1. Enable Swap Space

If your VPS has limited RAM, a swap file can prevent crashes during traffic spikes.

2. Use Nginx Instead of Apache

Nginx handles concurrent connections far more efficiently for most use cases.

3. Enable PHP OPcache

OPcache dramatically speeds up PHP execution by storing precompiled scripts in memory.

4. Configure Browser Caching

Serve static files with long expiry headers to reduce server load.

5. Use a CDN

Offload static assets to a CDN like Cloudflare to reduce bandwidth and improve load times globally.

6. Enable Gzip Compression

Compress responses before sending them to reduce transfer size by up to 70%.

7. Tune MySQL

Optimize innodb_buffer_pool_size and query_cache_size based on your available RAM.

8. Monitor Resource Usage

Use htop, iotop, and netstat to identify bottlenecks before they become problems.