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Web Hosting Performance Levels (plans ordered until July 21, 2026)

Valid for Web Hosting.

In this article, we have compiled some information on the Performance Levels for Web Hosting plans. You will find out what Performance Levels are, how they affects your websites, and how you can increase your Performance Level.

Requirements

This article applies exclusively to Web Hosting plans ordered up to July 21, 2026.

  • Are you using a newer plan? If you ordered your plan after this date, different technical details and configuration options apply. In this case, please read the relevant article: Performance Levels in current Web Hosting plans

What is the performance level?

The performance level is a measure of your web hosting plan's performance. It defines the amount of server resources available to your websites. This is particularly important for PHP-based websites (such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla!, or online shops).

Each level represents a specific allocation of server resources assigned to your overall plan. These include:

  • RAM: The total amount of RAM available to your applications. This consists of a maximum peak value and a portion that is always guaranteed to you.
  • PHP memory limit & usable RAM: This limit describes the maximum amount of RAM that a single PHP process may use. As the PHP interpreter itself requires a portion of this, the RAM actually available for your scripts is slightly less.
  • Processes per minute: The maximum number of processes and computational operations that the server can handle for you in parallel within one minute.
  • Visitors per minute: A guideline for the number of website visitors that can be served optimally at the respective tier, without any noticeable loading delays.

A higher tier provides your websites with greater capacity to handle high traffic (many concurrent visitors) and complex tasks smoothly and without any loss of performance.

Why do PHP scripts require server resources?

PHP scripts are files containing program code that are executed on the web server to regenerate your web pages each time they are accessed. Virtually all modern content management systems (CMS) use PHP. Every page view triggers PHP processes. The more visitors you have, the more resources are required by the performance tier.

An overview of the Performance Levels

To tailor performance to your individual requirements, there are 5 Performance Levels available. The higher the Performance Level, the more resources are available for executing PHP code, thereby helping to avoid performance bottlenecks.

The following table provides a detailed overview of the available performance levels and their specifications:

Level RAM PHP memory limit Usable RAM (for scripts) Processes per minute Visitors per minute
1 Up to 2.5 GB RAM (1.25 GB guaranteed) 512 MB approx. 332 MB 300 100
2 Up to 6 GB RAM (3 GB guaranteed) 640 MB approx. 460 MB 600 200
3 Up to 9 GB RAM (4.5 GB guaranteed) 640 MB approx. 460 MB 900 300
4 Up to 15 GB RAM (7.5 GB guaranteed) 768 MB approx. 588 MB 1200 400
5 Up to 19 GB RAM (9.5 GB guaranteed) 768 MB approx. 588 MB 1500 500

Is the Performance Level tied to the plan?

  • Plans up to September 9, 2024: The performance level is not tied to the plan. This means you can change the Performance Level at any time if required, without changing your plan. Please note: plans have a minimum level.

  • Plans from September 10, 2024 to July 21, 2026: If you ordered your plan during this period, the Performance Level is fixed to the selected plan. As the Performance Level is an integral part of your plan, changing the Performance Level requires a change of plan. It is not possible to dynamically add individual Performance Level tiers to these contracts.

When do I need a higher Performance Level?

Typical signs that you need to increase your plan's Performance Level include your website taking a long time to load with many concurrent visitors, delays when saving content in the backend (for example, in the WordPress dashboard), or occasional server error messages when carrying out complex tasks, such as importing large amounts of data.

How do I change the Performance Level?

  • Plans until September 9, 2024: Youcan adjust your Performance Level at any time in your IONOS account. You can find step-by-step instructions in the following article: Changing your Performance Level

  • Plans from September 10, 2024 to July 21, 2026: Asthe Performance Level is part of your plan, you will need to switch plans to change your Performance Level. You can find instructions on how to switch quickly and easily to a higher performance plans here: Switching to another hosting plan

Is your website still slow despite changing your plan?

If an upgrade does not result in a noticeable improvement, other factors may also be affecting the loading time. These include:

  • Missing or incorrectly configured caching on your website,
  • Very large, uncompressed images.
  • Too many plugins installed but not in use.
  • Database performance: The speed of the database server can also be a bottleneck. This often occurs when there are a large number of or complex queries to the MySQL database. Upgrading to a performance database, which offers significantly better performance for database-intensive applications, can resolve this issue.

My contract doesn’t specify a Performance Level – what can I do?

If your contract does not include this feature, you may be on an older plan without a Performance Level. This applies if you ordered your contract before March 23, 2017, and have not changed your plan since then. You can find information on PHP performance for older plans in the following article: Overview of PHP script limits for older web hosting plans

You can switch to a current web hosting plan at any time and make use of the Performance Level feature. You can find instructions on how to do this in the article Changing plans: Switching to a different hosting contract

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