Every time I’ve upgraded my hosting plan from high CPU usage, they used Apache servers.
SiteGround, GoDaddy, Bluehost, and Cloudways use Apache which is less efficient than LiteSpeed. Plus, their plans don’t include a lot of CPU cores. I’ve personally had to upgrade from SiteGround’s GrowBig plan to their $120/mo cloud hosting to fix CPU issues. Instead of wasting money (and hours optimizing my WordPress site when it was my host), all I had to do was switch to a (faster) host who uses LiteSpeed servers with more CPU cores, like ChemiCloud.
Sometimes, high CPU usage is caused by factors outside of hosting such as plugins, bots, background tasks, and more traffic. Before blaming your host, make sure it’s not a bottleneck and spend some time configuring your plugins, CDN, and hosting. But if nothing works, don’t get fooled by your host. If you (or them) are able to fix it, great! But if they tell you to upgrade, look into moving to LiteSpeed before pulling the trigger on a hosting plan that still uses Apache.
- Use a LiteSpeed host with more CPU cores
- Remove resource hungry plugins
- Limit heartbeat, autosaves, post revisions, XML-RPC
- Replace wp-cron with a real cron job
- Use a CDN with full page caching
- Use your CDN for firewall + image optimization
- Block bad bots
- Increase cache expiration
- Protect the wp-login page
- Try switching cache plugins
- Limit preloading + cache clearing in cache plugins
- Clean your database (thoroughly)
- Install Redis or Memcached with OPcache
- Avoid page builders on cheap hosting
- Use PHP 8+
- Clean up your admin
- Disable unused hosting add-ons
- Keep email/web hosting separate
- Block spam comments
- Run a malware scan
1. Use A LiteSpeed Host With More CPU Cores
Just by switching to LiteSpeed, people have seen a 75%+ reduction in CPU usage. LiteSpeed uses CPU/memory more efficiently, it’s faster, and can handle more traffic compared to Apache.
When choosing any host, I like to look at:
- Do they use LiteSpeed or Apache?
- Do they use NVMe storage which is faster than SATA?
- Do they use MariaDB which has advantages over MySQL?
- Do they have scam reports like Hostinger and GreenGeeks?
- If you also use them for email hosting, you’ll want more inodes.
- Complaints on TrustPilot about specific issues like high CPU usage.
Taking all this into consideration, this is why I like ChemiCloud. They use LiteSpeed, NVMe, MariaDB, and have a 5/5 star TrustPilot rating. Not only do they include more CPU cores + RAM than most hosts, but they offer a Turbo+ Boost add-on which lets you scale cores + RAM from 3/3 to 6/6. Which means even if you need to upgrade, you can just buy this add-on instead of an entirely new plan. You’re not stuck with the same resources since their add-on offers scalability.
For cloud hosting, I either recommend Rocket.net (what I use) or Vultr High Frequency on RunCloud (for only a few sites) or GridPane (for agencies). RunCloud and GridPane both use LiteSpeed. And while Rocket.net still uses Apache, their specs will greatly outperform similar cloud hosts like SiteGround Cloud, Cloudways, and Kinsta. Especially between their <100ms average global TTFB on Cloudflare Enterprise and 32 CPU cores + 128GB RAM. ChemiCloud also has VPS LiteSpeed hosting but you’ll need to spend an extra $9.95/mo for the LiteSpeed add-on.
Hosts like SiteGround, Bluehost, and Hostinger are only popular because of marketing and affiliates who don’t know what they’re talking about. But if you look at specs of their hardware, software, CDN, and cache plugin, hosts like ChemiCloud and Rocket.net are clearly better/faster.
2. Remove Resource Hungry Plugins
Some plugins run background tasks which increase CPU usage.
Any plugin (or plugin setting) that has to collect data will probably be your worst culprit. This can be Wordfence’s live traffic report, Rank Math’s 404 logs and Google Analytics integration, or even plugins like Broken Link Checker and Query Monitor which constantly scan your website.
