When running WordPress on CloudWays, it’s crucial to configure your server for optimal performance. The guide provides an approach to tweaking your CloudWays server settings to ensure the best performance of your WordPress site.
The current article is "4.11. Settings for WordPress" of our Complete SEO Guide Box.
Previous Article: 4.10. Up/Downscale Server. Next Article: 4.12. CloudWays Tools
Contents
Adjusting Basic Settings – CloudWays Settings for WordPress
Click on [Servers] from the top menu.
Click on your Server name, which could be something like “WordPress Server 1”.
On the left menu, click [Settings & Packages].
In the “SETTINGS & PACKAGES” page, ensure you are in the [BASIC] tab.
Verify that the MEMORY LIMIT is set to 256MB. As of the time of writing, this was the default for the smallest server. If you made changes, click [Save Changes].
Updating Packages and Managing Services
While you set up CloudWays settings for WordPress, click the [PACKAGES] tab.
On this page, install the latest versions of the available packages. However, ensure that WordPress and each plugin you use – support these versions.
Here’s a page that indicates WordPress version support for which versions of PHP.
If you use only highly maintained plugins, then it shouldn’t be a problem. Each time a new version of a package, like PHP, comes out, you need to check that WordPress and the plugins support it before updating the package on this page.
Staying updated with the latest packages for speed, stability, and security is essential. Remember to check for updates regularly. Also, always back up everything before updating. We will discuss backups in the WordPress articles section later on.
While you set up CloudWays settings for WordPress, update the following packages:
PHP: Select the latest version.
MySQL: Choose the latest version of MariaDB.
Redis: Click [INSTALL].
On the left menu, click [Manage Services].
Ensure the “Memcached” and “Redis” services are running.
For the “Varnish” service, click [Disable].
Since we will use several caching and site speed optimization plugins and techniques throughout this Complete SEO Guide Box, we don’t need Varnish caching on the CloudWays server. However, if, for some reason, you don’t want to use any of the plugins or still think you need to use this, remember that you will need to purge the Varnish cache from this menu.
As of the time of writing, we didn’t find a WordPress plugin that could purge the Varnish cache directly from WordPress. There is a CloudWays Breeze plugin, but we don’t want to use it only for the Varnish cache. Of course, numerous WordPress caching and optimization plugins also use Varnish, and you can purge the cache from there. However, this is overkill; our recommended plugins are much more capable.
Also note, if You’re going to use Cloudflare through its DNS records and not as a package on CloudWays, after you purge Varnish cache on CloudWays, you will need to purge the cache in Cloudflare.
To use “Redis” memcache with your WordPress installation, install the plugin Redis Object Cache By Till Kruss.
Tweaking for Larger Applications – CloudWays Settings for WordPress
If you have a larger and more complex application or an eCommerce site, you will set up a larger server with more storage, RAM, and CPU power.
In this case, you can try tweaking these settings to achieve better performance.
While you set up CloudWays settings for WordPress, click [Servers] on the top menu.
Click your Server name, something like “WordPress Server 1”.
On the left menu, click [Settings & Packages].
In the “SETTINGS & PACKAGES” page, ensure you’re in the [BASIC] tab.
Set MEMORY LIMIT: 512MB. You can try to set it higher, but test your application’s speed performance before and after the setting. You can use Site Speed Performance Testing Tools to achieve this goal.
Also, you can change the PHP-FPM Settings. Adjust the “;php_admin_value[memory_limit]” property default value of 32MB to a larger value. You can begin with 256MB while checking performance and gradually increase it to 1024MB if necessary.
It is application-specific, so if you have more than one application (or WordPress site) on your server, you must adjust this setting on all the applications you need.
While you set up CloudWays settings for WordPress, click [Servers] on the top menu.
Click “WWW” on your server, and select your application.
On the application page, click on [Application Settings] on the left menu.
Click the [PHP FPM SETTINGS] tab when navigating to the page.
Change the option
;php_admin_value[memory_limit] = 32M
To
;php_admin_value[memory_limit] = 256M.
Click [Save].
For more help, refer to CloudWays’ PHP-FPM Settings change guide.
You can try enabling the Varnish cache that we disabled earlier, but make sure to test if there’s any performance boost. Remember to purge the Varnish cache in the [Manage Services] tab in the left menu of your server if you make any changes to the site.
Cloudflare Usage
CloudWays provides Cloudflare service through their package addon. We tried using Cloudflare with other hosting companies within addon packages. It didn’t work well since some use Cloudflare API, and some use different approaches. The best and time-proven way is to use Cloudflare natively with Cloudflare DNS hosting service, which is also one of the fastest. We will do that later through our Complete SEO Guide Box.
The current article is "4.11. Settings for WordPress" of our Complete SEO Guide Box.
Previous Article: 4.10. Up/Downscale Server. Next Article: 4.12. CloudWays Tools
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