Fastest Wordpress Stack

nem

@niranjan said:

@themew said:
Dump Apache for only Nginx, and use Nginx PHP-FPM FastCgi caching (no WP plugins) or add Varnish to Nginx and your TTFB will drop to 50ms or less depending on your skin and if you graphics are optimized.

ah, I'm an apache guy, but I've been trying different nginx scripts for the past day, so far I haven't seen any results.

If you make Apache behave like NGINX (disallow .htaccess parsing, light module usage, thin configuration), it's possible to get around 25k rps on a static cache of a WordPress site on a dual core. NGINX will yield around 40k, OLS around 36k rps. They're all roughly comparable. One thing to note is the default ciphersuite for both Apache and NGINX is TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384. On OLS it's TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256, which makes a substantial difference. For evaluating worst case handshake performance between the two ciphersuites with a serial request stream, I was able to move from 4.2k to 10k rps,

Any way you approach it, a request will complete in under 1/10000th of a second with a memory-based cache.

niranjan

@nem said:

@niranjan said:

@themew said:
Dump Apache for only Nginx, and use Nginx PHP-FPM FastCgi caching (no WP plugins) or add Varnish to Nginx and your TTFB will drop to 50ms or less depending on your skin and if you graphics are optimized.

ah, I'm an apache guy, but I've been trying different nginx scripts for the past day, so far I haven't seen any results.

If you make Apache behave like NGINX (disallow .htaccess parsing, light module usage, thin configuration), it's possible to get around 25k rps on a static cache of a WordPress site on a dual core. NGINX will yield around 40k, OLS around 36k rps. They're all roughly comparable. One thing to note is the default ciphersuite for both Apache and NGINX is TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384. On OLS it's TLS_CHACHA20_POLY1305_SHA256, which makes a substantial difference. For evaluating worst case handshake performance between the two ciphersuites with a serial request stream, I was able to move from 4.2k to 10k rps,

Any way you approach it, a request will complete in under 1/10000th of a second with a memory-based cache.

Thanks for your input, I'm using the base apache2 setup, nothing modified/optimized. Also, can you elaborate on how I can find rps of my server?

nem

@niranjan said: Thanks for your input, I'm using the base apache2 setup, nothing modified/optimized. Also, can you elaborate on how I can find rps of my server?

Any benchmark tool will give you a requests per second metric. Bear in mind if you use ab bundled with Apache, TLSv1.3 is only available in the latest release 2.4.54.

ab -k -n 1000 -c "$(($(nproc)*2+1))" http://domain/index.html

You could also use Siege or wrk2. Importantly, whatever benchmark methodology you choose for your server remains consistent across tests.

jessuppi

@ezeth said:
https://github.com/littlebizzy/slickstack

seems ok

Thanks guys for the mention, I hope you find SlickStack easy to use and reliable.

Here's a brief update on what's changed in the past few years:

https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/183972/update-on-slickstack-project-and-thanks-to-let

Pretty much SlickStack works best for single, high-traffic WordPress sites (or money sites) that value stability and hands-off maintenance above all else.

It also works really well for WP Multisite installations now, too.

Some of the other solutions mentioned in this thread might be better if you're looking to share several different WordPress sites on the same server, like WordOps or Webinoly.

@mwt said:

@niranjan said:
I'll try WordOps and SlickStack today and will inform you guys how it goes!

Those are backend speedups. You want a front end speedup (like css combine/inlining). This can be done with plugins (as you saw).

WordOps and SlickStack are speedups that help with surviving large floods of users. They aren't going to increase this score if you already have a good desktop score.

This is a good point.

I think there is too much discussion about web hosts and plugins (driven by affiliate links?) and not enough discussion about things like:

• using lightweight WordPress themes
• not using too many plugins, esp. bloated plugins
• being aware of third-party scripts and ads (these cannot be optimized)
• knowing the difference between a CDN caching your static files, a server or cache plugin caching your HTML content, and dynamic database queries that cannot be cached and thus depend entirely on having a good "web stack" and/or solid remote database configuration

https://slickstack.io/forum/topic/fastest-wordpress-stack-vs-fastest-wordpress-hosting

Personally, I haven't used WordPress cache plugins for a long time, as I think Nginx FastCGI cache provides better stability (for one thing, other WP users can't mess up your caching settings this way, because it's configured at the server-level instead of the UI in WP Admin).

TLDR = If your site has 5000 DOM elements, dozens of JS and CSS scripts, and things are "shifting" and "rendering" and/or "querying" the database all over the place for the end user... nothing else you do probably matters much, but that's not what many web designers want to hear, unfortunately!

astroboy776

Long experience hosting a few hundred wordpress sites, basic and customized. Essentials -
Nginx with micro cache and serve static direct - can handle essentially unlimited traffic when set up properly
php with opcache - takes the php load off your server
wordpress redis object cache plugin - takes the object load off your mysql
wordpress elasticpress plugin - essentially revamps wordpress search, at least 100x faster and zero mysql load

webmasteroffers

Below are my favorite CP(s). I am using all three CPs and they're very good.

1. CloudCP (recommend) - LEMP stack, Varnish cache, Redis. Only support via Discord
2. HestiaCP - LEMP or LAMP stack, Fast-CGI cache, Redis. Friendly and quick support via their forum.
3. WordOps - LEMP stack, Fast-CGI cache, Redis, harder to use more than 1 and 2 because you have to remember the short commands to control your stack, not auto upgrade like 1 and 2. Slow development and support.

abangnoob

for me: wordops

johnnyquestion

@astroboy776 said:
Long experience hosting a few hundred wordpress sites, basic and customized. Essentials -
Nginx with micro cache and serve static direct - can handle essentially unlimited traffic when set up properly
php with opcache - takes the php load off your server
wordpress redis object cache plugin - takes the object load off your mysql
wordpress elasticpress plugin - essentially revamps wordpress search, at least 100x faster and zero mysql load

Sounds like Cloudways stack

emgh

GridPane rocks.

Always choose FastCGI rather than Redis if the site changes regularely, that’s my experience across the board.

webmasteroffers

@emgh said:
GridPane rocks.

Always choose FastCGI rather than Redis if the site changes regularely, that’s my experience across the board.

FastCGI for page cache and Redis for object cache. You should use both

emgh

@webmasteroffers said:

@emgh said:
GridPane rocks.

Always choose FastCGI rather than Redis if the site changes regularely, that’s my experience across the board.

FastCGI for page cache and Redis for object cache. You should use both

Yes, and I do.

Since I compared FastCGI to Redis, I meant that I prefer FastCGI Page Caching compared to Redis Page Caching.

Gravely

@emgh said:
GridPane rocks.

Always choose FastCGI rather than Redis if the site changes regularely, that’s my experience across the board.

For the price of Gridpane, it better be good.

emgh

@Gravely said:

@emgh said:
GridPane rocks.

Always choose FastCGI rather than Redis if the site changes regularely, that’s my experience across the board.

For the price of Gridpane, it better be good.

I use the free plan. Main limits are one server only and only being able to use Vultr & DO.

emgh

I see it’s not really clear from the pricing page, but see the Core Plan FAQ here: https://gridpane.com/faq/