Articles on: WordPress

Why is my WordPress website using high CPU or memory?

If you're noticing high CPU or memory usage for your WordPress website, or experiencing slow loading times, it’s crucial to identify the underlying issues affecting your site's performance. You can view more information in cPanel by navigating to Metrics -> Resource Usage. The Snapshots tab allows you to see which of your scripts are using resources. By addressing both slow loading times and excessive resource usage, you can enhance your website’s speed and efficiency. To prevent high resource usage, you can take the following steps:

Optimise your site:

We recommend installing the LiteSpeed Cache Plugin for WordPress. Refer to this article: How can I Install the LiteSpeed Cache Plugin for WordPress?
This can be done in cPanel by navigating to Software -> Redis Manager. Once you enable Redis, the service will start within a minute. You can then use the "Install/Configure LiteSpeed Object Cache" to automatically install the LiteSpeed Cache plugin for WordPress and configure it to use the Redis service for object caching.
Alternatively, you can install the plugin from your WordPress Dashboard by navigating to Plugins -> Add New, searching for "LiteSpeed Cache," and then installing and activating it. Make sure the option Enable LiteSpeed Cache is set to Enable in the plugin settings.
Ensure the opcache PHP module is enabled in cPanel under Software -> Select PHP Version. This greatly improves the performance of PHP-based scripts like WordPress.
We recommend using PHP 8.X, as this version offers performance improvements over PHP 7.x.

Remove unused plugins:

Some plugins may cause excessive resource usage due to how they are coded. Use a plugin like Query Monitor to identify which plugins are causing the most load and see if they can be optimised or replaced.

Filter out malicious users:

If you are receiving malicious users, they could be depleting your resources, which is especially common for WordPress websites. To assist, you can implement Cloudflare for your domain. This service filters users before they reach your server and offers performance improvements by utilizing their global CDN. Sign up at Cloudflare Signup and update your domain name servers accordingly.

Consider upgrading:

If no improvement is seen with the above steps, you may need to consider upgrading your website to a package that offers more resources. Please contact us for further details.

For more a more comprehensive guide please see: How can I improve the performance of my WordPress website?

If you continue to experience issues, feel free to reach out to our support team or email helpdesk@elitehost.co.za for further assistance.

Updated on: 18/10/2024

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