Should I buy litespeed web server instead of using OpenLiteSpeed?

[Iron-Man]

Hi friends,

If anyone using paid litespeed web server, plz guide me.

I am going to buy a new VPS from my existing hosting as my Server OS (CentOS 7) will became EOL soon.

I am thinking about this configuration:
- CPanel (This is must as I do not have experience in any other panel)
- Cloudlinux OS Paid one (I think I have to use this OS in all my server as this will not gonna be EOL)
- Litespeed server paid one

In my old server I was using OpenLiteSpeed. I did this by enabling some options in my EasyApache 4 settings (I guess I have enabled Mod_lsapi) & thus it shows my server using LiteSpeed, but the free one.

Now I am thinking about using the paid one. But is it worth it or it is not?


P.S:
1) I am not considering using nginx as all my websites are dynamic in nature (90% are woocommerce based); thus I will be in apache. As per my research nginx is good for static website, not for dynamic website.
2) Upon further research I found this article: https://forum.cloudlinux.com/forum/cloudlinux-os-features/mod_lsapi/31404-

 

[dartnet]

First of all, it's not true that Nginx is only feasible for static pages. It outperforms Apache for any type of content served.

Second It depends upon your usage, if you have websites hosted on your server with normal traffic then there is no need to waste money on the Litespeed Paid plan.
Open LiteSpeed performs well even though I've more than 70 websites on a single instance and 2 websites have more than 15k products and everything is smooth.

But it all depends upon your priorities.

 

[Shayan Xtreme]

Hi friends,

If anyone using paid litespeed web server, plz guide me.

I am going to buy a new VPS from my existing hosting as my Server OS (CentOS 7) will became EOL soon.

I am thinking about this configuration:
- CPanel (This is must as I do not have experience in any other panel)
- Cloudlinux OS Paid one (I think I have to use this OS in all my server as this will not gonna be EOL)
- Litespeed server paid one

In my old server I was using OpenLiteSpeed. I did this by enabling some options in my EasyApache 4 settings (I guess I have enabled Mod_lsapi) & thus it shows my server using LiteSpeed, but the free one.

Now I am thinking about using the paid one. But is it worth it or it is not?


P.S:
1) I am not considering using nginx as all my websites are dynamic in nature (90% are woocommerce based); thus I will be in apache. As per my research nginx is good for static website, not for dynamic website.
2) Upon further research I found this article: https://forum.cloudlinux.com/forum/cloudlinux-os-features/mod_lsapi/31404-

https://www.fiverr.com/s/2Zk85k

 

[wooyihoo]

Hi, I'm using virtualmin (apache) in all my sites. I have websites that have 10,000 users and some with 3,000 users per second. So no need to buy, free stuff are still better, you just need to configure your website and database properly so your server will not suffer.

 

[HeyMakarina]

Hi, I'm using virtualmin (apache) in all my sites. I have websites that have 10,000 users and some with 3,000 users per second. So no need to buy, free stuff are still better, you just need to configure your website and database properly so your server will not suffer.

and of course do not forget about cache, CDN.

1) I am not considering using nginx as all my websites are dynamic in nature (90% are woocommerce based); thus I will be in apache. As per my research nginx is good for static website, not for dynamic website.
2) Upon further research I found this article: https://forum.cloudlinux.com/forum/cloudlinux-os-features/mod_lsapi/31404-

i am more comfortable with nginx. and nginx will be faster with php-fpm. no problem with handling a lot woocommerce traffic.
Lightspeed webserver is okay with LS cache, but you can replace that with other free cache technology.

Images without optimization, no cdn usage, complex setup and lack of content caching is main reason of slow woocommerce.
offload your media to CDN and you will be fine with OpenLightspeed or Nginx.
i think you dont need enterprise Lightspeed unless you are going to run hosting or agency servers.

 

[wooyihoo]

and of course do not forget about cache, CDN.



i am more comfortable with nginx. and nginx will be faster with php-fpm. no problem with handling a lot woocommerce traffic.
Lightspeed webserver is okay with LS cache, but you can replace that with other free cache technology.

Images without optimization, no cdn usage, complex setup and lack of content caching is main reason of slow woocommerce.
offload your media to CDN and you will be fine with OpenLightspeed or Nginx.
i think you dont need enterprise Lightspeed unless you are going to run hosting or agency servers.

Usually I just use free Cloudflare for easy CDN

 

[HeyMakarina]

same here, i use Cloudflare free for all sites.