Some people will tell you to deactivate and reactivate plugins 1 by 1 and make sure they’re lightweight. This is broad advice and can be impractical. You can still use some of these plugins as long as you disable or tweak their settings to use less resources by limiting background tasks. However, some plugins are infamous for increasing CPU usage and should be removed entirely.
Tools You’ll Need:
- Query Monitor – find your slowest plugins. Once installed, view a page on your site, find the Query Monitor menu in your admin bar, and go to Queries → Queries by component.
- WP Hive – free Chrome Extension that lets you browse the WordPress plugin repository and see whether a plugin impacts memory usage (as well as PageSpeed Insights scores).
- WP-Optimize – shows you which plugins (or plugin modules) add the most database overhead. You can also remove tables left by old plugins as well as other database junk. The image below shows how using many Rank Math modules can add lots of overhead.
See my full list of 75+ slow plugins.
| Plugin | Category | Memory Impact | PageSpeed Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Analytify | Analytics | X | ✓ |
| Backup Buddy | Backup | X | ✓ |
| iThemes Security | Security | X | ✓ |
| Broken Link Checker | SEO | X | ✓ |
| Jetpack | Security | X | X |
| Query Monitor | Analytics | X | ✓ |
| NextGEN Gallery | Gallery | X | X |
| Site Kit by Google | Analytics | X | ✓ |
| Wordfence | Security | X | ✓ |
| wpDiscuz | Comments | X | X |
| WPML | Translate | X | X |
| Yoast SEO | SEO | X | ✓ |
3. Limit Heartbeat, Autosaves, Post Revisions, XML-RPC
These are more background tasks you can limit. WordPress Heartbeat runs every 15-60s, autosaves run every 60s while editing, and a revision is stored whenever you update a post.
I recommend FlyingPress’ bloat settings for this which is also the cache plugin I recommend. They recently released these settings to limit Heartbeat, post revisions, disable XML-RPC, and disable wp-cron (all of which reduce CPU usage). If you’re not using FlyingPress, you can also use the Perfmatters general settings or Unbloater for most of these, but try to use FlyingPress.
Limit Heartbeat – if you have the option to disable it in specific areas, I would disable it in the frontend/dashboard, then limit the post editor to 120s since you probably want it there when using page builders, for autosaves, etc. Or paste the code to functions.php after the <?php tag.
add_action( 'init', 'stop_heartbeat', 1 );
function stop_heartbeat() {
wp_deregister_script('heartbeat');
}Increase autosave interval – I increased this to 120s (you could even do 300s). If you’re not using a plugin that lets you do this, you can add the following code to your wp-config.php file.
define('AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 300); // secondsLimit post revisions – since you want a few backups, limit your post revisions to around 5-10.
define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', 10 );Disable XML-RPC – If you don’t use mobile devices to publish content (or use plugins like JetPack), disable XML-RPC. Aside from reducing CPU usage, it also stops brute force + DDoS attacks. If you’re not using a plugin that does this, use Perfmatters, Disable XML-RPC plugin, or paste the code to .htaccess and replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with your IP address in case you need it.
# Block WordPress xmlrpc.php requests
<Files xmlrpc.php>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
</Files>
4. Replace WP-Cron With A Real Cron Job
The wp-cron is loaded on every pageview and schedules automated tasks like publishing scheduled posts, checking for theme and plugin updates, sending email notifications, etc. Replacing this with a real cron job gives you better control and can help reduce CPU usage.
The first step is disabling the built-in wp-cron in FlyingPress (see previous section) or add the code to your wp-config.php file before where it says “That’s all, step editing! Happy blogging.”
define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);Now we’ll set up an external cron job. This can be different depending on your host (cpanel, VPS, etc). I suggest Googling instructions for them since SiteGround, Bluehost, Cloudways, and Hostinger all have their own guides. In cPanel, you would open the “cron jobs” tab and use the following line to set a cron job for every 10 minutes. You may think a higher interval would be better for CPU, but this can cause CPU spikes since too many jobs are running at the same time.
wget -q -O - https://yourwebsite.com/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron >/dev/null 2>&1
WP Crontrol is nice for changing the schedule of specific cron jobs and deleting jobs with no action. You could also offload cron jobs from your server using a Cloudflare JavaScript worker.
