Common VPS mistakes that slow down your website

When you move a website to a VPC, you gain access to more CPU, RAM, storage, and control than with shared hosting. Yet, a VPS upgrade alone does not truly guarantee a fast website. 

Well, a poorly configured server can still take several seconds to load a page even when many resources are readily available. An oversized database, missing caching, slow storage, or even an incorrect server setting can waste the additional capacity. 

So, what do we do?

The good news is that most VPS performance problems are measurable. And what can be measured can be managed! Once teams know where CPU time, memory, storage, and network capacity are going, they can usually identify the bottleneck and fix it.

Here are 9 common VPS mistakes that slow down your website:

1. Picking the wrong VPS size

One of the rookie mistakes you can make is selecting a server based only on price.

Let’s say a small website may run well with modest resources. An e-commerce store, a busy WordPress site, or some database-heavy application can require more CPU and RAM as traffic grows. However, an undersized VPS may show these issues:

• CPU usage staying close to its limit
• Memory running out during traffic spikes
• Database queries being slow
• Longer page response times
• Processes being terminated when memory is exhausted

Oversizing creates yet another problem. A business may pay for extra CPU and RAM that the website rarely ever uses. So, a better approach would be to monitor actual resource usage and size the VPS based on normal and peak traffic, as well as expected growth.

2. Ignoring CPU usage during busy time periods

The average CPU usage per project can hide performance problems. 

A server may use only 25% of its processor capacity throughout most of the day, but reach 100% whenever traffic increases due to unpredictable reasons. Visitors arriving during those periods experience the slowdown.

Common CPU-heavy tasks may include:

• Dynamic page generation
• Search functions
• Database queries
• Bacup jobs
• Image processing
• ANaylytics scripts
• Security scans

We recommend monitoring CPU usage during the busiest periods rather than relying solely on daily averages. If one application or process repeatedly consumes most of the CPU, investigate that workload before upgrading the entire server. 

3. Running too many applications on a single VPS

A VPS often starts with one website and gradually adds additional workloads. Now, teams may later add databases, staging sites, analytics tools, and backup processes to the same server. And as a result, each service consumes resources! 

The website can then compete with background workloads for CPU, RAM, storage, and network capacity. 

So, review the processes running on the server regularly. Services that have become essential enough to require their own resources can be separated into a separate cloud virtual machine. 

4. Skipping server-side caching

Generating the same page repeatedly creates unnecessary server workload. Caching allows the server to save commonly requested information and later reuse it for future visitors. How convenient is that?

Depending on the application, teams can use:

• Page caching: Storing completed pages os they can be delivered quickly.
• Object caching: Keeps frequently requested application data available in memory.
• Database caching: Reducing repeated database work for common queries. 
• Browser caching: Allows static resources to remain on the visitor device for a defined period.

Rolls like Redis can also help applications keep frequently accessed data in memory. CloudPe discusses caching and server resource control in greater detail in its guide to VPS hosting in India. Go check it out! 

5. Letting the database turn into the bottleneck

Even the fastest web server in the world can feel slow when pages spend a little too much time waiting for the database. 

Databases become more demanding as websites collect user accounts, orders, commenters, and other relevant data. Poorly optimized queries may consume more information than necessary, and old tables can grow for years. All this, while plugins may create additional database requests every time a page loads.

Thus, it’s a good idea to monitor query time, database CPU use, memory consumption, and connection counts. Regular maintenance can also remove unnecessary data and help common queries run a bit more efficiently. 

6. Using slow storage for demanding workloads

Website performance also depends heavily on how swiftly the server can read and write information. Storage activity happens when the VPS loads application files, accesses databases, creates logs, writes backups, or retrieves different types of data.

Here are a few important measurements to consider: 

Read speed: How quickly the server retrieves stored information. 

Write speed: How quickly any new information is saved.

Storage latency: How long each storage request takes.

Available space: Whether the disk is approaching capacity.

Fast NVMe storage can help workloads with frequent read and write operations, but applications still need good database and file management practices. 

7. Keeping unnecessary plugins and scripts

It’s not a rare sight to watch website software slowly become heavier over time. For instance, plugins installed for temporary features can remain active for many years. Themes, tracking tools, chat widgets, advertising code, and integrations can also add a lot more to the processing.

Why not ask yourself a simple question: Does the website still need all this?

It’s best to audit plugins and scripts regularly, remove unused components, and compare performance before and after the change.

8. Run backups during peak traffic.

Backups consume a significant amount of your CPU, storage throughput, and network bandwidth. If a large backup runs during a busy sales period, website visitors share the same infrastructure with that job. 

Thus, schedule demanding maintenance during quieter periods when possible. This may include backups, malware scans, database exports, log processing, software maintenance, and media conversion. 

Monitor the server while these jobs run to understand how much capacity they use.

9. Pick a distant server location.

A fast server cannot really overcome the physical distance between a website and its visitors. Data still has to cross the network. 

A website serving mainly Indian users can benefit from a data center located closer to India. A shorter network route can reduce latency, in turn helping requests return a lot more quickly. Server location matters especially for e-commerce, SaaS applications, customer dashboards, interactive websites, and APIs. 

So, it’s important to test response times from the locations where real users are based. 

Conclusion

A virtual private server gives your website a lot more resources and much greater control. Yet its performance depends entirely on how you use those resources. Aspects like incorrect sizing, missing caching, slow database, overloaded storage, or weak monitoring can all reduce the website’s speed, ultimately affecting the consumer’s experience. 

We highly recommend starting by first measuring performance. Try to find the resource that reaches its limit first, and then fix the specific bottleneck issues. A well-configured VPS can then make a bigger impact on its available CPU, storage, memory, and network capacity. 

Frequently asked questions 

Why is my website still slow after moving to a VPS?

The VPS may have enough resources while the application has another bottleneck. Things like database queries, caching issues, plugins, storage activity, and background jobs can all affect your website’s performance.

How much RAM does a website need on a VPS?

RAM requirements depend on traffic, application design, database size, and the number of services running on the server. Make sure you check actual memory usage before changing the configuration. 

Does NVMe storage make a VPS faster?

NVMe storage can improve read and write performance for workloads that frequently access storage, such as dynamic websites and databases.

Does VPS server location affect website speed?

Yep! Hosting closer to the main user base can reduce network latency and shorten the time required for data to travel between visitors and the server.