Title: PHP handler type
Last modified: December 2, 2022

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# PHP handler type

 *  [movimientonativo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/movimientonativo/)
 * (@movimientonativo)
 * [3 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/php-handler-type/)
 * I have a vps server (with Plesk Onyx) in which I have to install WordPress, and
   I don’t know which php manager is better. The site has a large number of entries,
   greater than 10,000. So I have to choose between these PHP handlers.
 * Options: [https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZPayv.png](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZPayv.png)
 * If the information is useful, these are the statistics of my vps:
 * vCPU: 2 core
    RAM : 2 GB SSD: 40 GB Multi-Core Geekbench Score: 991 Bandwidth:
   2 TB Inode limit: 2 621 440 Dedicated IP Suport IPv4/IPv6 100 Mb/s network Total
   Access Root Currently the wordpress theme asks for these requirements: Requirement
 * Which PHP handler provides the best performance?
 * I have been using FPM application served by ngine. I understand that the connection
   that wordpress makes to the database should be a single one and when reviewing
   phpmyadmin it seems to be like that. But the CPU is permanently at 100% and I
   can’t get it to go down. I removed plugins and placed cache, also cloudflare 
   to handle the dangerous traffic, however with 500 users per hour the site destroys
   the database.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [George Appiah](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gappiah/)
 * (@gappiah)
 * [3 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/php-handler-type/#post-16256903)
 * For an out-of-the-box config, you’re going to get far better performance from
   Nginx than Apache. If you’re an old-school Apache sysadmin who can tweak Apache
   to the bone, then the jury is out there. But then you wouldn’t also be here asking
   for advice 😀
 * In fact, the commonly-cited situation for choosing Apache over (or in conjunction
   with) Nginx is where there are legacy `.htaccess` rules that can’t (easily) be
   ported to their Nginx equivalent… as Nginx ignores these directives. But in more
   than a decade that I’ve managed WordPress sites and servers, I’m yet to encounter
   any such situation. So these days I ONLY run Nginx with no Apache at all.
 * Now to **“FPM”** vs **“Dedicated FPM”**. This is a per-site Plesk config, and
   the difference is:
 * **— Dedicated FPM by Nginx/Apache:** Here, the individual website that this setting
   is configured for uses its own PHP-FPM process.
 * **— FPM by Nginx/Apache:** Here the sites uses the same global PHP-FPM process
   that serves all websites that use a particular PHP version.
 * If your CPU is maxed out already, it wouldn’t matter much whether you use a single
   FPM process for all sites or give each site its own process. The only benefit
   to using dedicated FPM, in this case, would be better isolation and sharing of
   the server resources as desired and preventing one site from hugging the server.
 * You could, of course, tweak and optimize your WordPress/theme/plugin calls, as
   well as MySQL server, Apache/Nginx, and PHP configs to squeeze more out of your
   current server. But that’s way outside the scope of this support forum.
 * Good luck!
 *  [Optimocha](https://wordpress.org/support/users/optimocha/)
 * (@optimocha)
 * [3 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/php-handler-type/#post-16297687)
 * Don’t want to state the obvious, but it might be a good idea to run tests after
   switching to each option.
 * Also, I’d recommend getting to know those handlers by learning about Apache and
   nginx (either via YouTube videos or Udemy courses) because you can achieve great
   results (in terms of performance) with either option – you just need to know 
   how to configure them well.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘PHP handler type’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [databse](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/databse/)
 * [MySQL](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/mysql/)
 * [performance](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/performance/)
 * [php](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/php/)

 * In: [Installing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/installation/)
 * 3 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [Optimocha](https://wordpress.org/support/users/optimocha/)
 * Last activity: [3 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/php-handler-type/#post-16297687)
 * Status: not resolved

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