5. Use A CDN With Full Page Caching
CDNs lighten the load on your server by offloading bandwidth to their data centers.
With full page caching, you’re caching HTML which improves TTFB in multiple global locations (which you can test in KeyCDN) while also reducing CPU usage. If you’re using LiteSpeed, you’ll want to use QUIC.cloud (ideally their paid/standard plan which uses all 83+ PoPs and includes DDoS protection). If you’re not using LiteSpeed, use Cloudflare APO. I don’t recommend using SiteGround’s CDN or WP Rocket’s RocketCDN since they either don’t support full page caching or have a history of DNS issues which already caused 2 million sites to get blocked from Google.
Of course, the best CDN right now is Rocket.net’s Cloudflare Enterprise which is free, setup automatically, and includes more Enterprise features than Cloudways/Kinsta like APO, Argo Smart Routing, WAF, and image optimization. Plus, their hosting is faster than both of these.
6. Use Your CDN For Firewall + Image Optimization
Using your CDN for security + image optimization also lightens the load on your server. Whereas security + image optimization plugins use resources and increase CPU usage.
A firewall blocks unwanted requests. Cloudflare (WAF), QUIC.cloud, and BunnyCDN all have firewalls. Cloudflare lets you add firewall rules to block bad bots, hackiest countries, etc. They also have rate limiting (paid service) to identify and mitigate excessive requests to specific URLs.
For image optimization, I recommend either QUIC.cloud, Cloudflare Mirage/Polish (included with Rocket.net’s and Cloudways’ Cloudflare Enterprise or on Cloudflare Pro), or BunnyCDN’s Bunny Optimizer. These also typically optimize your images better than plugins (like Imagify).
7. Block Bad Bots
Hosting companies love to blame high CPU usage on bad bots.
You can use Wordfence’s traffic report to see all bots hitting your site in real-time. But I recommend deleting Wordfence when you’re done since the plugin can increase CPU usage.
Instead, enable Cloudflare’s bot fight mode.
Additionally, crawler hints save resources by helping search engines avoid wasteful crawls.
8. Increase Cache Expiration
Some cache plugins, hosting dashboards, and CDNs have a cache expiration setting.
A longer cache expiration has several benefits, one of them being less CPU usage because the cache doesn’t need to rebuild as frequently. Google recommends setting this to 365 days for static files, but dynamic websites like WooCommerce should generally aim for about 1 month.
9. Protect The WP-Login Page
Your wp-login page is a common target for bots/attackers. Even just attempting to login generates additional requests to your server, so it’s best to try and block these completely.
Do not move your wp-login page when using QUIC.cloud’s CDN (for LiteSpeed) since it already protects the wp-login page. However, you’ll want to move it in most other cases.
- Limit login attempts: control how many times users attempt to login, lockout period, XML-RPC gateway protection, and other features using the Limit Login Attempts plugin.
- Move the wp-login page: bots aren’t usually smart enough to find a custom login page which you can change using Perfmatters (if you’re already using it) or WPS Hide Login.
- SiteGround Security plugin: while I’m not a fan of SiteGround, their security plugin can move your login page, limit login attempts, disable XML-RPC, and help protect your site.
10. Try Switching Cache Plugins
FlyingPress + LiteSpeed Cache address web vitals better than WP Rocket + SG Optimizer. If you’re using a LiteSpeed server, use LiteSpeed Cache. If not, use FlyingPress in all other cases.
I’ve seen several complaints in Facebook groups about WP Rocket and CPU issues. FlyingPress also recently released this update to reduce CPU usage by 300% when the cache is preloading.
11. Limit Preloading + Cache Clearing In Cache Plugins
Preloading is a big reason cache plugins can increase CPU usage. Some cache plugins let you change how preloading works while other plugins don’t (in this case, try disabling preloading).
