if not already) than just throwing resources at the sites as that will only get you so far.
Thanks, that's the plan.
You want really fast cores, not just old xeon, get it on a ryzen (or intel equivalent) and you'll notice the difference!
4 vCPU ryzens, 4GB ram, NVMe should be good
gotta try one first to collect usage data. probably the challenge would be to keep usage within AUP, or consider dedicated vCPU.
lots of caching should improve performance.
Use cache and a CDN. If LiteSpeed is supported, LSCache plugin is a good option.
I suggest to start with a VPS with specs similar to the shared hosting, then grow from it. To make it cheaper you can use some cloud service (hourly paid), and when you find the best specs in less than a month, move to a permanent common VPS.
Or just go with a powerful Ryzen VPS from Nexus Bytes, that includes DA and Open Lite Speed (LSCache).
Fastly wordpress plugin?
Can you see current resource usage on the shared hosting plan, if so, what resources are they exceeding?
Presumably LSCache is already in use?
@vyas11 @Ympker calling resident Wordpress experts.
1 (one) dedicated core cpu or equivalent
Cache, cache, cache.
300k per month can be done on 1vCPU and 1GB of ram without any issues. I was once making theme for ecommerce site (Im UX/UI designer), they had like 2kk views per month and it was fine on OVH 2vcpu+4gb ram. By "fine" I mean there was ton of free resources left. And they didnt even used CDN.
If there's 10 visitors/s thats means 600 visitors in minute. In one hour that's 36k. In four hours thats 144k.
300k per month is not that much as it sounds, don't worry about it. Cached site on Oracle Free Tier 1/8OCPU&1GB ram can do 100req/s.
Just look for solid provider (netcup, Hetzner, OVH, Linode, NexusBytes) and cache what you can do. After that is done consider CDN. If you choose provider that oversells like crazy then even 4vCPU wont help. You need guaranteed performance all the time and solid network to lower TTFB.
If you want EU location then go with Netcup cheapest root server
https://www.netcup.de/vserver/
or go with Hetzner CPX21 if you prefer hourly billing, easy and fast deploying etc.
If you want NA location then go with @seriesn NexusBytes plan, as they have 3900X which will perform greatly in PHP-based apps.
Lately I'm experimenting with Nginx caching. Its a lot faster than other solutions I've tested. This 100rq/s result on Oracle Free server was done using this method... and I didnt even cache anything in RAM! all things on this very slow disk! No Cloudflare or other CDN too!
If you will get 2GB+ server then consider caching on tmpfs. You'll be suprised how much old E5 v2 CPU can do then...
Thanks for the tag, mate
I would really like to help out, but since about 2 years I have basically stopped hosting my WordPress sites (or client sites, for that matter) on VPS. I found a good performing Shared Hosting/Reseller to be way more convenient, allowing me to focus on just my web design/the WordPress installation while also saving a lot on license fees (cPanel/DA, Litespeed, JetBackup, Softaculous, Immunify360). What I can say, though, is that not all Shared Hosting/Reseller Providers are created equal. Just like a good Shared Host with high Resource limits and a good setup ( @MikePT , Ramnode HostMantis can really outperform an overloaded and bad Shared Hosting Setup, a VPS will not automatically perform better. You would also need sure to tweak it to achieve what you are looking for. I don't know which Shared Hosting Provider you have been with so far, but maybe give @MikePT, Ramnode or our man @seriesn (also seem to have some higher-end resource limits) here a try before resorting to a VPS. I am not saying you can not outperform a Shared Hosting with a VPS, but at least from the standpoint I have arrived at, Shared Hosting is what I prefer these days.
Last but not least, if you opt for a VPS, make sure CPU is good and maybe try getting a dedicated CPU core as WP can be a CPU hogging pie** of sh** at times. Back in the Days, Centminmod was the go-to solution for WordPress but with not having setup WordPress on a VPS for basically two years and CentOS heading in the direction it is headed, I can not give sufficient feedback here. Heavy plugins and Woocommerce do really look like you might need smth powerful, though. If nothing works, also give Kinsta try. I have yet to see anyone complaining after having gone with them.
Thanks for all the input everyone! I'll be closely following the analytics I've placed. The sites so far seem to be very bloated.
for NA I also can recommend @key900 letbox, 4 ryzen CPUs and 4gb ram for under $10 monthly
I've used Jay (NexusBytes) and Hetzner before, very happy with both (happier with Jay though). I've never used netcup, but their price is quite amazing.
https://www.scaleway.com/en/dedibox/cloud-hosting/
Not bad option if dedicated resources but kinda expensive.
Thanks for the tag @seriesn, and some good inputs by folks so far.
For the above,
2 Cores/ 2 GB Ram, @ 80 GB disk space should suffice ideally. Maybe 3 GB RAM since once site is Woo Comm...incremental price difference is not much for most cases. At the traffic level you mentioned, in addition to VPS horsepower you might want to consider a CDN and a good caching.
