{"id":2488,"date":"2026-02-19T12:56:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T11:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/?p=2488"},"modified":"2026-03-03T11:48:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T10:48:41","slug":"panelalpha-engine-v1-0-performance-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/panelalpha-engine-v1-0-performance-test\/","title":{"rendered":"PanelAlpha Engine v1.0 &#8211; Performance Test"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Almost two years ago, right after PanelAlpha v1.0 release, we published our first <strong>PanelAlpha Engine performance benchmarks<\/strong>, based on its BETA version. Those tests already showed a clear advantage of a container-based WordPress hosting architecture over traditional control panels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can read that original article here: <a style=\"text-decoration: underline; text-decoration-color: #07C07E;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/panelalpha-engine-performance-overview\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong style=\"color: #07C07E;\">PanelAlpha Engine BETA &#8211; Performance Test<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since then, PanelAlpha Engine has evolved significantly. After shipping v1.0 of it together with multiple architectural and performance-related improvements, we decided to rerun the <strong>exact same performance tests<\/strong>, using the same methodology and workload.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The result is simple: <\/strong>the gap did not close. In many areas, it actually widened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:40px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What changed since the BETA tests<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Since the BETA version benchmarks, <strong>PanelAlpha Engine has received +50 significant improvements and fixes<\/strong> that directly affect performance and stability:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>Introduction of <strong>LiteSpeed Enterprise<\/strong> and <strong>OpenLiteSpeed<\/strong> together with Apache-only and NGINX-only webserver options<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Redis object cache and LScache support at the Engine level<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Improved PHP-FPM process management and worker allocation<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>More accurate CPU and memory limits per container<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Better container isolation under sustained concurrency<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reduced cross-container I\/O contention<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Network stack optimizations between containers<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Smarter scheduling of PHP processes under load<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Improved handling of slow or blocked PHP workers<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Stabilized Engine installation and update process<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8230; and many more!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The full and continuously updated list of changes is publicly available in the official changelog: <a style=\"text-decoration: underline; text-decoration-color: #07C07E;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/changelog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong style=\"color: #07C07E;\">https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/changelog<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These changes were not cosmetic. Many of them directly affect latency, throughput, and performance consistency under load. <strong>Still, the latest test results confirm that PanelAlpha Engine delivers significantly better performance for WordPress workloads.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Test prerequisites and methodology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To ensure the results are fair, all tests were executed under the same assumptions and constraints:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>The same WordPress installation and content were used across all platforms<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>No CDN or external caching layers<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Default panel configurations were used for all platforms<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the case of PanelAlpha Engine, the only variable changed was the web server<br>(LiteSpeed Enterprise, OpenLiteSpeed or the Nginx + Apache stack &#8211; which was the only option for BETA version)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Load testing tool: k6 with scenario:\n<ul>\n<li>20 concurrent virtual users<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>~20 seconds per test<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Requests distributed across the site using sitemap URLs<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>0 percent HTTP errors in all test runs<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>All tests were performed on the same server plan on Hetzner: <strong>CX21, Shared vCPU x86, 2vCPUS, 4 GB RAM, 40GB SSD<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Average response time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Average response time measures how long it takes for a server to respond to a request, from the moment it is received until the response is fully generated. This is one of the most visible performance metrics for end users, because it directly affects perceived speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Results:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><thead><tr><th class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">Platform<\/th><th class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">Average response time (ms)<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">PanelAlpha Engine + LiteSpeed Enterprise<\/td><td class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">54<\/td><\/tr><tr><td class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">PanelAlpha Engine + OpenLiteSpeed<\/td><td class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">54<\/td><\/tr><tr><td class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">PanelAlpha Engine + Nginx + Apache (default)<\/td><td class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">365<\/td><\/tr><tr><td class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">Plesk<\/td><td class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">828<\/td><\/tr><tr><td class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">DirectAdmin<\/td><td class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">1713<\/td><\/tr><tr><td class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">cPanel<\/td><td class=\"has-text-align-left\" data-align=\"left\">1641<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Average response time (ms)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"710\" height=\"428\" src=\"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-average-response-time.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2490\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-average-response-time.png 710w, https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-average-response-time-300x181.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 710px) 100vw, 710px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>PanelAlpha Engine with LiteSpeed Enterprise and OpenLiteSpeed responds in ~54 ms, while traditional control panels respond in 800\u20131700 ms. <strong>This means PanelAlpha Engine is 15\u201330x faster than cPanel and DirectAdmin and over 10x faster than Plesk under the same workload.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Average requests per second<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Requests per second shows how many HTTP requests the platform can process concurrently.