Welcome to our exploration of PHP workers vs PHP memory limit!
In web development, mainly when using PHP, these two components are vital in determining how efficiently your application runs.
PHP workers are responsible for processing tasks and handling requests, while the memory limit sets boundaries on how much memory each worker can utilise.
Understanding how to manage both effectively can improve your application’s performance, responsiveness, and overall user experience.
Increasing the number of PHP workers from 10 to 50 can significantly decrease request latency and reduce error rates.
Using PHP workers and memory limit, page load time was reduced by 65.7% and transactions per minute increased by 183.3%
What are PHP Workers?
PHP workers play a critical role in determining the performance of your WordPress site. These workers are background processes running on the server that execute the PHP code that drives your site’s functionality.
In WordPress, these workers build pages, handle tasks, and generate HTML pages for visitors.
PHP workers determine the number of uncached requests your site can manage simultaneously. Once a PHP worker is initiated, it stays active until the processes are finished or specific criteria are fulfilled.
When a visitor accesses your WordPress site, a request is sent to the server and processed by a PHP worker. If your site has multiple PHP workers, several requests can be handled simultaneously.
For example, with two PHP workers and five incoming requests, two requests will be processed immediately, while the remaining three will wait in the queue until the first two are completed.
This queuing system manages traffic, but insufficient PHP workers can cause delays and slower response times during high traffic.
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Why Do You Need PHP Workers?
PHP workers manage requests that bypass or miss the website’s cache. When a request doesn’t find a match in the cache, a PHP worker steps in to process it and returns the result to the visitor as a web page.
It’s essential to remember that their capacity to operate is not limitless—it relies on various factors, such as the number of requests and the available server resources.
These factors determine how many uncached visits or requests your site can handle simultaneously.
When to Add More PHP Workers
The number of PHP workers required depends on database query usage, code optimization, and traffic it receives.
An optimized site with efficient PHP code and database queries processes requests quickly, freeing up PHP workers for subsequent requests.
Dynamic sites, such as eCommerce stores, forums, learning platforms, and membership sites, generally need more PHP workers compared to static, brochure-style sites. Moreover, sites with higher traffic levels typically require additional PHP workers to manage the increased load.
Increasing the number of PHP workers can handle higher traffic and reduce request processing wait times. However, balancing this with available CPU and RAM resources is crucial. If the server lacks sufficient CPU and RAM to support extra PHP workers, it can create a bottleneck and lead to performance issues.
How to Add More PHP Workers
- Log in to your server or hosting control panel.
- Find the PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager) configuration file, often named `www.conf` or similar.
- Increase the values for `pm.max_children` (the maximum number of PHP processes) and adjust other related settings as needed.
- Apply the changes and save the configuration file.
- Restart PHP-FPM or the web server to apply the new settings.
pm = dynamic pm.max_children = 10 pm.start_servers = 1 pm.min_spare_servers = 1 pm.max_spare_servers = 1
When adjusting the number of PHP workers, we recommend setting `pm` to `static`. This ensures a fixed number of PHP workers are always available to handle requests, minimizing the overhead of dynamic scaling.
The `pm.max_children` value will determine the number of PHP worker processes. Other options are ignored when `pm` is set to `static`, so there’s no need to modify them.
Ensure that your server has enough resources to manage the higher number of workers.
What is a PHP Memory Limit?
Each time your site loads a page, activates a plugin, or uses a theme feature, PHP scripts are executed and require memory to function correctly.
The PHP memory limit specifies the memory available to your WordPress site.
You’ll need a enough PHP memory limit to ensure your site can handle all its tasks without encountering issues such as:
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Slow page loads:
Insufficient memory can delay the execution of PHP scripts, resulting in longer page load times.
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Plugin Failures:
Resource-heavy plugins may malfunction if they lack sufficient memory to operate effectively.
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White screen of death:
If a PHP script exhausts its memory, your site may show a blank white screen instead of loading correctly.
How to Handle PHP Memory Limits
It’s also crucial to understand that setting the limit too high can lead to severe problems if a misconfigured or faulty script uses excessive memory.
Increasing the PHP memory limit can be crucial for ensuring the performance and stability of your WordPress site, especially when handling resource-intensive tasks.