Here's what I can suggest before making the move:
-Get a VPS for a month with above specs (or higher)
-Create staging sites for each. You can use All in One WP migration or Updraft Plus or similar
-Start optimizing - since you mentioned bloat. WP database cleaner (same developer as Updraft Plus) is a good one I can suggest. There may be more. Optimize images, move static data to CDN.
-Run stress test (loader.io or similar) for @ 500 K visits, both before and after optimization
Nothing better than some real life data, at a minimum virtual.
The questions that come to mind are:
a. What is the PHP version, and also WP and database? For older versions, some of the plugins mentioned above might not work.
b. Where does the maximum traffic come from? That may be a factor in deciding the VPS location
c. What is your comfort/ experience level, as well as ability and/or willingness to invest time in managing and maintaining a VPS? Will a server management tool an option to consider?
Best wishes.
I am using Wp fastest Cache plugin (Cheetah pic) after testing the others like LS Cache and WP super. I vote for the Cheetah one.
My client's local online news WP site was hosted with HM shared plan (reseler) previously and they asked me to move out as it hit the 'limits' a few times. It was Covid-19 starting time and people were eagerly waiting for official updates everyday at 6pm. HM's 3GB ram shared was not able to handle the traffic spike after 6pm everyday. But now, people are not very interested in that 6pm press releases and hence no sudden spike in traffic. The site is cool and accommodated in NB's shared hosting with 1Gb ram (Still CPU usage hitting 2-3 times a day; but its okay).
Thank you for the recommendation mate!
We've been getting plenty of clients that used to host their websites on a VPS. It does indeed get expensive!
@vyas11 IMO gave the best advice so far. - minus the CDN. A CDN is a significant cost factor and useful only under certain conditions.
300k hits per month isn't a significant load even if it would translate to say 6 mio requests; that could be done on a decent single core VPS. One question needs an answer though: what's the max req/s?
If (a part of) the site is for business I wouldn't even think about other options and just either go netcup or NexusBytes / @seriesn. The former might be a bit cheaper, especially for dedicated vCores, the latter will offer better support and you won't be pretty much a number but rather a valued person. Both will deliver a good product.
A decent SSD will do, although a NVMe is better of course. Memory is king; 2 GB might do but I'd definitely go for 3 or 4. 2vCores (non dedicated is good enough with a good provider but dedi vCores are better but also much more expensive). I'd go and ask seriesn for a 2 or 3 vCore, 2 or 3 GB VPS with an option to upgrade to 4 vCores and/or 4 GB memory.
All this is said under the assumption that you know how to optimize MySQL and serving dynamic web content.
And again (not the processor but) RAM is king/decisive.
Assuming the site is mainly addressing european visitors I'd chose NB's NL location due to its good connectivity.
I had similar problem before, and suggested some guy: “hey dude, purchase VPS and host files there”. He did it, and nothing changed. Big fail for me, and I start to investigate. As you understand, there are no performance issues on shared or vps at all. Both very fast, but sites very slow.
I found out, that all of us forgot about opcache. I mean hosters, control panels for web-servers, and so on.
We're trying to think about new PHP versions, about powerful hardware, processors, MySQL optimizations, switching LAMP to LEMP, using caching plugins. But basic thing probably always many of us not enable at all or not configure at all while all of us knows about this for years.
After proper config of PHP opcache on php7.4 for latest WP 5.8, I notice dramatic speed boost in all interactions with website in back-end, and partially in front-end.
For people who did not know, there are also new features introduced in php7.4, called "opcache preloading", google that.
But even after enabling opcache, and while everything is good on back-end, the front-end still slow. I go further and start to trace issues with devtools.
The problem usually in overuse of divs, css, js. And most of the time, the code generated by page builders automatically. Some kind of visual editing that complied to html/css/js wrong.
For such cases, there are not really many things that can be done.
For sure, you can try to use autoptimize, for removing loading fonts from Google, for packing all css/js files into one file, for reducing http requests, etc and so on...
But the best move will be to move away from modern page builders too much faster alternatives in that market. Or find a proper theme. Or hire a dev who will do a design based on modern WP themes that 30-50kb big, and will do proper short codes especially for your design, instead of writing tons of bullshit content.
People above answered already pretty correct numbers.
But if it does not help, there are a huge window for optimizations, start first in disabling anything that:
Also, webp can reduce for example average 500-800kb image in background to 30-50kb
And WP 5.8 support it out the box.
opcache-preload.php
https://gist.github.com/fedek6/4dc1f34ba363659fab75cf72e1d6fbbb
https://gist.github.com/jbrinley/f2d61d433c05db79b07faf742845e910
How does one manage multiple domains/wordpress installations on 1 server?
You can do it in several ways- I prefer
webinoly
with any control panel or cloud server panel.