Hi, thank you for your interest 🙂
The plugin is, as we say, a pure CPU performance testing plugin. There is really not much you can do to improve the performance figures as these are down to the hardware behind your PHP and MySQL servers. Not having a PHP.INI file should not affect your performance that much, it is probably down to your provider being overloaded. If their servers are overloaded (you can see the load average in the results) the results will fluctuate a lot.
We have a long list of features we would like to put in and we will work on it when time is there 🙂
In the bottom you can see 3 examples from our server park, so you could ask your provider how come it’s not as fast 🙂
Rgds
After I had added the missing php.ini file, the load speed of my site increased significantly and the test took twice as long to complete. So, it appears to me that this plugin is more like a marketing tool offering a comparison based on a customized criteria of some kind that is neither noteworthy nor helpful in my own case.
Hi again
php.ini or not will definately affect your visual performance on the web server side. The default settings in PHP is not optimal. You can try to run the test 5 times, one each minute and compare the results with and without the php.ini file. Results should be exactly the same unless you’ve got a high load on your webserver side (MySQL is not tested for load).
The source code is public, you can see the simple tests and what they do, there is no way it can tweeked to show results that are not real, the results shown are exactly what it says on the box, core performance tests and nothing else.
You’re welcome to submit each result to us with the submit button, we won’t disclose anything.
Rgds
The default settings in PHP is not optimal.
I had been hoping this plugin might help with that since my sites run in shared hosting…and I already know certain irregularities are experienced throughout the day.
Hi again
The good thing about this plugin is that it tests what CPU performance is allocated to your server. Your provider might do CPU thottling on your server(s) during the day, you will be able to see this as the time to complete the test varies, the server load is also a good indication of how behind the server is with it’s duties.
Rgds
The good thing about this plugin is that it tests what CPU performance is allocated to your server.
Not necessarily in any way I can see should be of any concern to me. I readily admit I know almost nothing here, but I do know I have good load speeds even though this plugin’s test takes a horribly-long time to complete. So, whatever this plugin is checking appears to me to be unnecessary or irrelevant in my own case…and I am not meaning to be giving you any grief here. I just know this test does *not* show any actual need for me to change hosting providers, and I do not want to see anyone else mis-led by its results.
Your provider might do CPU throttling on your server(s) during the day…
Yes, and I have a cPanel monitor for watching for that while I tweak related things at my site. Most recently, my own throttling (via WordFence Security) of a malicious robot pretending to be a legitimate crawler was apparently not enough for its 317 hits…
Brazil IP: 200.195.197.170 | 317 hits
Hostname: customer-200195197170.idc.onda.com.br
…so it makes good sense that my host also did some throttling.
…the server load is also a good indication of how behind the server is with it’s duties.
Not when it is being given whatever duties this plugin is giving it that are completely irrelevant to efficient and practical use as actually needed.
Hi again
The test is i different sections, if it takes a lot of time to complete it might be one of the MySQL test that fails. One of the tests is horribly slow on MySQL 5.1 (10-20 times slower), we might remove that part in the next update.
More power for your system = faster rendering = faster load time. We get quite a few submissions from people using this plugin at the moment, test results varies from around 10 seconds to 125.
What we can see as well is that almost all PHP servers are running versions that are not the latest, some are even 3-5 years old and have a lot of security issues. This plugin can be used for more than just testing CPU.
The more CPU power the more power you have available to handle malicious robots etc etc, thottling means that everyone else that looks at your site when it’s thottled will have slow load times. CPU power is very relevant to how your website performs, loads, renders etc etc.
Noone asks you to switch provider. You mention that you’ve got “good load times”, that might be the case, but if the tests performed in the plugin was, let’s say, 3 times faster, you would see a significant improvement in your load time. We do also mention that there are many other factors that affects your website, we only test how fast your PHP server can perform some math, string, ifelse etc tests and how fast your MySQL server can perform similar tests.
Rgds
I do understand what you are saying, and I do still hope this plugin might eventually include some insights and tips related to things any of us might be able to do to help improve overall configuration and efficiency at our various hosting providers.