Examples:
- WP Rocket’s preloading
- LiteSpeed Cache’s Crawler
- SG Optimizer’s preheat cache
You should only preload important sitemap URLs. Preloading the entire sitemap means tags and other non-critical pages will be preloaded and use resources. Find your sitemap URL (i.e. https://mysite.com/sitemap_index.xml), copy the most important URLs (i.e. pages/posts), and add them manually. Disabling preload entirely is another option since it’s known for increasing CPU usage. The screenshot below is for WP Rocket but the LiteSpeed Cache Crawler and most other cache plugins have options to control how preloading works. Check their documentation.
You can also increase the preload crawl interval using WP Rocket’s helper plugin or again, check your plugin’s documentation. Increasing the default interval from 500ms to 3000ms (or more) prevents your cache plugin from preloading URLs quicker than your server can handle.
They have another helper plugin to disable automatic cache clearing. Any time you do one of these things, the entire cache is deleted and rebuilt. A better alternative is to set up a cron job to control when the cache is cleared and which your pages are cleared (you can also do this with preloading). This way, you’re not constantly clearing the full cache when updating your website.
Finally, try disabling the “preload links” setting. If users constantly hover over internal links (especially on websites with lots of image links like WooCommerce products), this means those pages are constantly downloading in the background. Similar thing if you’re using Flying Pages.
Other Cache Plugin Settings That Impact CPU Usage:
- Cache logged-in users (usually leave off).
- Separate mobile cache (usually leave off).
- Remove unused CSS (decrease the batch size).
- LiteSpeed Cache guest mode, cache commenters, server stale.
12. Clean Your Database (Thoroughly)
I briefly covered this in step 2, but cleaning your database can reduce CPU usage.
Cache plugins clean most of it, but WP-Optimize lets you delete tables left behind by old plugins. In the process of doing this, you can also see specific plugins/modules adding overhead. In which case, consider disabling these modules unless you actually need them.
13. Install Redis Or Memcached With OPcache
Your host will either support Redis, Memcached, or neither (find their instructions).
You’ll usually activate it in your hosting account (PHP Extensions in cPanel). Next, use a plugin (like LiteSpeed Cache’s object cache settings) to connect it. If your host doesn’t support object cache, use the Docket Cache plugin. OPcache can usually be enabled in your hosting account.
14. Avoid Page Builders On Cheap Hosting
Why does Elementor recommend a 756MB memory limit? Because it requires more resources than Gutenberg and other lightweight alternatives (plus it adds extra CSS/JS to the frontend).
When you combine a page builder that requires more server resources with a hosting plan that doesn’t give you enough… you get higher CPU usage. The same is true for WooCommerce sites.
15. Use PHP 8+
Upgrade to the latest PHP version in your hosting account (if you see errors, just revert back). Higher PHP versions are faster on the frontend and more efficient for CPU and memory usage.
16. Clean Up Your Admin
Other than making your admin look tidy, disabling things can save resources. Try one of these:
- Unbloater (recommended)
- Disable WooCommerce Bloat
- Hide SEO Bloat (for Yoast)
17. Disable Unused Hosting Add-Ons
Disabling unused features in your hosting account can also help.
This mainly applies to things like New Relic and xdebug. Just like many diagnostic tools, New Relic has to process a lot of data and should be disabled immediately after you’re done using it.
18. Keep Email/Web Hosting Separate
There’s a reason many cloud hosts don’t offer email hosting.
Emails take up inodes (files) and resources which could be better dedicated to hosting your website. Some shared hosts have very low inode limits and even say exceeding them can have an “adverse effect on server performance.” Use a third-party service like Google Workspace (what I use) or Cloudflare who started offering free email addresses. It’s a good idea to keep them separate anyway since in case you switch hosts, you don’t have to switch your email too.
19. Block Spam Comments
I recently switched to Antispam Bee (which doesn’t use CAPTCHA) ever since Akismet turned into a paid plugin. Otherwise my blog gets too much spam which isn’t good for CPU or my time.
20. Run A Malware Scan
Run a scan using Wordfence or another security plugin to check for malware and other vulnerabilities. Fixing other issues can improve security and may also help reduce CPU usage.
