I found out what's making my wordpress website sluggish

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walangalam2

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Please let me rant guys as it was really stressful. I thought at first I was getting ddos attacked so I set the cloudflare settings to medium. Still the website is slow. I thought it was the host slowing down my server and making me want to upgrade to their newest more expensive servers. But they said their server is fine. Then this afternoon there was a problem with my site, it was corrupted in admin side. I searched and other people says it was plugin problem. I deactivated one by one except for one as it is resulting to error whenever I try to disable it. The plugin is Wordfence. There are also feedbacks in reddit that says its making their site slow. I read that its CPU intensive. Now my site is back to blazing fast. I tried debbuging the site trying to recover it as it was corrupted but ended up using a backup the other day. Always backup guys. Backups are a lifesaver. I was really stressed as this site was the most profitable among all my websites. That's all. Thanks for your time.
 
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Didnt have an issue with wordfence and performance, I wonder what setting was giving you troubles. Glad you got it figured out now.
 
Jason Starkey said:
Didnt have an issue with wordfence and performance, I wonder what setting was giving you troubles. Glad you got it figured out now.
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I'm curious too what is the problem. I been using wordfence for many years. The problem only started 3 months ago.
 
Disabling Wordfence and seeing an immediate improvement is a useful clue, but I’d still narrow down which part caused it. Check server CPU and PHP workers during a slow period, the scan logs, scheduled cron jobs and whether Live Traffic is active.

If the spikes only happen during scans, schedule them off-peak and reduce their load before leaving the security layer disabled. If every request is slower whenever the plugin is active, test a staging copy with the same cache and CDN settings. That should separate a Wordfence issue from a server limit or plugin conflict.
 
thaaz said:
Disabling Wordfence and seeing an immediate improvement is a useful clue, but I’d still narrow down which part caused it. Check server CPU and PHP workers during a slow period, the scan logs, scheduled cron jobs and whether Live Traffic is active.

If the spikes only happen during scans, schedule them off-peak and reduce their load before leaving the security layer disabled. If every request is slower whenever the plugin is active, test a staging copy with the same cache and CDN settings. That should separate a Wordfence issue from a server limit or plugin conflict.
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It's fine now. There was also a cache issue. Already fixed it. Thanks for the input.
 
walangalam2 said:
Please let me rant guys as it was really stressful. I thought at first I was getting ddos attacked so I set the cloudflare settings to medium. Still the website is slow. I thought it was the host slowing down my server and making me want to upgrade to their newest more expensive servers. But they said their server is fine. Then this afternoon there was a problem with my site, it was corrupted in admin side. I searched and other people says it was plugin problem. I deactivated one by one except for one as it is resulting to error whenever I try to disable it. The plugin is Wordfence. There are also feedbacks in reddit that says its making their site slow. I read that its CPU intensive. Now my site is back to blazing fast. I tried debbuging the site trying to recover it as it was corrupted but ended up using a backup the other day. Always backup guys. Backups are a lifesaver. I was really stressed as this site was the most profitable among all my websites. That's all. Thanks for your time.
Click to expand...
Wordfence is a security plugin for WordPress that is used mainly for firewall protection, virus scanning, login security nd traffic blocking.
 
walangalam2 said:
Please let me rant guys as it was really stressful. I thought at first I was getting ddos attacked so I set the cloudflare settings to medium. Still the website is slow. I thought it was the host slowing down my server and making me want to upgrade to their newest more expensive servers. But they said their server is fine. Then this afternoon there was a problem with my site, it was corrupted in admin side. I searched and other people says it was plugin problem. I deactivated one by one except for one as it is resulting to error whenever I try to disable it. The plugin is Wordfence. There are also feedbacks in reddit that says its making their site slow. I read that its CPU intensive. Now my site is back to blazing fast. I tried debbuging the site trying to recover it as it was corrupted but ended up using a backup the other day. Always backup guys. Backups are a lifesaver. I was really stressed as this site was the most profitable among all my websites. That's all. Thanks for your time.
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sure, a gud thing to keep in mind becuz not all the instances might have been the plugin. Cache + security settings could also pile up, so one must try each change separately before making any deletion.
 
