PHP-FPM and Nginx Tuning: A Practical Checklist
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Getting Nginx and PHP-FPM right is the foundation of a fast e-commerce server. Here is a practical checklist drawn from real production work.
PHP-FPM: choosing the PM mode
On a VPS with fixed RAM, use pm = static or ondemand. Static gives predictable memory use; ondemand frees RAM during quiet hours.
pm = ondemand pm.max_children = 20 pm.process_idle_timeout = 10s
OPcache configuration
The parameters that actually matter in production:
opcache.memory_consumption=256 opcache.interned_strings_buffer=16 opcache.max_accelerated_files=10000 opcache.validate_timestamps=0
Nginx worker connections
Rule of thumb: worker_processes equals the number of CPU cores, worker_connections sits between 1024 and 4096 depending on RAM. Enable multi_accept on and use epoll.
FastCGI cache
Set up FastCGI cache with sensible exclusions (cart, logged-in users, POST requests). It is the single most effective way to speed up static pages.
Keepalive and gzip
Set keepalive_timeout to 65, enable gzip for text/html, CSS and JS, and turn on HTTP/2 for every HTTPS site. This cuts the number of TCP connections substantially.
