You're comparing hosting plans and the specs look impressive on paper. 4 vCPUs. 8GB RAM. 100GB NVMe SSD. But what does any of that actually mean for your website? And more importantly, how do you know if it's enough?
Most hosting buyers either ignore these numbers entirely or get dazzled by big figures without understanding what drives real-world performance. This guide breaks down each resource type, explains how it affects your site, and helps you match your actual needs to the right plan.
CPU: The Brain Behind Every Request
Your server's CPU processes every request that comes in — loading a page, running a database query, resizing an image, sending an email. When someone visits your site, the CPU is what does the work.
Hosting plans typically offer vCPUs (virtual CPUs), which are slices of physical processor cores shared across multiple servers. One vCPU is fine for a simple blog. A WooCommerce store processing dozens of concurrent orders needs more headroom.
Signs you're running low on CPU
- Pages load slowly under traffic spikes
- Admin dashboards become unresponsive
- Cron jobs take longer than expected to complete
- Your monitoring dashboard shows CPU usage consistently above 80%
A single vCPU can handle a surprising amount of traffic if your site is well-optimized — smart caching reduces CPU demand dramatically by serving pre-built pages instead of rebuilding them on every visit. At Proginter, our caching layer handles this automatically, which means your CPU stays free for the requests that actually need processing power.
RAM: How Much Your Server Can Hold at Once
RAM is working memory. It holds the data your server needs right now — active PHP processes, database query results, application state. The more RAM you have, the more your server can juggle simultaneously without slowing down.
Unlike CPU, RAM doesn't process things — it stores them temporarily so the CPU can access them fast. Running out of RAM forces the server to use swap memory (disk space acting as RAM), which is significantly slower and causes visible performance degradation.
What consumes RAM on a typical website
- PHP workers: Each concurrent visitor running a dynamic page needs a PHP process. Each process can use 32–128MB depending on your application.
- MySQL: Your database engine caches frequently accessed data in RAM for faster queries.
- WordPress plugins: Some plugins are memory-hungry, especially page builders, WooCommerce extensions, and caching plugins.
- Web server processes: Apache or Nginx each take a small but consistent slice.
A basic WordPress site can run comfortably on 512MB–1GB of RAM. A busy e-commerce store with a lot of concurrent users should have at least 2–4GB dedicated to it. If you're on a shared plan and your neighbors are consuming resources, your effective RAM can drop without warning — one reason managed hosting with resource isolation matters.
Storage: It's Not Just About Space
Storage gets talked about mostly in terms of size — 50GB, 100GB, unlimited. But the type of storage matters just as much as the amount.
HDD vs SSD vs NVMe
HDD (spinning disk) is the oldest and slowest option. It's cheap and offers large capacity, but the read/write speeds can bottleneck even a well-optimized site.
SSD (solid-state drive) has no moving parts and reads data much faster than HDD. Most modern hosting plans use SSD as the baseline.
NVMe SSD is the current performance standard. It connects directly to the motherboard through a faster interface, making it 3–5x faster than a standard SSD for read operations. For databases and sites with heavy disk I/O, NVMe makes a real difference.
Beyond speed, think about what you're actually storing. Static assets like images and videos take up the most space. A typical WordPress site without media might use 2–5GB. Add a library of high-resolution product photos or video content and you can hit 20GB or more. Factor in your database, email hosting, and backup storage if that's included in your plan.
Bandwidth: The Often-Ignored Fourth Resource
Bandwidth controls how much data your server can transfer to visitors each month. A single page visit might transfer 500KB–3MB of data. Multiply that by tens of thousands of visits and the numbers add up fast.
Most reputable managed hosts offer generous or unmetered bandwidth at the plan level, but it's worth understanding what happens when you exceed your allocation. Some providers throttle speed. Others charge overage fees. Know what your plan says before you need it.
How to Estimate What You Actually Need
Rather than guessing, use real data to size your plan correctly.
If you're starting fresh
- Simple blog or portfolio: 1 vCPU, 1GB RAM, 20GB SSD storage
- Business website with contact forms and moderate traffic: 2 vCPUs, 2GB RAM, 40GB NVMe
- WooCommerce store with active inventory: 2–4 vCPUs, 4GB RAM, 60GB NVMe minimum
- High-traffic or multi-site setup: 4+ vCPUs, 8GB RAM, scale storage based on media volume
If you're already live
Check your current server metrics. Look at average CPU usage, peak RAM consumption, and disk I/O over the past 30 days. Most managed hosting panels expose this data. At Proginter, the dashboard shows resource usage trends so you can see exactly where your site stands — and get ahead of problems before they affect visitors.
If your CPU regularly spikes above 70% during normal traffic, you're close to the edge. If RAM usage sits at 85% or higher at baseline, a traffic spike will push you into swap and slow everything down.
Why Resource Isolation Changes Everything
On shared hosting, all these resources are pooled. Your site shares CPU, RAM, and disk I/O with dozens or hundreds of other sites on the same physical machine. One poorly optimized neighbor can eat into your allocation and slow your site down with zero warning.
Managed hosting with proper resource isolation means your allocated CPU and RAM are yours. Other tenants on the same hardware can't consume what's been assigned to you. This is one of the most practical reasons to move away from shared hosting as your site grows — not just for performance, but for predictability.
The Bottom Line
Server specs aren't just marketing numbers. CPU determines how fast your server handles requests. RAM determines how much it can handle at once. Storage type determines how quickly it reads and writes data. All three work together, and a bottleneck in any one of them will hold back the others.
Start by understanding what your site actually does — how many concurrent visitors you expect, how much dynamic content you serve, how large your media library is. Then match those requirements to a plan with the right balance of resources, not just the biggest numbers.
If you're unsure where your site stands, our team at Proginter can review your current usage and recommend a plan that fits — without overselling you on resources you don't need yet.