If you encounter error messages like “Allowed memory size exhausted,” your PHP memory limit needs to be increased. This indicates that the current memory limit is insufficient for executing tasks.
PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 268435456 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 20480 bytes)
This message indicates that the PHP script tried to allocate more memory than the allowed 256MB (268,435,456 bytes), leading to a memory exhaustion error. The script attempted to allocate an extra 20KB (20,480 bytes) but exhausted the available memory.
How to Increase the PHP Memory Limits?
Step 1. Modify the php.ini file:
- Log into your cPanel.
- Go to the Files > File Manager.
- Inside the root directory (public_html), find the php.ini file,
- Search the line where memory_limit is present.
memory_limit = 256M
- Increase the limit and save changes.
Step 2. Edit .htaccess file
- Log into your cPanel.
- Navigate to the Files > File Manager.
- Inside the public_html directory, find the .htaccess
- Add the following line:
php_value memory_limit 256M
PHP Workers vs PHP Memory Limit: Core Differences
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Role in Handling Requests
PHP workers handle incoming web requests and manage concurrency. The PHP memory limit restricts how much memory each script can use, ensuring proper resource allocation.
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Impact on Performance
Increasing PHP workers improves the server’s capacity to handle more simultaneous requests. Increasing the PHP memory limit allows individual scripts to perform more extensive operations without errors. Both should be optimized for balanced performance.
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Configuration and Management
Managing PHP workers requires configuring the appropriate number in your server settings, such as PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager). In contrast, managing the PHP memory limit involves editing the php.ini file or setting it dynamically in your code.
How Many PHP Workers Does Your Site Need?
PHP workers use 80-100% of your available CPU capacity. For complex workloads, you might only be able to support 2 PHP workers before exhausting CPU resources.
However, with optimized and efficient workloads, you can handle 4, 6, or even 8 workers per core with the exact server specifications.
Having too many PHP workers for the available CPU slows everything down, as tasks queue up and the CPU spends more time switching between tasks rather than completing them.
On the other hand, having too few PHP workers per CPU can lead to wasted resources, as parts of the CPU may remain idle instead of effectively processing tasks.
The number of PHP workers you need varies based on your site’s complexity, concurrent requests, and traffic. Generally, 2 to 4 workers are suitable for a static site.
For more significant, more dynamic sites like eCommerce stores or discussion forums, starting with 4 PHP workers is usually a good approach. However, this number can vary depending on the site’s unique themes, plugins, database queries, and cached-to-uncached content ratio.
Choosing the Fastest WordPress Hosting: A Feature Comparison Table
| AccuWeb Hosting | Siteground | LiquidWeb | Kinsta | |
| 24/7 Customer Support | Yes | Yes | – | Yes |
| PHP Workers | 100 | – | 10 | It starts from 4 and goes up to 16 workers |
| RAM | 4GB | Shared RAM | Shared RAM | – |
| Bandwidth | 3 TB | – | 2 TB | – |
| vCPU | 2 | Shared vCPU | Shared vCPU | – |
| Web Server | Litespeed | Nginx | Nginx | Nginx |
The above details marked with “-” are currently unspecified.
What Happens When You Lack Sufficient PHP Workers?
For optimal website performance, ensure you have enough PHP workers.
When they’re all busy, the queue becomes too long; your site will fail to handle random requests. Visitors and admins may encounter blank pages, white screens of death, or 500, 502, and 504 errors.
This can also affect site management, as PHP workers are needed for admin tasks.
These issues harm user experience and negatively impact SEO.
Best Practices For PHP Resource Management
Managing PHP resources effectively is crucial to maintaining the performance and stability of your WordPress site.
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Upgrade PHP Version
Regularly update to the latest PHP versions. Newer versions often come with performance boosts and security improvements, making your site faster and more efficient.
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Efficient caching
Implementing strong caching can reduce the workload on PHP workers. By giving visitors cached content, you reduce the requests that PHP workers have to handle, allowing them to focus on more complex tasks.
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Optimize code & queries.
Make sure your PHP code and database queries are optimized. Efficient code and smooth database interactions cut down processing time, enabling PHP workers to handle more requests faster.
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Monitor resource usage
Monitoring enables you to identify problems and slowdowns in real-time, allowing you to address them promptly.