A lot of people have success using Wordfence to reduce CPU, but you’ll probably have to configure quite a few settings or the ongoing scans can actually make your problem worse.
FAQs
How do I reduce CPU usage in WordPress?
Switching to LiteSpeed hosting with more CPU cores can often reduce WordPress CPU usage by 50%+. Also check for resource hungry plugins, background tasks, and offload everything possible to your CDN (including bandwidth, security, and image optimization).
What can I do if WordPress CPU usage is 100%?
If your CPU usage is 100%, ask your host to spare temporary resources so you have time to optimize your website. You may be able to lower usage so you don't have to upgrade plans.
How do I check CPU usage?
Your hosting dashboard should have tools to check CPU usage as well as memory, bandwidth, and disk space. Or use tools like AWStats, Query Monitor, and New Relic.
Which plugins reduce WordPress CPU usage?
FlyingPress, Perfmatters, Unbloater, WP-Optimize, Blackhole for Bad Bots, and WPS Hide Login are all WordPress plugins that include features for reducing CPU usage in WordPress.
Do Apache servers cause high CPU usage in WordPress?
Yes, Apache servers are inefficient compared to Nginx and LiteSpeed. For example, LiteSpeed can handle 2x the capacity of Apache and uses resources more efficiently.
I know this can be a pain so feel free to drop a comment if you need help.
Cheers,
Tom
Hi Tom,
Your guide is a benediction. We are strongly considering changing the host of our business website based on your recommendations. We use Cloudways but experience constant CPU spikes for no apparent reason. Their support is very kind, but unable to find the cause.
Hey Alex,
It’s pretty common on Cloudways since they don’t give you a lot of cores/RAM for the price (it’s marked up about 2x as the price of actual cloud provider), Apache servers, etc. May want to look into another service where you can launch cloud servers like RunCloud or ServerAvatar, or give Rocket.net a spin if the bandwidth is in your budget. But yeah, I see a lot of Cloudways users post about CPU usage in FB groups.
The link to Antispam Bee points to Akismet – oh no!
No, lord have mercy! Fixed :)
wow, really awesome and perfect one
You should also include the WP-CLI cron jobs, for the hosting that support WP-cli.
wp cron even run –due-now
Thanks for the great article.
I’ll try to include it in the next update, ty for the suggestion.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the writeup, was and excellent read with loads of information.
Appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge.
Have a good one. Cheers.
How is Kadence theme?
Not using it myself but I know it comes highly recommended. Very good, lightweight. Lots of people use it like Adam from WPCrafter.
I’d steer away from Siteground. They notified us of going over the CPU limit today, and at the same time took our site down. So we’re scrambling to fix a complex issue while our business is being harmed. I feel like I’m being mugged at gunpoint right now.
Great tutorial. I took your recommendation and went to Siteground (through your affiliate link), and now I’m about to go to Cloudways (DigitalOcean) through your link. I was seeing 90 on GTmetrix on my site hosted at Siteground, but since a few weeks, it has gone very low around 30-40. Don’t know what’s the problem.
Switched Extra theme to GeneratePress, used Perfmatters, WpRocket and removed most unimportant plugins, but it only increased my scores to 54 Structure and 75 Performance. Can’t find a way to increase it… Maybe moving to Cloudways will help.
And I noticed that GTmetrix’s interface changed recently… Have any details changed? What’s your thought on this?
Thanks for reading my comment and for providing honest suggestions. You’ve been a big help!
Hey Faiz,
Thanks so much for using them, been hard to stay on top of the industry with so many changes going on. Yes, GTmetrix updated to include Lighthouse recommendations. Sites using page builders in particular seemed to have gotten punished because of extra CSS/JS. I’m in the process of removing my page builder, should have never used one. Many sites dropped in scores once GTmetrix released this update. Just remember to aim for fast load times instead of scores.
Regardless, yes, SiteGround’s TTFB has gotten worse and worse. So many complaints about them in Facebook Groups. Cloudways or Gridpane are both good choices and you should see an improvement. If you were using SG Optimizer you will need to replace it (e.g. with WP Rocket).
