If you're running a website on Sitecore, you want it to perform at its best. Unfortunately, there are Sitecore performance issues that can bring your site's performance down. These issues include slow-loading pages, sluggish response times, and other problems that can impact user experience.
Don't scratch your head, complaining "Why Am I Having Sitecore Performance Issues?". QEdge’s got you covered.
In this post, we'll take a look at the top 5 Sitecore performance issues that you need to watch out for.
Bad Configuration
Discovering configuration issues can cause Sitecore implementations to slow down drastically. Here are some of the most common issues you might encounter:
- If MSSQL is not configured to limit memory usage to around 90% of the total RAM available to the system, the OS may begin to swap SQL data, which can lead to poor performance.
- If your server is not configured to compress static content such as CSS and JavaScript, it will take longer to transfer these items to your site visitors.
- If your indexes are set to index all fields or more content than necessary, queries will be slower.
Most Sitecore configuration issues are related to media. Sitecore stores most media in the database, so if caching is not configured correctly, Sitecore has to pull the media from the database and resize it every time a page is rendered, resulting in longer wait times for your site visitors. Moreover, if Sitecore is set up to fetch media using /~/media (the old way) instead of /-/media (the new way), media requests may not perform as well.
Poor caching configuration
Caching issues can also cause Sitecore performance problems. HTML caching may be absent or incorrectly set up on renderings, which can force Sitecore to render content using extra resources. Moreover, the data cache may not be optimized for your site's traffic and content needs, leading Sitecore to frequently fetch data from the database.
Disastrous Written Codes
If the server doesn't allow visitors' browsers to cache static content, the browser will need to request reused content (such as CSS, JavaScript, and images) for every request, leading to slower load times.
Poorly written code is a clear indicator of an inexperienced developer, but it can also negatively impact your site's performance. When the code of your Sitecore site is not maintained or is poorly written from the start, it can lead to performance issues.
For instance, if your code depends on Sitecore queries or fast queries instead of indexes, it will take longer to search many items or large branches of the content tree.
Alternatively, if you have deprecated code that you don't remove after a rewrite, it can slow down Sitecore's startup and require more resources to power the solution.
Insufficient Hosting Environment
An inadequate hosting environment can significantly impact your Sitecore solution's performance. Your Sitecore environment may not have enough instances, or your instances may not have enough CPUs to handle the traffic load.
The hosting issues you may encounter depend on the hosting type you've selected. For example:
- When hosting Sitecore on Microsoft Azure, app services may not be configured to use the appropriate tier, or SQL databases may not have an appropriate compute size (number of DTUs).
- When hosting Sitecore on physical hardware, environments with heavy traffic may require SQL Server Enterprise, which doesn't have a limit on the number of CPUs and system RAM that can be used by MSSQL, unlike SQL Server Professional.
Some customers try to minimize hosting costs by deploying less RAM than necessary. However, this can limit your ability to configure HTML or data caching appropriately because both caching methods use system RAM.
Irregular Database Maintenance
It negatively impacts your Sitecore solution's performance. Sitecore's intricate databases rely heavily on MSSQL indexes. Over time, if these indexes are not adequately maintained, they become fragmented, making it much more challenging for Sitecore to retrieve data quickly.
Sitecore natively stores media items such as images, videos, and documents in its media library, which consumes the majority of the space used by its content databases. If unused or outdated items are not regularly removed, the media library becomes bloated, causing your database server to spend more time and effort retrieving media items.
Hunt Down Sitecore performance issues with QEdge!
QEdge, as a Sitecore partner agency, has been in the business of supporting Sitecore customers for over 15 years now. Our experience has given us a wealth of knowledge about the platform and its powerful capabilities when implemented properly. However, we've also seen many instances where Sitecore implementations have gone wrong, leading to performance issues that can negatively impact a website's user experience.
Through our years of experience, we've identified the top culprits that cause Sitecore performance issues. One of the most common issues is poor architecture, which can lead to slow page loads and unresponsive websites. Similarly, inadequate caching strategies can cause excessive database queries, leading to sluggish site performance. Inefficient code execution, resource limitations, and suboptimal deployment strategies are also common causes of Sitecore performance issues.
