How to Improve my Site's Performance

Is your site running slow? Are you going to run some performance/benchmark tests? Here are some tips which should boost site performance dramatically.

How to Improve PHP Performance

  • You should consider using one of our LiteSpeed Cache Plugins. These should make your site fly.

  • Try PHP 7 instead of PHP 5.x. PHP 7 claims to be twice as fast as PHP 5.x.

  • Install and enable PHP opcode cache.

  • Make sure PHP xdebug and snmp modules disabled if you don't need them. xdebug module is for Dev IDE integration only and should not be installed by default. snmp module will scan and parse available MIB files and not everyone needs snmp support.

  • Check the real time stats for the number of PHP processes during peak time(LSWS Web Admin → Actions → Real-Time Stats→External Application), check “In Use”, “Idle”, and “WaitQ”. If WaitQ is frequently higher than 0, the PHP max concurrency setting may need to be increased. For shared hosting environments, where PHP SuEXEC is normally used, PHP suEXEC Max Conn needs to be increased. See our PHP Concurrency wiki for more information on determining if PHP SuEXEC is used and how to increase the max concurrency of PHP.

  • If you see something like: [STDERR] Reached max children process limit: 10, extra: 3, current: 13, please increase LSAPI_CHILDREN, try to increase LSAPI_CHILDREN.

  • If the server has enough free memory, put PHP sessions and opcode cache disk storage under /dev/shm.

  • Have you enabled the timezonedb module for your PHP? We do see poorer performance when people move to a cloud server with shared storage, the I/O latency could cause trouble. Without PHP timezonedb module with built-in DB, it may not have a huge impact on a server with the local disk but it will be very costly for a cloud server with shared storage since PHP will scan hundreds of directories.

  • Check your “top” output to determine which processes are using too much CPU/memory. Buggy PHP code could be causing these performance issues.

  • For cpanel/WHM user, disable PHP open_basedir feature.

How to Tune the OS/Network to Improve Performance

  • Upgrading to a LiteSpeed license with more worker processes should provide more processing power.

  • If the server I/O wait is high, enable AIO logging.

  • Does the domain hit the CloudLinux LVE I/O Limit? Use lvetop to verify if the I/O is reaching the defined maximum (xMB/s).

  • Mod_Security firewall checks may slow down the server and sites.

  • Hitting your CloudLinux LVE limits may negatively impact the server's performance.

  • Are Bandwith throttlings enabled for your virtual host to slow down the sites?

  • Is the speed of your network card a bottleneck?

  • Are your server kernel settings configured for high traffic?

  • Is your site under attack?

  • SSD is a must. You should not run on a server with a regular hard drive.

Addressing any of the above may improve the performance of your server. However, performance issues may be related to something entirely different. Your situation may vary greatly, because of this, we recommend ordering our LiteSpeed premium support service for a professional review, fine tuning, and installation/enabling of necessary elements to optimize your server and maximize site performance.