Hope that helps :)
I recently installed WooCommerce so maybe that was the problem. Still, my other sites without WooCommerce were getting 77 in YSlow so I can say that SiteGround has gotten slow.
I used your recommendation to get cloudways (through your link obviously) and migrated my site using their plugin. I had some issues with DNS, and their support helped very well. The wait time was extremely short. Then I installed SSL and was getting a B, so I contacted support and they helped me resolve it and now I’m getting an A.
After doing all that, I am really surprised to see my GTmetrix scores. It’s an A with 98 performance and 87 structure. And I didn’t do anything except change hosting. Thanks a lot for your recommendation. Here’s a link if you want to check it out yourself. Link
Wow, that’s pretty amazing. It’s good to see hosting is actually influencing the scores now instead of just load times. Excellent report!
1) Do not use wordpress, especially for anything else than a basic blog. Their database design is flexible but terrible when it comes to scaling. I’ve reduced the size of the database by a factor of over 10 several times by migrating the sites to custom apps w/ proper database designs. I’m especially looking at you, people that want to start an ecommerce on wordpress…. Not a great idea, especially if you plan on actually growing past the small fish scale.
Awesome post, thankyou.
Thank you for great tips. Actually this depends on the best web hosting. Never use heavy themes and too much plugins.
Great article, thanks!
Can you recommend a lightweight sitemap plugin alternative?
Hi,
We developed the Free WordPress Plugin Stop Bad Bots to block bad bots.
You can download it for free on WordPress repository:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/stopbadbots/
Cheers,
Bill
Plugin Developer
2. Eliminate High CPU Plugins / Great List
Thank you, I gotta make my list of Lightweight Plugins just as good :)
Hello Tom,
You are really doing a good job in fact OnlineMediaMasters is like a wp Dictionary what ever we are searching on Google that we are getting here with easy & simple way.
Recently I have activated clearfy plugin but I see that wp disable have leaved some script on my website like disable author page, post revision & some other too..
How to remove all those script, should I reinstall and deactivate again??
Hi there, thanks for this. Quick question regarding the Cloudflare Wordpress plugin. Is it worth installing this, or should I not in order to save bandwidth and site speed?
Thanks!
It’s just not a good plugin, you don’t need it.
Great, thank you! Would you recommend using WP comments or Disqus with DCL from a performance standpoint?
Love it man! This article got my score way way up from where it started. Countless ideas to get your speed up! Thank you.
This is one well-written article, with many solutions which I wasn’t aware of previously.
Thanks a ton!
Great article, never knew about WP Disable.
A quick question about that, I’m hosted @ SiteGround on a Cloud VPS, am running SG Optimiser & WP Rocket (as they apparently work well together). I also have my DNS @ CloudFlare. Is using another plugin (WP Disable) along with what I’m already running (seeing as some of the features overlap) overkill, or is there benefit do you think?
I guess what I’m really asking is would there be any potential conflicts?
Definitely a trial and error thing… cache plugins can be so unpredictable. But yes, I say try it and test your load time. WP Disable has some features not in those other tools which may have benefits.
The recommendations are great.
I’m struggling with my server response times as it’s ranging from 300ms up to 1 second (horrible). I tried moving from one Singapore server to another thinking that something is wrong with my previous server but it seems like it didn’t improve the server response time. However, I did get improvements on the WordPress backend as it loads considerably faster than the previous setup. Maybe that’s because I adjusted some settings as well and disabled Heartbeat in some areas. I’m currently using Cloudflare (and its DNS) and its CDN but I’m thinking of getting StackPath to serve my files. What do you think I should do?
Did you check Awstats to see the issue – bots, images, etc? Maybe there are lots of bots hitting your site. But yes offloading resources to both Cloudflare and MaxCDN should help. And if using a cache plugin, try disabling the preloading option.
Hi.
