How can I optimize a low-cost affiliate dashboard for faster performance on a VPS?

Heya,

Yes, switching to Nginx + PHP-FPM will usually help, especially for high-concurrency or many small requests:

• Nginx is event-driven and much lighter on memory under load compared to Apache prefork.

• PHP-FPM lets you finely control PHP process spawning (pm settings) instead of relying on Apache mod_php.

If you stay on Apache:

• Consider switching to event MPM (apachectl -V to check) and running PHP via php-fpm.

• Disable or remove unused modules.

• Use KeepAlive Off or reduce KeepAliveTimeout to 2–3s.

Nginx + PHP-FPM is often better for low-RAM VPS:

• Lower memory footprint.

• Faster static asset delivery.

• Easier caching configuration.

Recommendation: Switch to Nginx + PHP-FPM if possible.

PHP Tuning

• Use opcache. This is one of the most important speed-ups:

opcache.enable=1
opcache.memory_consumption=64
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=8
opcache.max_accelerated_files=4000
opcache.validate_timestamps=0

• (validate_timestamps=0 disables checking file modification times—requires reload after deploy)

• Use Composer’s --optimize-autoloader if you use Composer.

• Avoid unnecessary PHP includes on every request.

• If you have real-time click tracking, avoid sessions or reduce session locking, e.g.:

  • Use Redis or Memcached for session storage.

  • Call session_write_close() as soon as you no longer need the session in scripts.

Database Tuning (MySQL)

Affiliate tracking tends to have lots of INSERTs. Check and tune these areas:

InnoDB settings (in my.cnf):

innodb_buffer_pool_size = 256M
innodb_log_file_size = 64M
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 2
innodb_flush_method = O_DIRECT

• innodb_buffer_pool_size should be ~50–60% of RAM.

• innodb_log_file_size helps with write-heavy workloads.

Disable query cache (if MySQL 5.7 or higher). Use proper indexes.

• On click tracking tables, ensure you have indexes on the columns you filter or join on frequently.

• Example: INDEX (affiliate_id, created_at).

Consider batching writes:

• If you have JS tracking pixel or endpoint that logs every click, you can buffer in memory (Redis, Memcached) and periodically insert in batches to reduce write IO.

Caching Layers

• Use Redis or Memcached to cache frequently-read data:

  • Commission summaries.

  • Affiliate dashboards.

  • Recent clicks (if acceptable to be ~30s stale).

• Use Nginx microcaching (e.g., 1–3 seconds) for dashboard views, which offloads bursts.

Other General Optimizations

Enable GZIP compression (gzip on; in Nginx). Serve static assets directly via Nginx. Use HTTP/2 (faster multiplexed requests). Monitor with something like htop, iftop, mysqltuner, and ngxtop to see real bottlenecks.