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content/privacy/self-hosting-performance.md

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+---
+title: "Self-Hosting Without a CDN: Performance Tips"
+description: "How to make your self-hosted site fast without relying on Cloudflare or other CDNs."
+section: privacy
+order: 3
+---
+
+# Self-Hosting Without a CDN: Performance Tips
+
+A common objection to self-hosting is "but it won't be fast without a CDN." That's not true for most sites. With proper configuration, a well-tuned Nginx server on a decent VPS will load pages in under 200ms for visitors on the same continent — more than fast enough for a great user experience.
+
+---
+
+## Tip 1 — Enable HTTP/2 and HTTP/3
+
+HTTP/2 multiplexes requests over a single connection. HTTP/3 (QUIC) reduces latency even further.
+
+```nginx
+server {
+    listen 443 ssl http2;
+    listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
+    # HTTP/3 requires Nginx 1.25+ with quic support
+    listen 443 quic reuseport;
+}
+```
+
+Check that HTTP/2 is active by looking at the Chrome DevTools → Network tab — your requests should show `h2` as the protocol.
+
+---
+
+## Tip 2 — Aggressive static file caching
+
+Serve static assets with long cache lifetimes and immutable headers so browsers never re-request them:
+
+```nginx
+location ~* \.(css|js|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico|svg|woff2?)$ {
+    expires 1y;
+    add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable";
+    access_log off;
+}
+```
+
+With immutable caching, the browser will never check if the file has changed until the user force-reloads.
+
+---
+
+## Tip 3 — Enable Gzip compression
+
+Compress text-based responses:
+
+```nginx
+gzip on;
+gzip_vary on;
+gzip_proxied any;
+gzip_comp_level 5;
+gzip_min_length 256;
+gzip_types
+    text/plain
+    text/css
+    text/javascript
+    application/javascript
+    application/json
+    application/xml
+    image/svg+xml;
+```
+
+This can reduce HTML, CSS, and JS payloads by 60–80%.
+
+---
+
+## Tip 4 — Use a PHP opcode cache
+
+For WordPress and other PHP sites, enable OPcache:
+
+```ini
+; /etc/php/8.3/cli/conf.d/10-opcache.ini
+opcache.enable=1
+opcache.memory_consumption=128
+opcache.max_accelerated_files=10000
+opcache.revalidate_freq=120
+```
+
+This keeps compiled PHP scripts in memory, avoiding recompilation on every request.
+
+---
+
+## Tip 5 — Install a WordPress caching plugin
+
+For WordPress sites, use a caching plugin that generates static HTML:
+
+- **WP Super Cache** or **W3 Total Cache**: Generate static HTML files served directly by Nginx
+- **LiteSpeed Cache**: If you're running LiteSpeed (LSAPI mode)
+
+See our [W3 Total Cache Configuration](/wordpress/w3-total-cache/) guide for detailed setup instructions without a CDN.
+
+---
+
+## Tip 6 — Tune Nginx worker settings
+
+```nginx
+worker_processes auto;
+worker_rlimit_nofile 65535;
+
+events {
+    worker_connections 4096;
+    use epoll;
+    multi_accept on;
+}
+```
+
+`auto` sets the worker count to the number of CPU cores. `worker_connections 4096` allows each worker to handle 4,000 concurrent connections.
+
+---
+
+## Tip 7 — Serve images efficiently
+
+- **Use WebP** instead of JPEG/PNG (30% smaller). Convert with `cwebp`:
+  ```bash
+  sudo apt install webp -y
+  cwebp -q 80 input.jpg -o output.webp
+  ```
+- **Use responsive images** with srcset so mobile devices don't download desktop-sized images
+- **Lazy-load below-the-fold images** with `loading="lazy"` attribute:
+  ```html
+  <img src="photo.jpg" loading="lazy" alt="...">
+  ```
+- **Compress images** with a tool like ImageMagick or optipng before uploading
+
+---
+
+## Tip 8 — Optimize your database
+
+For MySQL/MariaDB:
+- Enable query cache (MySQL 5.7 and earlier)
+- Run `mysqlcheck -o --all-databases` weekly
+- Remove unused plugins and post revisions in WordPress
+- Use an index on frequently queried columns
+
+```sql
+-- Clean up WordPress post revisions
+DELETE FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = 'revision';
+
+-- Optimize tables
+OPTIMIZE TABLE wp_posts, wp_postmeta;
+```
+
+---
+
+## Tip 9 — Set proper buffer sizes
+
+```nginx
+client_body_buffer_size 128k;
+client_max_body_size 50m;
+client_header_buffer_size 1k;
+large_client_header_buffers 4 8k;
+output_buffers 32 32k;
+postpone_output 1460;
+```
+
+These settings prevent Nginx from buffering more data than necessary per connection.
+
+---
+
+## Tip 10 — Choose a geographically close VPS location
+
+Arcline's data center location matters. A VPS in Dallas will serve US visitors faster than one in Frankfurt. For international audiences, consider:
+
+- One VPS in the US + one in Europe with a simple round-robin DNS
+- Or just accept slightly higher latency for overseas visitors — a 200ms response time is still perfectly usable
+
+---
+
+## Benchmarking your setup
+
+After making these changes, test your performance:
+
+```bash
+# Install siege for load testing
+sudo apt install siege -y
+siege -c 50 -t 60s https://example.com
+
+# Or use curl to measure response time
+curl -w "@curl-format.txt" -o /dev/null -s https://example.com
+```
+
+Create a format file (`curl-format.txt`):
+
+```
+    time_namelookup:  %{time_namelookup}s
+       time_connect:  %{time_connect}s
+    time_appconnect:  %{time_appconnect}s
+   time_redirect:  %{time_redirect}s
+time_pretransfer:  %{time_pretransfer}s
+   time_starttransfer:  %{time_starttransfer}s
+                     ----------
+          time_total:  %{time_total}s
+```
+
+---
+
+## Real-world results
+
+A typical Arcline VPS running WordPress with:
+- Nginx + PHP 8.3 FPM
+- OPcache enabled
+- W3 Total Cache (page cache + database cache)
+- WebP images
+- Gzip compression
+
+Will serve pages in **150–300ms** to US visitors and handle **500+ concurrent users** on a $15/mo plan.
+
+You don't need Cloudflare to be fast. You need a well-configured server.
+
+---
+
+## What's next
+
+- [What SPF, DKIM, and DMARC actually do](/privacy/spf-dkim-dmarc/)
+- [Why you shouldn't put Cloudflare in front of everything](/privacy/why-not-cloudflare/)
+- [How to check if a host is self-hosted](/privacy/arcline-check-walkthrough/)
+