Wordfence can use a lot of server resources on some sites. Good thing you had a backup, I’d try a lighter security setup before removing protection completely.
 
balamdir23 said:
Wordfence can use a lot of server resources on some sites. Good thing you had a backup, I’d try a lighter security setup before removing protection completely.
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yeah, but no, it’s not worth taking such risks by disabling all security measures. i would first check the server logs and see whether wordfence is causing the problem.
 
walangalam2 said:
Please let me rant guys as it was really stressful. I thought at first I was getting ddos attacked so I set the cloudflare settings to medium. Still the website is slow. I thought it was the host slowing down my server and making me want to upgrade to their newest more expensive servers. But they said their server is fine. Then this afternoon there was a problem with my site, it was corrupted in admin side. I searched and other people says it was plugin problem. I deactivated one by one except for one as it is resulting to error whenever I try to disable it. The plugin is Wordfence. There are also feedbacks in reddit that says its making their site slow. I read that its CPU intensive. Now my site is back to blazing fast. I tried debbuging the site trying to recover it as it was corrupted but ended up using a backup the other day. Always backup guys. Backups are a lifesaver. I was really stressed as this site was the most profitable among all my websites. That's all. Thanks for your time.
Click to expand...
Do you use UpdraftPlus to backup? Glad you got your website working/loading properly!
 
Wordfence can really drag a site down sometimes, especially on shared hosting. Good call on the backup too, those always save the day when stuff goes sideways.
 
walangalam2 said:
Please let me rant guys as it was really stressful. I thought at first I was getting ddos attacked so I set the cloudflare settings to medium. Still the website is slow. I thought it was the host slowing down my server and making me want to upgrade to their newest more expensive servers. But they said their server is fine. Then this afternoon there was a problem with my site, it was corrupted in admin side. I searched and other people says it was plugin problem. I deactivated one by one except for one as it is resulting to error whenever I try to disable it. The plugin is Wordfence. There are also feedbacks in reddit that says its making their site slow. I read that its CPU intensive. Now my site is back to blazing fast. I tried debbuging the site trying to recover it as it was corrupted but ended up using a backup the other day. Always backup guys. Backups are a lifesaver. I was really stressed as this site was the most profitable among all my websites. That's all. Thanks for your time.
Click to expand...
because that was how i test my plugins before i do any changes to a money making website a single malfunctioning security plugin could cost you way more than the threat itself. im glad you had a recent backup, tbh.
 
Wordfence often make site slower, and I have dealt these type of few cases, for sure the free version is not usefull enough, becouse if you are installing Wordfence in your site install a premium version, if you really want to make your site safe, just keep plugins updated, hide the login path, install captchas, and spam detection plugins like Loginizer).
 
walangalam2 said:
Please let me rant guys as it was really stressful. I thought at first I was getting ddos attacked so I set the cloudflare settings to medium. Still the website is slow. I thought it was the host slowing down my server and making me want to upgrade to their newest more expensive servers. But they said their server is fine. Then this afternoon there was a problem with my site, it was corrupted in admin side. I searched and other people says it was plugin problem. I deactivated one by one except for one as it is resulting to error whenever I try to disable it. The plugin is Wordfence. There are also feedbacks in reddit that says its making their site slow. I read that its CPU intensive. Now my site is back to blazing fast. I tried debbuging the site trying to recover it as it was corrupted but ended up using a backup the other day. Always backup guys. Backups are a lifesaver. I was really stressed as this site was the most profitable among all my websites. That's all. Thanks for your time.
Click to expand...
maybe it was not just wordfence; it could be an issue with the cache as well. In any case, it is best to first take out each part separately and then take off the security plugin. cloudflare could assist in filtering the traffic, but in all cases, it would be wise to install some kind of protection at the server end as well.
 
You can try cloudflare security rules with a lighter security setup instead of running every scan on your server.
 
Update guys, it was a ddos attack. I can't believe someone has the resource to attack my site for almost 4 months. When I switched to medium security, it was smooth again even with wordfence activated. I forgot I set the CF security to essentially off again.
 
walangalam2 said:
Please let me rant guys as it was really stressful. I thought at first I was getting ddos attacked so I set the cloudflare settings to medium. Still the website is slow. I thought it was the host slowing down my server and making me want to upgrade to their newest more expensive servers. But they said their server is fine. Then this afternoon there was a problem with my site, it was corrupted in admin side. I searched and other people says it was plugin problem. I deactivated one by one except for one as it is resulting to error whenever I try to disable it. The plugin is Wordfence. There are also feedbacks in reddit that says its making their site slow. I read that its CPU intensive. Now my site is back to blazing fast. I tried debbuging the site trying to recover it as it was corrupted but ended up using a backup the other day. Always backup guys. Backups are a lifesaver. I was really stressed as this site was the most profitable among all my websites. That's all. Thanks for your time.
Click to expand...
ah yes, ofc, that does make much more sense now. how crazy is that to think about how long it must have been going on for without anybody noticing anything off. I am glad you were able to figure it out before wasting anymore money on hosting. did you notice anything odd about traffic spikes using cloudflare?
 
Wordfence's live traffic login can it up a surprising amount of resources especially on shared hosting
Worth checking if that was the culprit before ditching it completely
 
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