# How come the discourse server is so fast?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-come-the-discourse-server-is-so-fast/34629
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [October 17, 2015, 4:01pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-come-the-discourse-server-is-so-fast/34629 "2015-10-17T16:01:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Tal\_Pergricht](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Tal_Pergricht)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2015, 4:01pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-come-the-discourse-server-is-so-fast/34629/1 "2015-10-17T16:01:23Z")
im thinking about building a community around discourse, yet there seem to be some difference in speed from the discourse site forum to other discourse forums i notest.
how can i make the discourse speed the most optimal? something to do with server? (the users aare gonna be only locals) optimaizing?
thanks.
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### Author:  [@purldator](https://meta.discourse.org/u/purldator)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2015, 4:23pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-come-the-discourse-server-is-so-fast/34629/2 "2015-10-17T16:23:56Z")
Meta’s [servers](http://blog.discourse.org/2013/04/the-discourse-servers/) and [their hosting configs](http://blog.discourse.org/2015/01/our-discourse-hosting-configuration/).
I hope those links may help with what you seek.
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### Author:  [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-come-the-discourse-server-is-so-fast/34629/3 "2015-10-17T16:49:40Z")
I’m runnig Discourse on a VPS with 4 Cores + Another one to Nginx Reverse Proxy + a shared PostgreSQL instance and it’s **fast**.
We have 100k+ users, 5k+ active per day, 20k pageviews day.
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### Author:  [@mpalmer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mpalmer)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2015, 9:07pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-come-the-discourse-server-is-so-fast/34629/4 "2015-10-17T21:07:02Z")
Summary: CPUs with fast single-core performance, minimising overcontention, and edge caching.
Taking those in reverse order…
Intelligent caching, as close to the user as possible, is the absolute single best thing you can do for the performance of any website or application. Connecting to a distant (in network topology terms) server to obtain a resource takes a _lot_ longer than doing it locally (damned speed-of-light). With TLS involved, the impact becomes even worse. So, the more you can cache somewhere close (in network topology terms) to the user, the better off you’ll be.
Overcontention is how pretty much every provider makes their money, whether that be shared hosting, VPS, dedicated server rental, your ISP – everyone is putting more customers onto their systems than they have the resources to service, if everyone wanted to maximally use what they’re paying for to the maximum. It is only by gambling that not everyone is actually going to use what they’re paying for that allows providers make money. When that gamble doesn’t pay off, performance suffers.
Finally, dynamic page generation in Discourse (or, indeed, any website or application) is CPU bound, and it’s _single-core_ CPU bound. Once the server decides it has to collect data together and munge it into a blob of HTML or JSON, the biggest difference you can make in getting that job done quickly is by having a single CPU core that runs very, _very_ fast available to do that munging. It’s not the _only_ factor, but it’s the one that’ll be the most obvious when you start experimenting. Database performance (and not having crap SQL) is the next most important, and then having a fast network to get the requests in and the responses out quickly is next.
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### Author:  [@Tal\_Pergricht](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Tal_Pergricht)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2015, 1:22am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-come-the-discourse-server-is-so-fast/34629/5 "2015-10-18T01:22:17Z")
thank you!
let me clarify my question.
how can i make my server and speed optimum if i have very low budget?
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### Author:  [@mpalmer](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mpalmer)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2015, 1:23am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-come-the-discourse-server-is-so-fast/34629/6 "2015-10-18T01:23:59Z")
> [@Tal\_Pergricht](#):
>
> how can i make my server and speed optimum if i have very low budget?
Do what I’ve described above, within whatever limits you have in your budget.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2018, 6:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-come-the-discourse-server-is-so-fast/34629/7 "2018-11-16T06:06:18Z")
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2018, 6:06am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-come-the-discourse-server-is-so-fast/34629/8 "2018-12-16T06:06:35Z")
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