 

[stephfd21]

The main difference between litespeed and openlitespeed is that openlitespeed needs to be restarted when certain changes are made (especially server side). If you plan on using wordpress a lot via cpanel, do not use openlitespeed unless you know how to setup a cronjob to restart OLS

 

[guguk]

The main difference between litespeed and openlitespeed is that openlitespeed needs to be restarted when certain changes are made (especially server side). If you plan on using wordpress a lot via cpanel, do not use openlitespeed unless you know how to setup a cronjob to restart OLS

Also openlitespeed server does not support native wp bruute force attack unless litespeed does.
But in my opinion litespeed server's performance a little bit overrated by hosting companies. If you make good optimization and cache statement apache is enough for your server but of course it's opt to you.

 

[Iron-Man]

Thank you everyone for your recommendation. I have waited 2 days to get response and lost all expectations of any reply. But fortunately today most members r replying.

I also use cloudflare CDN in all my websites with proper settings. My current server (Apache + openlitespeed + redis cache) is very fast. And all my websites too open very fast in 2-3 seconds ( I use wp rocket + perfrmatter plugin + all tips to optimize)....
//I have just one issue: I use mod security + CSF in my server, but it did not stopped bots to enter my Google analytics. Facing lots of brute force attact too. But after using cloudflare custom WAF rule (credits for help: babiato member @slvrsteele), it is stopped now.

As I am going to buy a new server,
I think I have become little greedy to make my server/websites more faster specially in traffic hike time. So thinking about using paid litespeed ($9) with hope that it can handle traffic hike better than the free one.

Also in google research and chatGPT recomend to use paid litespeed for more faster server than the free one; and specially advice not to use nginx as it is better for static website, not suitable for dynamic + woocommerce based websites.

I guess most are in favour of openlitespeed with their personal experience & logic behind it. Thanks again .


Is there anyone who has used paid litespeed and found any improvement after using the paid one

or

It is just a hype to take $9 from layman like me..

 

[wooyihoo]

Thank you everyone for your recommendation. I have waited 2 days to get response and lost all expectations of any reply. But fortunately today most members r replying.

I also use cloudflare CDN in all my websites with proper settings. My current server (Apache + openlitespeed + redis cache) is very fast. And all my websites too open very fast in 2-3 seconds ( I use wp rocket + perfrmatter plugin + all tips to optimize)....
//I have just one issue: I use mod security + CSF in my server, but it did not stopped bots to enter my Google analytics. Facing lots of brute force attact too. But after using cloudflare custom WAF rule (credits for help: babiato member @slvrsteele), it is stopped now.

As I am going to buy a new server,
I think I have become little greedy to make my server/websites more faster specially in traffic hike time. So thinking about using paid litespeed ($9) with hope that it can handle traffic hike better than the free one.

Also in google research and chatGPT recomend to use paid litespeed for more faster server than the free one; and specially advice not to use nginx as it is better for static website, not suitable for dynamic + woocommerce based websites.

I guess most are in favour of openlitespeed with their personal experience & logic behind it. Thanks again .


Is there anyone who has used paid litespeed and found any improvement after using the paid one

or

It is just a hype to take $9 from layman like me..

These are questions that you should answer when configuring a server for websites or a website.

1. How many users per second are you expecting? 50? 100? 1,000? 100,000?
2. What is the maximum RAM per request in your website? Example: One user opens your website will require at most 10MB of RAM per request.
3. How often does data change in your website? Once a day? Once a week? One every 5 minutes?
4. Are you using wordpress or develop your own?

Explanations about the questions:
* With questions #1 and #2, you will need to identify the RAM that you may need for your VPS. Example, 100 users per second multiplied by 10MB RAM per request will require about 1000MB(or 1GB) RAM per second.
* With #3, you will have to do caching properly. In my experience, with data that changes every minute (transactional websites). I found that disabling cache solved performance problems and separating database server from web server helped a lot.
* With #4, you can only do so much with wordpress. Adding more plugins will require more RAM and CPU. While your own developed website, can be optimized further. Please note wordpress requires at least 512MB ram. Whereas, my own developed CMS requires only 1MB ram (on webserver) and runs on a 5USD VPS with swap enabled and can handle 3000 users per second (I have also servers that handle 12,000 users per second) -- I'm using virtualmin (with fail2ban enabled) and cloudflare (for first level firewall and to easily hide your IP and thirdly as CDN). These are all free and my cost is only the VPS.
* In my experience most issues can be solved by opensource (FREE) software. Then again, the decision is still up to you.

