My server is slow

When a server feels slow, the goal is to find which resource is the bottleneck: CPU, memory, disk, or network.

1. Log in and look. Connect over SSH (how to connect) and check usage. On Linux, top or htop shows CPU and memory; df -h shows disk space; iostat shows disk activity.
2. CPU or memory maxed out. If the server is constantly at its limit, it has outgrown its plan. Move it to a larger Server Plan with Resize your server.
3. Disk full or busy. If the disk is nearly full, free space or add a volume. If the disk is the bottleneck under load, a plan with more resources or moving heavy data to a separate volume helps.
4. The application, not the server. Often the server is fine and the app is the issue: a slow database query, a misconfigured web server, or a traffic spike. Check the application's own logs.

If the slowness is network reachability rather than the server itself being busy, see My server cannot be reached.