Great article, but your site speed is slower than it says on this examples. Pindom’s last test show way more sec’s than original https://tools.pingdom.com/#!/c9ewjt/https://onlinemediamasters.com/
You will always get different results for each test due to latency. But it loads very fast, usually under 300ms. Plus I tweaked a few things after you brought this up so the scores are a little higher now :-)
Thank you tom for this fascinating article. I’m really impressed with this site. I see that most of your posts are highly researched and executed before sharing. I wanna thank you heartfully for this much effort which you put with love and affection. Most newbie bloggers and WordPress site owners need to get aware of this blog and its charismatic content. Make sure to have a look at my site and feel free to share your impressions tom, I really need them.
Thank you TOM
Is WP Disable similar to https://perfmatters.io/
Have you looked at perfmatters before?
Incredible post!
I’m confused why you want response times to be greater than 200ms. I suspect you meant to write “<200ms" to mean "less than 200ms" in a bunch of places.
Fixed, thank you Mike!
No wonder why you are ranking for this post. Such a detailed post covering every nook and corner. Fantastic post.
Thanks Sid, I try my best on every article I write :)
Many thanks for this brilliant post! I’m so pleased that I can implement so many of your suggestions myself! Not to mention the fact that you have helped me understand so many things I didn’t before.
As soon as I finish fixing the CPU usage I’m going to look into your SEO posts.
Glad it was so easy Susan – let me know the results! Yes a lot of people use my Yoast / SEO tutorials :)
Hi Tom,
thanx for this great collection – serving an actual problem we have with some WP-Installations. It helped a lot.
Stephan (Wiesbaden, Germany)
It can be a tough issue to solve without upgrading hosting, harder than website speed optimization. But I tried and I’m happy it helped you Stephen :-)
I checked Webalizer in my cPanel but still confuse how to delete it? And when someday I need that again, how to reactivate it?
Depends on your host but contact them to request it be deactivated… and ask them about any potential high CPU functions they might be running while you’re at it (eg. SiteGround Sitescanner).
Ohh Thanks Tom, Great hacks you have shared. These are really helpful.
Thank you :) hope they worked!
Friend, Indeed it was a splendid article. Tried exactly what you mentioned but still my site loads slow and not good scores on either of the test sites. Just in case, would appreciate if you could help me what else I should install besides Wprocket, WP Disable, Cloudflare, TinyPNG for image optimization.
Thanking you in Anticipation.
Hi Ravi,
Have you tried resizing your images to be the proper dimensions? I see in GTmetrix you have a lot of recommendations for “serve scaled images”
It looks like your font from Font Awesome is also taking a time to load – I had a developer do this for me.
Excellent post filled with fantastic information. Just worked out a few performances hacks and instantly got away with some of the problems. Kudos to the author for putting up real facts and resolution steps for fixing high CPU load issues.
Glad it worked for you!
Wow… very nice article. I have checked your pingdom and gtmetric too.. it’s owesome… Thank you. How many plugins have you used for this blog.? Can you share it?
AMP
Anti-spam
Genesis eNews Extended
Genesis Simple Edits
Genesis Simple Share
Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP
Imagify
Replyable – Subscribe to Comments & Reply by email
Schema Removal
SG Optimizer
ThirstyAffiliates
TinyMCE Advanced
Widget Logic
Wordfence Security
WP Disable
WP Rich Snippets
WP Rocket
Yoast SEO Premium
Transmission capacity impediments, an excessive number of executions… whatever you need to call it. This implies is that we have to lessen the measure of assets devoured by your site, modules, pictures, and so forth. CPU is the main peripheral of our computer. The form, design, and implementation of CPUs have changed over the course of their history, but their fundamental operation remains almost unchanged.
I’m a bit stumped by what is happening right now, but your article popped up when I searched for WP CPU use. My problem as far as I know isn’t server side, it’s client side in Chrome. I mean, my wordpress page (my homepage on my site) maxes out all 4 of my laptop cpus. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
Yesterday I installed Wordfence to deal with some nasties. I’m not sure that is the problem though. Why would it be on the client side?
