Open resource usage
Log in to cPanel through your client area or atyourdomain.com/cpanel. Go to Metrics and click Resource Usage (also labelled CPU and Concurrent Connection Usage).
What each metric means
| Metric | What it measures |
|---|---|
| CPU | Processor time your account has used. Measured as a percentage of your allocated CPU cores. |
| Physical memory | RAM consumed by your account’s processes. Includes PHP workers, MySQL connections from your scripts, and any running cron jobs. |
| I/O (throughput) | Disk read/write speed in MB/s. High I/O usually comes from database queries or large file operations. |
| IOPS | Number of individual disk read/write operations per second. |
| Entry processes | Concurrent connections entering your account — each PHP request, SSH session, or cron job counts as one. This is the most common limit people hit. |
| Number of processes | Total processes running under your account at any point, including background tasks and child processes spawned by PHP. |
Reading the graphs
The interface shows two types of data for each metric:- Current usage — a real-time snapshot of how much of the resource your account is consuming right now.
- Faults — the number of times your account hit the limit during the selected time period. Each fault means a request was delayed or denied because the limit was reached.
What to do when you’re hitting limits
If you’re seeing faults regularly, here are the most common fixes: High entry processes or number of processes- Enable LiteSpeed caching (LSCache) if it’s not already active. This reduces the number of PHP processes needed to serve your site.
- Check for slow PHP scripts or plugins that keep connections open longer than necessary.
- Make sure cron jobs aren’t overlapping — a job that takes longer than its schedule interval will stack up processes.
- Look for unoptimized database queries, especially on WordPress sites with many plugins.
- Disable plugins you’re not actively using.
- Use object caching to reduce repeated processing.
- Lower the PHP memory limit per script if you’ve set it higher than needed.
- Check for memory leaks in custom code or poorly written plugins.
- Enable database query caching.
- Reduce the frequency of cron jobs that read or write large amounts of data.