My 2 cents.

Cheers!

 

[khamiss]

These are questions that you should answer when configuring a server for websites or a website.

1. How many users per second are you expecting? 50? 100? 1,000? 100,000?
2. What is the maximum RAM per request in your website? Example: One user opens your website will require at most 10MB of RAM per request.
3. How often does data change in your website? Once a day? Once a week? One every 5 minutes?
4. Are you using wordpress or develop your own?

Explanations about the questions:
* With questions #1 and #2, you will need to identify the RAM that you may need for your VPS. Example, 100 users per second multiplied by 10MB RAM per request will require about 1000MB(or 1GB) RAM per second.
* With #3, you will have to do caching properly. In my experience, with data that changes every minute (transactional websites). I found that disabling cache solved performance problems and separating database server from web server helped a lot.
* With #4, you can only do so much with wordpress. Adding more plugins will require more RAM and CPU. While your own developed website, can be optimized further. Please note wordpress requires at least 512MB ram. Whereas, my own developed CMS requires only 1MB ram (on webserver) and runs on a 5USD VPS with swap enabled and can handle 3000 users per second (I have also servers that handle 12,000 users per second) -- I'm using virtualmin (with fail2ban enabled) and cloudflare (for first level firewall and to easily hide your IP and thirdly as CDN). These are all free and my cost is only the VPS.
* In my experience most issues can be solved by opensource (FREE) software. Then again, the decision is still up to you.

My 2 cents.

Cheers!

that nice would you please provide more advices for the tweaking and configurations recommends specially for wp users

 

[Iron-Man]

that nice would you please provide more advices for the tweaking and configurations recommends specially for wp users

I also became astonished and loved his reply. He shared some really cool info which other hosting company support team refuse to answer clearly when asked about how much traffic my server can handle. They just gave vague short answer and try to upsell us. Haha.

Finally i, u and others can understand this concept clearly before buying a server.

I think @wooyihoo is really a badass expert in server optimization with lots of knowledge/experience. Also he is very cool and friendly in nature.

 

[Iron-Man]

First of all, it's not true that Nginx is only feasible for static pages. It outperforms Apache for any type of content served.

Second It depends upon your usage, if you have websites hosted on your server with normal traffic then there is no need to waste money on the Litespeed Paid plan.
Open LiteSpeed performs well even though I've more than 70 websites on a single instance and 2 websites have more than 15k products and everything is smooth.

But it all depends upon your priorities.

Dear brother, I 100% aggree with your logic regading nginx.

From the start of my website making life, I am using c-panel only. Started from cheap shared hosting to now using VPS & will buy dedicated in near future.

Last year when I was experimenting by installing nginx in my WHM panel, I found my wordpress websites loading slower even if I am using cloudflare cdn + in wordpress optimized it perfectly with wp-rocket & perfmatter plugin.

When asked to my hosting support team, they told me that nginx is not fully compatible with cPanel. I have to use other control panel (like plesk etc.) for this if I want to use all functionality of a nginx server.

In c-pane it will works as reverse proxy only. And thus they recommend me to use opelitespeed or paid litespeed.

As it will take time to learn about other control panel + learn some basic about nginx, I will test/use them in new server. I think I am making right decision.

 

[Iron-Man]

Also openlitespeed server does not support native wp bruute force attack unless litespeed does

Wow...Another positive points. Thanks mate.

 

[Iron-Man]

offload your media to CDN

Thanks for reply mate. I am already using cloudflare CDN. Should I use this offload media too. I guess this may increase website loading speed due to increase http request. Or may be I am wrong as I am not expert like you.

 

[HeyMakarina]

First of all, it's not true that Nginx is only feasible for static pages. It outperforms Apache for any type of content served.

Second It depends upon your usage, if you have websites hosted on your server with normal traffic then there is no need to waste money on the Litespeed Paid plan.
Open LiteSpeed performs well even though I've more than 70 websites on a single instance and 2 websites have more than 15k products and everything is smooth.

But it all depends upon your priorities.

1st. Nginx was built for being proxy, then added more features to support dynamic engines.
If your nginx faster with static pages and sucks with php? then your PHP engine need tuning. Nginx only forward request to cgi or unix socket connection.

Even you can use Caddy with PHP if you have more core CPU, it will leave Litespeed with dust.

@Iron-Man post your current website and we can analyze whats happening. You can monitor your server memory, cpu usage to find where is spike and follow the trail.

maybe you need add more php workers to main thread, or increase memory or somewhat speed up web speed.