<br>It is a strong indicator of how well a system handles traffic spikes and concurrent visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Results:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><thead><tr><th>Platform<\/th><th>Requests per second<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>PanelAlpha Engine + LiteSpeed Enterprise<\/td><td>340<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>PanelAlpha Engine + OpenLiteSpeed<\/td><td>345<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>PanelAlpha Engine + Nginx + Apache (default)<\/td><td>54<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Plesk<\/td><td>22<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>DirectAdmin<\/td><td>10<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>cPanel<\/td><td>10<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Average requests per second<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"695\" height=\"428\" src=\"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-requests-per-second-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2522\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-requests-per-second-1.png 695w, https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-requests-per-second-1-300x185.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 695px) 100vw, 695px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Higher throughput means the same server can handle significantly more users at the same time.<br>For hosting providers, this directly impacts density, cost efficiency, and stability during traffic peaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Time to First Byte<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Time to First Byte measures how long it takes before the browser receives the first byte of the response from the server. It reflects server responsiveness and backend efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Results:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><thead><tr><th>Platform<\/th><th>Time to first byte (s)<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>PanelAlpha Engine + LiteSpeed Enterprise<\/td><td>0.28<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>PanelAlpha Engine + OpenLiteSpeed<\/td><td>0.20<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>PanelAlpha Engine + Nginx + Apache (default)<\/td><td>0.26<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Plesk<\/td><td>0.27<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>DirectAdmin<\/td><td>0.57<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>cPanel<\/td><td>0.45<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Time to First Byte (s)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"686\" height=\"434\" src=\"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-ttfb-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2523\" style=\"width:686px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-ttfb-1.png 686w, https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-ttfb-1-300x190.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 686px) 100vw, 686px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Lower and more stable TTFB improves perceived performance and has a direct impact on SEO and Core Web Vitals. PanelAlpha Engine consistently delivers fast initial responses even under concurrent load. What&#8217;s surprising is that OpenLiteSpeed had better results than LiteSpeed Enterprise. We&#8217;ll definitely look into this more with further testing to confirm if it&#8217;s a consistent result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. 90th percentile response time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Requests per second shows how many HTTP requests the platform can process concurrently.<br>It is a strong indicator of how well a system handles traffic spikes and concurrent visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Results:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><thead><tr><th>Platform<\/th><th>90th percentile response time (ms)<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>PanelAlpha Engine + LiteSpeed Enterprise<\/td><td>60<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>PanelAlpha Engine + OpenLiteSpeed<\/td><td>58<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>PanelAlpha Engine + Nginx + Apache (default)<\/td><td>410<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Plesk<\/td><td>922<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>DirectAdmin<\/td><td>1948<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>cPanel<\/td><td>2114<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>90th percentile response time<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"695\" height=\"429\" src=\"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-90th-percentile-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2524\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-90th-percentile-1.png 695w, https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-90th-percentile-1-300x185.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 695px) 100vw, 695px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>PanelAlpha Engine remains predictable under load, with minimal latency spikes. Traditional panels show large and inconsistent response times once concurrency increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">5. Average request duration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Requests per second shows how many HTTP requests the platform can process concurrently.<br>It is a strong indicator of how well a system handles traffic spikes and concurrent visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Results:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><thead><tr><th>Platform<\/th><th>Average request duration (ms)<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>PanelAlpha Engine + LiteSpeed Enterprise<\/td><td>55<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>PanelAlpha Engine + OpenLiteSpeed<\/td><td>54<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>PanelAlpha Engine + Nginx + Apache (default)<\/td><td>365<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Plesk<\/td><td>841<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>DirectAdmin<\/td><td>1763<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>cPanel<\/td><td>1877<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Average request duration<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"695\" height=\"427\" src=\"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-average-request-duration-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2525\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-average-request-duration-1.png 695w, https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/panelalpha-engine-average-request-duration-1-300x184.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 695px) 100vw, 695px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>PanelAlpha Engine finishes requests quickly and frees resources sooner, allowing the system to handle more traffic with less degradation. This directly improves scalability and stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:10px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Final thoughts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The new benchmarks show that the performance gains observed during the BETA phase were not accidental. Despite adding dozens of improvements, additional services and security layers that would normally introduce overhead, PanelAlpha Engine continues to deliver strong and predictable performance under load, <strong>with 2.5to 5x gains across most metrics.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even when compared using default configurations, PanelAlpha Engine outperforms traditional control panels. The tests also clearly show a significant performance gap between the default Nginx and Apache stack and LiteSpeed-based configurations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on these results, <strong>we also strongly recommend using LiteSpeed Enterprise, or at minimum OpenLiteSpeed,<\/strong> to fully leverage the performance potential of PanelAlpha Engine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost two years ago, right after PanelAlpha v1.0 release, we published our first PanelAlpha Engine performance benchmarks, based on its BETA version. Those tests already showed a clear advantage of a container-based WordPress hosting architecture over traditional control panels. You can read that original article here: PanelAlpha Engine BETA &#8211; Performance Test Since then, PanelAlpha [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2488"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2527,"href":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488\/revisions\/2527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panelalpha.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}