How to speed up WordPress on Cloudways: 9 settings to check

To speed up WordPress on Cloudways, measure first, then work through nine settings in order: server size, the Lightning Stack, PHP version, Breeze page caching, Varnish, Redis with Object Cache Pro, PHP-FPM limits, a CDN, and a real cron job. Each is a dashboard setting or a plugin toggle, and none costs extra except a bigger server or the optional Cloudflare Enterprise add-on. Change one thing at a time and measure again, or you will not know which change helped.

One honest caveat before starting. Hosting settings remove the server as a bottleneck. They do not fix a theme that loads two megabytes of scripts or a plugin that runs a slow query on every page. If the steps below do not help, the problem is in the site, and the last section covers how to find it.

Measure before you change anything

Record three numbers for your slowest important page, logged out and, if it applies, logged in or with something in the cart:

• Time to first byte (TTFB), from your browser's developer tools, Network tab. This is the server's share of the wait.
• A PageSpeed Insights score for the same page, which reflects front-end weight as much as hosting.
• The server's Monitoring graphs in the Cloudways dashboard, for CPU, memory and disk over the last week.

A high TTFB with a busy server points at hosting. A low TTFB with a poor PageSpeed score points at images, scripts and the theme.

The nine settings, in order

1. Server size. If memory sits near the top of the Monitoring graph or the CPU is regularly maxed, no caching setting will rescue it. Cloudways treats 1 GB servers as test machines; 2 GB is the floor for a live site, and 4 GB for WooCommerce. DigitalOcean Premium and Vultr High Frequency servers add faster CPUs and NVMe storage for a few dollars more. Our scaling guide covers moving up.
2. Lightning Stack. In Application Settings, the Stack tab switches the application from Hybrid (NGINX, Apache and Varnish) to Lightning (NGINX only). In Cloudways' own uncached test it served about half as many requests again. Check your .htaccess rules first; Lightning ignores them. Our Lightning Stack explainer has the checklist.
3. PHP version. Newer PHP releases are faster. Cloudways supports up to PHP 8.4, set in the server's Settings & Packages. Test on a staging copy first, since older plugins sometimes break on new versions.
4. Breeze page caching. Cloudways' Breeze plugin is installed on its WordPress applications. Keep page caching and compression on. Treat its minification and file-combining options carefully: turn them on one at a time and check layouts and forms, because they break some themes.
5. Varnish, on the Hybrid stack. If you stay on Hybrid, make sure Varnish is enabled for the application. It serves cached pages to logged-out visitors before WordPress loads. It is not used on Lightning.
6. Redis and Object Cache Pro. Install Redis from Settings & Packages if it is not there. On servers with 4 GB or more, Cloudways includes Object Cache Pro, which stores database query results in Redis. This is the setting that speeds up logged-in pages, admin screens, carts and checkouts, which page caches cannot help.
7. PHP-FPM and memory limits. In the application's PHP-FPM settings and the server's PHP settings, check the memory limit suits your theme and builder (256 MB is common), and that busy sites have enough PHP processes for concurrent visitors. Raise them in small steps while watching memory.
8. A CDN. Cloudflare's free plan caches static files close to visitors. The Cloudflare Enterprise add-on, from $4.99 per domain with a 30-day trial, adds full-page edge caching and image optimisation. Either takes load off the server. Our Cloudflare Enterprise review explains the difference.
9. Real cron. WordPress normally runs scheduled tasks when visitors load pages, which slows random requests. Add define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true); to wp-config.php and create a cron job in the application's Cron Job Management that calls wp-cron.php every five minutes.

Which settings matter most for your kind of site

The database

Over time, WordPress databases fill with post revisions, expired transients and spam comments. Breeze includes database clean-up options; run them after taking a backup. Cloudways servers offer MySQL 8.4 or MariaDB 10.11, chosen per server in Settings & Packages; database versions cannot be downgraded once raised, so test before upgrading.

For a WooCommerce store with thousands of products, slow searches are often the database's doing. Installing Elasticsearch or OpenSearch from the package list and using a search plugin such as ElasticPress moves that work off MySQL.

When the server is not the problem

If TTFB is low but the page still feels slow, look at what the page loads. Install the Query Monitor plugin on a staging copy to see slow database queries and which plugin runs them, and use your browser's Network tab to find large images and scripts. Common culprits are uncompressed images, page builders loading every widget's assets on every page, sliders, chat widgets and analytics tags.

Cloudways' Copilot, whose free starter tier comes with a monthly allowance of AI insight credits, can flag server-side issues such as memory pressure and suggest fixes. Plugin and theme debugging by Cloudways staff is part of its paid Advanced Support tier, not standard support. Our Copilot review covers what it catches.

Re-measure, and keep the numbers

After each change, take the same three measurements as before and write them down. The improvements that matter most usually come from server size, object caching and removing one heavy plugin, in some order. Keep the figures: when the site slows down again in six months, you will know what normal looked like. If you are testing whether Cloudways itself is faster than your current host, migrate a copy to the free trial, apply these settings, and compare TTFB on the same page.