Running WordPress on Azure B1ls Virtual Machines

Have you ever wondered “How bad is it to run a WordPress site on a $3.80/month virtual machine in Azure?”. I haven’t either. But as I was browsing Azure virtual machine options the other day I came across the B1ls machines and figured I would give it a go. If for no reason other than… Continue reading Running WordPress on Azure B1ls Virtual Machines

Are DigitalOcean Premium Droplets Better for WordPress?

Back on February 23, 2021 DigitalOcean announced the launch of their “premium” droplets. These Droplets are in the same tier as their shared-resource counterparts, but running on next generation Intel or AMD hardware. As soon as these were released, my first thought was “I wonder if WordPress runs better on these premium droplets?”. I ran… Continue reading Are DigitalOcean Premium Droplets Better for WordPress?

Which Cloudways Hosting Provider is Best for WooCommerce?

In the world of WooCommerce hosting there are a lot of options. One of the often recommended hosting services is Cloudways, which makes it very easy to spin up a reasonably performant WooCommerce site. You do still have to make a few choices though, including whether to use DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, or GCP. So… Continue reading Which Cloudways Hosting Provider is Best for WooCommerce?

Hummingbird Cache for WordPress Performance Review

The Hummingbird Cache plugin is one of many different caching plugins available in the WordPress ecosystem. Enabling it will increase your site’s performance significantly, but by how much? In this review we’re going to use Kernl’s WordPress Load Testing tool to push our Hummingbird Cache WordPress installation to it’s limits. Test System Setup As with… Continue reading Hummingbird Cache for WordPress Performance Review

Vultr One-Click WordPress Review

If you want to host your own copy of WordPress but don’t want to go through all the trouble of setting it up, it might be worth your time to explore using “one-click” installs from some of the major cloud providers. In this article, we’re going to explore the Vultr One-Click WordPress install and see… Continue reading Vultr One-Click WordPress Review

Should I use Memcached or Redis for WordPress caching?

Choosing between Memcached or Redis for your WordPress cache is a tough decision. Not because they have vastly different performance profiles (they don’t), but because either choice is a good one depending on your needs. In this post we’re going to explore the differences between Redis and Memcached, how they perform for WordPress, and a… Continue reading Should I use Memcached or Redis for WordPress caching?

The Crucible – Extreme WordPress Performance Challenge

Load testing is fun. Breaking things is fun. Breaking WordPress with load testing is even more fun. But in the era of highly scaleable WordPress hosting solutions, can we even break WordPress anymore? Oh yes, yes we can. The Crucible Challenge can. Crucible Challenge The Crucible WordPress Performance challenge is a deceptively simple test inspired… Continue reading The Crucible – Extreme WordPress Performance Challenge

Yoast SEO: WordPress Plugin Performance Implications

Yoast SEO is a popular SEO enablement plugin for WordPress. It helps you avoid common mistakes when it comes to SEO on your blog and also handles things like social media “og:meta” tags. If your blog has a public audience, then it stands a good chance that you are using Yoast. As with the previous… Continue reading Yoast SEO: WordPress Plugin Performance Implications

Cloudways WordPress Performance Value Review

Cloudways is a managed WordPress hosting provider that allows you to deploy your WordPress site onto several different platforms. These platforms are: AWS Google Cloud Linode Vultr Digital Ocean If you are just starting with Cloudways it can be tough to figure out where your money is best spent! The prices are different for each… Continue reading Cloudways WordPress Performance Value Review

WordPress Plugin Performance Implications: Wordfence

Wordfence - Maximum Requests per Second

In the world of WordPress there are a lot of different plugins you can install to extend its functionality. One of the most popular plugins is Wordfence, a security plugin developed by the fine folks over at Defiant. Test the performance implications of your own WordPress plugins with Kernl WordPress Load Testing. Most WordPress developers… Continue reading WordPress Plugin Performance Implications: Wordfence