Servers
Linux, Nginx/Apache, PHP, databases and the command line on a managed VPS.
Servers
Managed vs Unmanaged VPS: What You Actually Get (and Pay For)
A task-by-task split of who does what on a managed and an unmanaged VPS, how to price your own admin hours honestly, and what managed never covers.
Servers
Shared Hosting or VPS? How to Decide for Your Website
Concrete signals that a site has outgrown shared hosting, how to measure your current usage, what a VPS changes day to day, and what each option costs.
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Cloudways Alternative: Managed Hosting Without the Markup
What Cloudways does, what its management layer is worth, and when shared hosting, a managed VPS or a self-managed VPS fits your sites better.
Servers
Hetzner and DigitalOcean Alternatives for UK & EU Projects
A fair framework for choosing a Hetzner alternative or DigitalOcean alternative in the UK and EU: location, billing, support, backups and how to test.
Servers
MySQL and MariaDB Tuning Basics for a Busy Site
The handful of settings that change MySQL performance — buffer pool, log size, connections, temp tables — how to size them, and how to find slow queries.
Servers
How to Configure PHP-FPM Pools for Performance
Size pm.max_children from real memory numbers, choose dynamic or ondemand, set timeouts and the slow log, run one pool per site, and stop 502 and 504 errors.
Servers
Apache vs Nginx: Which Web Server Should You Run?
How Apache and Nginx differ in architecture, performance and .htaccess support, why many hosts run both, and which to choose for PHP, an API or static files.
Servers
How to Install Nginx, PHP-FPM and MariaDB (LEMP) on Ubuntu
A complete LEMP setup on Ubuntu 24.04 — Nginx, PHP 8.3-FPM, MariaDB — with a working server block, a secure database, sensible PHP settings and HTTPS.
Servers
Managed vs Unmanaged VPS: Which One Do You Actually Need?
What a host does on a managed VPS and what is left to you on an unmanaged one, the real time cost of self-management, and a short test for which to choose.
Servers
What Is a VPS? Shared Hosting vs VPS vs Dedicated Server
What a virtual private server is, how it differs from shared hosting and a dedicated machine, and how to tell which one your site actually needs.