Sizing a server for what you actually run.
START FROM THE WORKLOAD
- A single WordPress site with moderate traffic: modest specifications are ample.
- A WooCommerce shop: more memory, because uncached checkout requests are expensive.
- Several client sites on a control panel: memory scales with the number of active sites.
- An application with background workers: account for those processes separately.
A REASONABLE STARTING POINT
Enough memory to run your operating system, control panel if any, web server, PHP and database comfortably with headroom. Control panels themselves consume a meaningful share.
SIZE FOR NORMAL LOAD PLUS HEADROOM
Not for your busiest hour ever. You can scale later, and over-buying at the start wastes money for months.
WHAT PEOPLE UNDER-ESTIMATE
Memory. A database under memory pressure is slow in ways that look like every other problem.
WHAT PEOPLE OVER-ESTIMATE
CPU cores. Most web workloads are not CPU-bound.
BEFORE ORDERING
Tell us what you intend to run in a Sales ticket. We would rather size it correctly than sell you something that struggles or something you do not need.
