{"id":715,"date":"2023-01-17T14:31:23","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T14:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.hostinger.io\/support\/2023\/01\/17\/6899741-what-is-the-cpu-use-limit-for-vps-at-hostinger\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T06:53:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T06:53:16","slug":"6899741-what-is-the-cpu-use-limit-for-vps-at-hostinger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/6899741-what-is-the-cpu-use-limit-for-vps-at-hostinger\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is the CPU Use Limit for VPS at Hostinger?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"no-margin\">The CPU or Central Processing Unit of a server is responsible for <b>executing instructions<\/b> and performing calculations for the operating system and applications running on the VPS. One of the main features of VPS is the ability to monitor and control your CPU usage.<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">There are times when a great amount of processing power is demanded, and <b>CPU cores present a surge in usage<\/b>:<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">These surges are normal, especially when the server is performing intensive tasks or experiences a higher-than-usual workload. However, maintaining high CPU usage is not common for balanced and stable systems.<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">For this reason, and in order to ensure service stability for all our clients, our internal systems will detect if your VPS sustains <b>high CPU usage for longer than 180 minutes<\/b>. Once this limit is exceeded, our internal systems will consider your VPS compromised. If this happens, your VPS CPU capacity will be decreased automatically by 25% per hour as a protection measure.<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">We recommend <b>monitoring CPU usage<\/b> to ensure it is under limits at all times, as well as <b>choosing a plan with more resources<\/b> whenever possible in order to allow room for unexpected spikes in usage. This helps ensure the VPS remains responsive and performs well even under heavy workloads. <\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">To manage and kill processes using CLI monitoring tools, both <code>top<\/code> and <code>htop<\/code> offer direct ways to terminate problematic processes. In <code>top<\/code>, find the process ID (PID) of the offending process, then press <code>k<\/code>, and input the PID followed by the signal you want to send (default is 15 for a graceful stop). In <code>htop<\/code>, simply navigate to the process using the arrow keys, press <code>F9<\/code> (kill), and select the signal type.<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">In the VPS dashboard, you can remove the CPU limit once per week in order to test and make configuration adjustments to the software running inside your VPS.<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><div class=\"intercom-container\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/support\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/55\/2023\/01\/d132c87e-8ff7-4faf-9953-04cd58a3c641.jpg\" alt=\"CPU limit banner\"><\/div><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">If your VPS is consistently using a high amount of CPU resources after you have applied optimization measures and ensured your server is free of malware, it may indicate that your project has outgrown your current plan &ndash; in that case, you can consider <b><a href=\"\/support\/1583229-how-to-upgrade-your-vps-server\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"intercom-content-link\">upgrading your VPS<\/a><\/b>.<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p><p class=\"no-margin\"><b>Additional resources:<\/b><\/p><ul>\n<li>\n<p class=\"no-margin\"><b><a href=\"\/support\/6867460-how-to-check-detailed-ram-usage-on-your-vps\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"intercom-content-link\">How to Check Detailed RAM Usage on Your VPS<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul><p class=\"no-margin\">\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What happens when CPU limits are reached on VPS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":581,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"include_on_kodee":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[199],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vps-management"],"hreflangs":[{"locale":"en-US","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/6899741-what-is-the-cpu-use-limit-for-vps-at-hostinger\/","default":1},{"locale":"es-ES","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/es\/support\/6899741-cual-es-el-limite-de-uso-de-cpu-para-vps-en-hostinger\/","default":0},{"locale":"fr-FR","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/fr\/support\/6899741-quelle-est-la-limite-d-utilisation-du-processeur-pour-un-vps-chez-hostinger\/","default":0},{"locale":"lt-LT","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/lt\/support\/6899741-koks-yra-vps-cpu-uzimtumo-limitas-hostinger-platformoje\/","default":0},{"locale":"pt-PT","link":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/br\/support\/6899741-o-que-e-o-limite-de-uso-da-cpu-na-vps-na-hostinger\/","default":0}],"include_on_kodee":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/581"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3082,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions\/3082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hostinger.com\/support\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}