# Hosting on VPS

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hosting-on-vps/99472>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 23, 2006, 5:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hosting-on-vps/99472 "2006-07-23T05:16:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![justin\_Pease](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@justin\_Pease](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/justin_Pease)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 5:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hosting-on-vps/99472/1 "2006-07-23T05:16:45Z")

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I have a VPS account with 256MB guaranteed RAM.

I am running it as Apache1.3 -\> Pen -\> mongrel\_cluster (with 2 mongrel  
servers).

“top” shows 2 “ruby” instances (I guess for both of the mongrel  
servers), each weighing in at about 25MB. Does that sound about right?  
If you are using 2 mongrel servers per client app, does that mean that  
each RoR app needs 50MB+ dedicated RAM?

Just curious because someone was saying that they can fit alot more  
clients per VPS account writing their apps in PHP. Personally the  
benefits of RoR far outweigh squeezing more clients onto each web  
server, but nevertheless - I was hoping to be able to respond  
intelligently, so please fill me in!

Are these unavoidable memory requirements for Rails apps, or is this a  
mis-configuration issue?

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**Author:** ![justin\_Pease](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@justin\_Pease](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/justin_Pease)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 5:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hosting-on-vps/99472/2 "2006-07-23T05:26:20Z")

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Most of those 25mb is in swap. Real memory usage is a lot less.

On 7/23/06, justin Pease [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Just curious because someone was saying that they can fit alot more
> 
> * * *
> 
> Rails mailing list  
> removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
> [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails)

–

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**Author:** ![justin\_Pease](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@justin\_Pease](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/justin_Pease)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 3:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hosting-on-vps/99472/3 "2006-07-23T15:26:19Z")

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So does anyone have any experience with how many low-traffic Rails apps  
you can fit on a VPS with 256MB guaranteed RAM? I’m guessing like 4 or  
5. Does that sound right?

Jón Borgþórsson wrote:

> Most of those 25mb is in swap. Real memory usage is a lot less.

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**Author:** ![justin\_Pease](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@justin\_Pease](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/justin_Pease)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/hosting-on-vps/99472/4 "2006-07-23T16:26:45Z")

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On Jul 23, 2006, at 9:26 AM, justin Pease wrote:

> So does anyone have any experience with how many low-traffic Rails  
> apps  
> you can fit on a VPS with 256MB guaranteed RAM? I’m guessing like  
> 4 or  
> 5. Does that sound right?

On our 256mb BantamVPS, I recommend 1-6 applications depending on  
number of Mongrels per app. If you want 2 mongrels per app, then 3  
applications comfortably with a little headroom. By default we run  
Apache 2.2 and MySQL, so you could squeeze more in using SQLite with  
Pound or Mongrel naked.

Regards,  
Bradley Taylor