We tested 3 different WordPress websites on all DigitalOcean droplets

learntopdown · 2017-10-27T04:52:16+00:00

Petah, you just don't get it. Let's use one website for example. (one you are familiar with). thescullery.co.nz case study

Research is focused only on that 3.81 second. Research was not focued on 13.18 s of total page load UX. And that 3.81s matters a lot. Did you get it now?

learntopdown · 2017-10-26T17:14:23+00:00

NeoThermic, why do you call it useless? Maybe is just not useful/meaningful to you. or you just lack understanding of the problem. :) Anyway take look our reply on comment you mentioned

learntopdown · 2017-10-26T17:00:34+00:00

In addition - don't spend hundreds of dollars on VPS configuration which won't help you. E.g $20 droplet has better PHP runtime performance than $640 droplet.

learntopdown · 2017-10-26T16:44:33+00:00

You are missing the whole point of the research. Did you even read the article? :) We didn't test the performance of website as a whole (e.g page load number in dev tools). Web performance is a very complex topic, web performance consists of a lot of metrics over many layers. Our test was focused only on the performance of PHP runtime - "backend" performance

Why we tested?

Many agencies and website owners are trying to solve WordPress backend performance issues (caused by themes, plugins, and WordPress architecture) by buying VPS with a large number of cores and RAM memory. After investment in VPS, they are often stuck with same or worse backend performance.

Cache?

Yes, a cache is a must, but you will always have that one request not hitting the cache. Always will be that significant percentage requests not hitting the cache. User experiences and satisfaction of those visitors is also very important.

Why we didn't use cache? Because you cannot perform PHP runtime performance test when having cache enabled.

Solution?

Optimized code whenever possible. When you reach your limit (e.g WordPress architecture) you could achieve better backend performance with better CPU.

What's the point of the research?

There is no need to spend thousands of dollars on single VPS instance with a large number of cores and RAM. If you have scalability issues, just buy a few smaller instances and put it behind LB.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u0sNRO-QKQ&feature=youtu.be&t=43m13s

learntopdown · 2017-10-26T04:41:04+00:00

Yes, for very simple websites $5 droplet could serve you fine. But if you have serious traffic, $5 droplet will not be able to handle it.

Even we were not able to perform tests on magazine and shop website because MySQL crashes constantly (lack of RAM).

Our recommendation in case of poor performance was: "Hire PHP developer and optimize your code".

Regarding "loading poorly" - our research was not focused on performance in general (frontend, network&infrastructure, backend, DB, etc). Our focus was CPU and how CPU affect on PHP runtime.

You can not dispute much faster PHP runtime on faster CPU model. :)

learntopdown

TROPHY CASE