Before I start changing a bunch of stuff on my host site, can you comment if the changes in the article will stop the 100% CPU use on my laptop when I load the page?
Thanks!
Jan
Hey Jan,
I can’t be 100% sure without looking at your AWStats but yes, it usually helps with CPU usage and with your site speed… I would first check AWStats if you have it in your hosting cPanel (or a similar program that checks specific elements causing high CPU).
I don’t think you’re using a cache plugin though so I would definitely try installing WP Rocket or WP Fastest Cache. Then eliminate any unused plugins, clean your database, and make sure you have Cloudflare/WP Disable setup. If you’re still getting high CPU you can make more drastic changes but I think those will help – let me know!
Tom
Great tutorial! I will definitely try to see the fruitful outcome. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Tom,
I would like to know more about php 7.2,
Now i used 7.1 is ok but want to speed faster.
Do you have any suggestion?
Thank you.
If you’re with SiteGround use their SG Optimizer Plugin to upgrade, otherwise it’s specific to your host and you may need to contact them and ask for an upgrade, if it’s available for that host of course.
Will php upgrade break my website? Or any cause any conflict with plugin or theme files?
It always has the potential of breaking your website, but you can revert back to an earlier PHP version. Only reason it should break your website is if you’re using incompatible/unreliable themes/plugins.
This has been a massive help for a couple of sites I have. Especially point #3 with the “WP Disable” plugin. Its amazing what getting rid of bloat can do.
Thanks a lot.
For sure TJ, loving WP Disable. Should also make your dashboard load faster.
I think you should probably look again at your Wordfence rate limiting suggestions, or warn people about using your rate limiting suggestions.
Initially I thought you had come across a great solution and started seeing some unwanted bots being blocked – great, however it’s a bit too aggressive in limiting and legitimate users were seeing Wordfence blocked messages. Especially if they came from links on social media or e-mail clients.
Google also reported an increase in it’s bots being blocked – not ideal.
So, I must say, as with all your other suggestions – think twice before implementing.
Ultimately, if you don’t want to be continuously chasing CPU time optimisation, leave Siteground! I did and never looked back!
Hi,
sorry, dont work.. :(
:( what did AWstats says was causing high CPU on your site?
Awesome article with detailed instruction. Based on your suggestions I came to a conclusion that optimization is possible at very extent level only. Services like Analytics, Domain Cookie still messed up with performance, but they are negligible because they loads pretty fast.
Thanks. I have delete all the unused plugin and themes. I also have bookmark before delete some plugin because still needed such as broken link checker. So, maybe once a month I will remove or unlink broken link.
That’s exactly what I do, run it once in awhile. Glad you’re finding the tutorials helpful Naziman :)
Tom, just want to say thanks for the shout out for WP Disable :-)
You got it Jody, happy to recommend your awesome plugin.
Thanks for your help mate!
You got it :-)
Such an incredibly helpful and thorough post, thanks for taking the time.
Anytime Scott, hope it helped.
This is indeed a valuable resource for every WordPress site owner. I got here via a friend and I must say, your article has brought a lot of positive changes to my site. Thank you!
You got it :-) glad to hear that!
Very Useful Article. Thank You For Sharing With Us
Anytime Matt, glad it was helpful.
Hi Tom,
Great article, quite comprehensive
i am having trouble to show Yoast breadcrumbs on AMP. Is there any work around for it.
Thanks
Hi Tom, Chris here. My website has been having exactly same problem as you trying to solve in this tutorial. Would you have time to apply these twikings on my site? Of course, not asking that you do it for free. Please contact me so we can discuss details. I look forward to speaking to you.
Hey Chris,
I’m sorry but I personally don’t work on sites anymore for CPU/speed optimization. Customers don’t like if their site goes down, something goes wrong temporarily… and it’s just risky just to make a little $.
My developer (you can find him here) does speed optimization and is experienced with reducing CPU if you would like to hire him. I’ve been working with Pronaya for around 6 years now and he’s definitely good as he’s completed well over 30 speed projects.
thanks for your write up. you just saved my website from fatal loss
Awesome, glad it could help!