Laravel handles lots of traffic better than WP because laravel have built in cache, query cache everything.
If you have 500k+ monthly user, you might need optimize database too


Also more than 50% of webservers running on Nginx, Even Cloudflare is built on top of Nginx.
if you know what you doing, nginx will be sufficient. From my experience nginx is faster and easier.
i have tried LSWS but php modules, extensions was tricky

 

[Iron-Man]

1st. Nginx was built for being proxy, then added more features to support dynamic engines.
If your nginx faster with static pages and sucks with php? then your PHP engine need tuning. Nginx only forward request to cgi or unix socket connection.

Also more than 50% of webservers running on Nginx, Even Cloudflare is built on top of Nginx.
if you know what you doing, nginx will be sufficient. From my experience nginx is faster and easier.
i have tried LSWS but php modules, extensions was tricky

Woooooooowwwwww...So there r lots of positive points related to nginx. I will definitely use it in my new server (will buy a new one in next 2-3 months). Currently stick with apache due to various reasons.

Primary reason is the time shortage. I have very less time to configure my server & host my client's website there. From the start of my website making journey, I am only using c-panel and apache. Nginx do not support fully in c-panel as per my hosting. I need to use plesk/directadmin like control panel for this. So it will take lots of time to learn about them.

2nd reason is that all my old websites are made while I was in apache server. So I may need to make some changes in them if I will use nginx (Ex: not use htaccess & rather something else I guess). Which will take further more time as I need to learn some basic of nginx first.

So I guess it will be better to use nginx in my new server with new client's website only. Then compare laterw with apache.

Even you can use Caddy with PHP if you have more core CPU, it will leave Litespeed with dust.

Wow...Thanks to you I learned about a new server & upon google research found many more. haha...But I do not think caddy support c-panel/whm as I did not find any good article in google. May be it support different control panel. So as usual, due to time shortage, I will use it in other server.

@Iron-Man post your current website and we can analyze whats happening. You can monitor your server memory, cpu usage to find where is spike and follow the trail.

maybe you need add more php workers to main thread, or increase memory or somewhat speed up web speed.

Currently I am under migration from old VPS to a new VPS. So I have put most top websites under maintenance mode. Give me some days to make them ready in new server & then I will definitely share you about them via PM.

Laravel handles lots of traffic better than WP because laravel have built in cache, query cache everything.
If you have 500k+ monthly user, you might need optimize database too

Wow...It is good to know that Laravel is better than WP. But as I have never used any script other than WP, it will take some time to learn about it. I am gonna add some new products in my business like POS, Inventory management, Android apps etc. I think I will cross check that they are made with Laravel& then use them.

 

[mascudkoray]

Second It depends upon your usage, if you have websites hosted on your server with normal traffic then there is no need to waste money on the Litespeed Paid plan.

Speed Test​

 

[Iron-Man]

Hi everyone, i got into a other confusion. After so many suggestion to not use paid litespeed i was thinking postponing it to do later, rather use openlitespeed.

In my new server, i am using cloudlinux os and C-panel control panel.

When asked my hosting team regarding using openlitespeed they said it is not compatible with c-panel; rather supported in other control panel like direct admin.

I asked chatgpt and it said i can install openlitespeed in C-panel and gave me instructions on how to do it.

When i said this to my hosting team regarding this and ask for what to do for performance/speed improvement in the new server, below r theirs reply: (i have copy pasted it)

"""
cpanel does not support openlitespeed nativly. It may work, but I wouldn't recommend it. Config file is different and won't follow httpd.conf


Instead for cpanel use nginx https://docs.cpanel.net/knowledge-base/web-services/nginx-with-reverse-proxy/ (supported)


Cloudlinux will make a system more secure, potentially faster with a lot of users by limiting big users but won't offer huge advantages for speed otherwise.

""""

What i should do? I am again in confusion.

I know there are many other things i can do by ditching c-panel as it is putting lots of limitations. But i will do this in other server as i do not have experience in any control panel except c-panel. So not want to give up this.

Any performance/speed improvement advice:

Note that in my new vps there is 8 GM ram, 4 cpu core and 120gb+ ssd drive. Also I can increase ram/cpu any time.

I have decided to use paid cloudlinux os + c-panel. And as server cache i will use redis + varnish.

All my websites are made with wordpress & i am expert in optimising then by using properly configured wp-rocket, perfrmatter plugins + using compressed webp images + free cloudflare CDN and all other optimization related techniques...

I am just confused over the server?

Plz give me your guidance ..