Website Interactivity is Slow

DevKinsta Bug Reports
50

I also notice some dramatic performance issues since switching to DevKinsta. I’m on a MacBook Pro (BigSur 11.5.2 / 32GB RAM / 2.9GHz 6-core)

Here’s what I observe:

  1. The more websites I add, the slower it gets
  2. The performance gets better, when I quit PhpStorm and only have DevKisnta + Browser open
  3. Performance degrades when a download is running (regardless of plugin update or just downloading a random file from a different website)
  4. When using Dockers option “Use new Virtualization Framework” performance goes really bad. Like 90 seconds for each click (hyperkit is faster!).
  5. Performance improved, once I moved most websites from “~/DevKinsta/public” to the new folder “~/DevKinsta/archive” (I left the DB, only moved the files)
  6. Performance is bad right after starting up DevKinsta and improves after 5-10 minutes
  7. Enabling Xdebug makes each request about 0.5 seconds slower

Here are some numbers (I tested each case 5-8 times, here is the mean value):

Websites Files / Size IDE Download Load-Time
1 488.000 / 4GB - - 1.2 sec
1 488.000 / 4GB - yes 2.4 sec
1 488.000 / 4GB running - 1.4 sec
1 488.000 / 4GB running yes 6.0 sec
2 529.000 / 8GB - - 1.6 sec
2 529.000 / 8GB - yes 2.7 sec
2 529.000 / 8GB running - 1.6 sec
2 529.000 / 8GB running yes 6.1 sec
4 1.030.000 / 14GB - - 2.3 sec
4 1.030.000 / 14GB - yes 5.4 sec
4 1.030.000 / 14GB running - 2.2 sec
4 1.030.000 / 14GB running yes 11.6 sec

Notes:

  • Websites: Number of Websites in DevKinsta
  • Files: Total number of files in the ~/DevKinsta/public folder
  • IDE: Is PhpStorm running with a DevKinsta project loaded, or quit?
  • Download: Is a download in progress? (I downloaded the Ubuntu ISO)
  • Load-Time: Average load time of website.local/wp-admin

I’ve also had load-times of 60+ seconds, and it seems to be directly related to file system activity - e.g. when having other apps open, like an FTP and DB client. My previous server was very consistent, regardless of file system activity. It’s possibly related to Dockers integration with the Apple APFS.

My solution/recommendation:

  • Do NOT enable the new virtualization framework on Big Sur!
  • Keep the public folder slim → move the wp-contents folder of inactive sites somewhere outside the public folder, but keep the rest, as DevKinsta will delete the website otherwise
  • Close unused apps to minimize file system access
  • Do not download files in the background
  • Start DevKinsta, get a coffee and start working after all containers and indices were initialized