How do I troubleshoot high CPU or memory usage on my Droplet?

Heya,

Use commands like top or htop # if installed, more user-friendly These show which processes are consuming the most CPU and memory. Look for any process stuck at 90–100% or using excessive RAM.

Enable DigitalOcean Monitoring & Metrics In your Droplet dashboard, enable Monitoring. This provides CPU %, memory, disk I/O, and alerts right from the dashboard. If you notice spikes, match the timeline with deployments, traffic bursts, or cron jobs.

Investigate the Culprit Web servers (Nginx/Apache): Too many requests or misconfiguration.

Databases (MySQL/PostgreSQL): Slow queries, missing indexes, too many connections.

Background tasks or cron jobs: Scripts running in loops or with memory leaks.

Bots or DDoS traffic: Check access logs for unusual IPs or repetitive requests.

Check System Logs

/var/log/syslog
/var/log/auth.log
/var/log/nginx/access.log
/var/log/mysql/error.log

Errors, crashes, or authentication attacks may consume resources.

Optimize Services

• MySQL: Tune with mysqltuner or optimize queries.

• PHP / Node / Django apps: Use proper process managers (PM2, Gunicorn, Supervisor).

• Caching: Add Redis or enable page caching to reduce load.