Wordpress WPPerformanceTester Results

I am simply wondering how the other stack on similar Upcloud server is optimized to achieve that performance on PHP bench. It seems Centminmod scores constantly better on WP Bench, but PHP bench does not improve or is worse than Webinoly out of the box, for example.


Upcloud 1CPU 2GB HEL1 /w Centminmod VS
benchmark stacks/providers


WPPerformanceTester Results

WPPerformanceTester performs two benchmarks. One is a WordPress (WP Bench) and the other a PHP benchmark. WP Bench measures how many WP queries per second and higher tends to be better (varies considerably by architecture). PHP Bench performs a lot of computational and some database operations which are measured in seconds to complete. Lower PHP Bench is better.


(PHP Bench & WP Bench)
Servebolt (not Upcloud, fastest PHP Bench): 3.809 & 1680.67
Local fastest* Wordpress hosting (Upcloud similar server, custom stack): 6.562 & 343

Webinoly (Upcloud 1CPU2GB): 8.218 & 881.83
Centminmod (Upcloud 1CPU2GB): 8.304 & 1795.33
maybe more later

---

* Claiming so.
Centmin: Latest with Insight Guide - How to boost Centmin Mod LEMP stack performance and the latest custom_config.inc recommendations from this forum
Servebolt: $51-100/Month WordPress Hosting Performance Benchmarks (2019) | Review Signal Blog

 

Since the average score for the PHP bench seems to be between 8-10 sec, it is interesting to find out how they (especially Servebolt) pushed for a lower timing (=faster=better) score.

Either they went the "Dieselgate" way or they are relatively good at optimizing things.

If I got this right, more than 90% of this PHP bench is a battle on this test:

Mysql Query Benchmark
Time it takes for 1,000,000 ENCODE()s with a random seed​

 

I am comparing WPPerformanceTester results between different stacks (Centminmod, Webinoly etc.) on Upcloud 1CPU 2GB against Servebolt & local "fastest" Wordpress hosting on Upcloud.

So the server hardware used here is Upcloud 1CPU 2GB

(except Servebolt, which server specs are unknown and priced 100EUR/m, but is the FASTEST. As it does not seem you can get faster (on WPPerformanceTester) by throwing more money in (according to reviewsignal.com), it seems reasonable to benchmark against, no?)

Centminmod is relatively the fastest stack, but I can't figure out how they (Servebolt and local provider) managed to get that result on PHP Bench. This is the point.

Also it seems PHP Bench is what gives the least marginal for Centminmod against other stacks, or even looses.

 

Yeah without knowing what Serverbolt uses hardware wise it would be hard though it's pretty easy to guess as php performance is closely tied to cpu clock speed, higher clocks = faster PHP performance usually when we're talking >50% faster speeds.
[...]
PHP Bench related performance can be bypassed somewhat with Cloudflare accelerator proxies and/or Wordpress full page caching methods
​

I can't seem to reach this PHP Bench score with the caching methods I am familiar with. Actually nothing I did had any effect on the score. As this result correlates with my skills on the matter, I am not surprised.

It does not, however, correlate with the time I have used for this, so I would greatly appreciate if you or anyone else could nod to the right direction.

 

2018 Servebolts results:
Servebolt.com Standard 8.445 & 1412.4
Servebolt Mini Dedicated 6.741 & 2092.0

2019 Servebolts results
3.809 & 1680.67

So it seems they have found a way to improve both results. They are claiming (on their website) they have custom build php libraries etc. to achieve this. On 2019 test which they won, they have implied that the 2nd best boosted their CPU for this test. This gives me a reason to believe this is not a "Dieselgate" (they don't cheat).

I have personally tested Hetzner's EX62-NVME (Intel® Core™ i9-9900K Octa-Core ), results
5 & 3600 (around, this server is not currently active, have to recheck)

FYI, the 3x more expensive AX160-NVME with AMD EPYC 7401P 24 Cores "Naples" (Zen)
scored way less (~20-25%) a month ago, but I can't remember the exact numbers (have to recheck).

Both with a similar Centminmod setup as mentioned above.

Now, since the above mentioned fastest* local Wordpress hosting (Upcloud, similar server, custom stack) scores
6.562 & 343 (range is 180-350 for WP bench, PHP Bench is pretty stable) -

I am led to believe that there is something I could do to improve PHP Bench on Upcloud 1CPU2GB.
Even if it's a tradeoff between the two, somehow.

 

On Upcloud 1CPU 1GB FIN:

Your settings replicated from above post and add/modify to custom_config.inc prior to rebuilding with option 5:

Code:

PHPPGO_INDEXPATH='home/nginx/domains/mydomain/public/wp-content/plugins/wpperformancetester/benchmark.php'
PHPPGO_INDEXPATH_TWO='/home/nginx/domains/mydomain/public/index.php'

PHP_PGO='y'
PHP_PGO_ALWAYS='y'

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tinof/centmininit/master/custom_config.inc

Result: No observable change in the benchmark.

PHP Upgrade log (benchmark.php pgo):

Code:

./sapi/cgi/php-cgi -T100 /home/nginx/domains/mydomain/public/wp-content/plugins/wpperformancetester/benchmark.php
Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

Content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 (this same lane for 80 times)

Elapsed time: 0.004347 sec

real    0m0.067s
user    0m0.046s
sys    0m0.020s

​

This is the part from benchmark.php, in which Centminmod (8.3 sec) loses to Webinoly (<8sec sec, have to reconfirm) and
local Upcloud hosting (6.5 sec):

benchmark.php SELECT BENCHMARK​

Full benchmark.php file: benchmark.php

So currently I can't replicate this result (<8sec in PHPBench on Upcloud 1CPU1GB).

 

Fair point. This was a mistake in the post, I checked the log file and the path is correct (/home/nginx/domains/mydomain/public/wp-content/plugins/wpperformancetester/benchmark.php)

As for the PHP related question:

--version [7.3.7]
php-config php-config

EDIT: I was wrong about Webinoly vs Centminmod. Upcloud changes processors between Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2687W (faster) v4 @ 3.00GHz and Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2687W v3 @ 3.10GHz

 

@eva2000

Very interesting, thank you. It seems Chicago has faster CPUs than EU-servers (can't test myself, I get error from Upcloud saying no free IP's available when I choose CHI1).

So here are the current results (Centminmod setup from above):

Hetzner EX 62-NME (Intel® Core™ i9-9900K: @ 3.60GHz)
4.7 / 3600

Vultr 1CPU1GB Amsterdam (Intel @ 3.8GHz)
6.1 / 2400

Upcloud 1CPU1GB CHI1 (Intel Xeon Gold 6136 @ 3.00Ghz)
6.5 / 2100
This from @eva2000.

Upcloud 1CPU1GB HEL1/FRA/AMS (Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2687W v4@ 3.00GHz)
7.5 / 1850

Upcloud 1CPU1GB HEL2 (Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2687W v3 @ 3.10GHz)
8.3 / 1850

The numbers are highest/lowest score I get, not average.

It seems there is no way around the fact that this test is CPU bound (like you said). I assume the forementioned local hosting has simply these faster CPU models on their stack (even though they are not publically available in EU?).

PHP/Mysql tuning, PHP PGO nor FAST-CGI caching had no effect on this what so ever.

Well, next is MySQL 8 testing