UPDATE: MAY 18TH 2018
We no longer support HHVM on SiteGround servers!
We're happy to announce that HHVM is now being added as an option to our Cloud hosting platform. HHVM is a great technology that uses a just-in-time compilation approach to achieve superior speed when handling PHP scripts and thus makes PHP-based websites faster.
Why should you consider using HHVM?
One word - speed. HHVM is considerably faster than every 5.x PHP currently available. There are a lot of in-depth performance tests of HHVM versus different PHP versions floating around showing this result. I really don't want to repeat any of those, but just to give you an idea about the performance boost you can get, I've done a simple and quick test. First, I measured the loading time for the dynamic part of a default WordPress installation with a lot of sample data and the twentyfifteen theme, and the result was approximately 400ms with PHP 5.6. Then, I switched the very same application to use HHVM and that time dropped down to about 200ms. This means that the dynamic part of the loading process was approximately twice faster with HHVM. It should be also noted that this test was done when the dynamic cache was switched off. If you already use dynamic cache, enabling HHVM will probably not have a dramatic effect on the pages of your site that are cached, simply because their loading no longer relies on the speed of the PHP handling. However, HHVM will improve the speed for the parts of your site that are not suitable for dynamic caching, for example your WordPress administrative area, your shopping cart pages, etc. So for best speed results we recommend using both technologies together.
Using HHVM on SiteGround
All new cloud accounts will be setup from now on to include HHVM as an option. We will soon add the technology to all existing Linux container based Cloud accounts too. The HHVM can be activated through a new tab in our SuperCacher tool in the cPanel as explained in our HHVM tutorial.
41 Comments
Will Joomla website benefit from this?
Yes, it should. However, I would recommend that you benchmark the performance of that particular website in order to make sure you're using the best possible solution for it.
Did you ever try Joomla with HHVM?
Terrific announcement, Hristo!
Can't wait to try HHVM out on our cloud server - I talked to Daniel about HHVM at LoopConf and it sounded really slick and a potential solution to making carts and other dynamic applications like WooCommerce operate more quickly - even with lots of add-ons.
Thanks SiteGround!
This is great news and a very smart move since competition is increasingly offering this great technology. One more argument to keep my businesses on siteground servers. Looking forward to having the possibility to activate this in my existing cloud hosting.
When will this approximately be available to existing customers - June ? July? How will existing customers become aware of the new feature once it is available in the SuperCacher menu?
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Hi,
iam very dissapointed about this news, because nowhere is stated, that this feature is only available in the cloud servers!
Actually it's stated in the post title.
That's a good news. I wonder is HHVM cache technology interferes with third party CDNs. Regards
You really should not have any issues with that.
How would this work together with Expression Engine?
I don't really have any personal experience with Expression Engine since it is paid software but after some quick search I don't see many people complaining from incompatibilities with HHVM. Since it's super easy to enable and use it I would recommend you just to give it a try and see how it works for yo.
Guys I was already as happy as I can be with SG. Now how am I going to describe just how much more awesomer you guys are???
Way to keep on making your platform better and faster even when already screaming!
Thanks for the kind words Patrick!
I presume this doesn't apply to shares hosting accounts? Saying it's "on the SG cloud" without providing a specific SG product class when your email is sent to everybody just confuses people.
Sounds like a killer enhancement tho!
Well, our newsletter gives information about all the new services we provide, not just the ones you're using at the moment 🙂
Is magento going to get benefit ?
Yes, it should benefit from HHVM!
Any benefit for Joomla ?
Yes, but again, it depends on the particular website.
HHVM made an OUTSTANDING speed difference for my site. I think it's loading roughly 2x faster, which is amazing, seeing as it was already fast. Nice!
Only downfall however, is that several "Wordpress Plugins" failed to work after enabling HHVM. 🙁 One very important one, too. "Page Builder" by "Site Origin".
None-the-less. Very pleased! Thank you for sending the e-mail about HHVM upgrade being available. 🙂
I am sure that more and more developers will make their code compatible with HHVM!
Is there any chance to add HHVM to other hosting platforms?
Hpefully we'll be able to add it on cheaper platforms too but at this point I can't tell you when or if that will happen.
Hi Hristo,
Great innovation. I am absolutely happy with my siteground hosting, but too bad that your competitors are offering HHVM for much lower costs like dreamhost
Every company has its own pricing policy. HHVM is just a beta feature for DreamPress 2 while we offer a fully functional, stable product at a great price. In addition to that, our Cloud platform is a completely different type of product 🙂
Would be nice if someone can share a benchmark comparison between php-fpm and hhvm.
Hi
When will "old" customers get HHVM on their Cloud servers ?
It is almost a couple of months since it came on new Cloud customers servers 🙁
ALSO:
You made an launch now with new stats, why are "old" Cloud customers always last in line to get these new things, we pay quite a lot of money every month for our servers, but always get the new stuff as last one.
You can post a ticked in your Help Desk and request to be migrated to the new Cloud platform. This way you will get all the new features we've added to it. That's one of the reasons we've updated our VPS plans - we can now easily integrate services that we couldn't before. It's not about old vs new customers, it's about being able to add a certain feature to the platform.
Hi Hristo
hmmm, I sent an ticket weeks ago to support, they told me that I had to wait until they got time to get it out to "old" customers 🙂
So you say that I just have to ask to be migrated to the new cloud platform, and they will move everything for me, right ?
Hi Hristo
Will this also benefit Preatashop to enable HHVM ?
It depends on the extensions and the theme you're using. There's no better way than to test it on your particular site!
So now it also supports Hack? What is the cheapest plan right now using HHVM?
Ah, the post already states it's only available on Cloud Hosting =/. Will it ever be available for Web Hosting?
Probably we will add it at some point, can't give an ETA though.
HHVM is available on our Cloud Hosting platform. As to Hack, it should work 🙂
Hi
I test to enable the HHVM cache, as suggested. It is faster as i see.
BUT i have problem in my joomla administrator.
When HHVM cache is on, I can not manage or write a new article in my joomla 3 admin.
I have a blank white page. Do not load any article in administrator.
Any help to fix this problem?
Regards
C. Konstantinos
My bet is that interferes with some of your extensions. Have you tried using PHP7 by the way? It should give you great performance boost too maybe even more than HHVM! Check out this post.
Now I need to upgrade to Cloud from GoGeek shared. Haha!
You can try PHP7 - it produces great results and in some cases is even faster than HHVM. And it's already available for our shared plans.
Is there any list of disallowed plugin with use of hhvm as wpegine and kinsta is providing...?
We don't have a list of disallowed plugins for our customers. As long as a plugin is working correctly and within the resource limitations, you can use it on your SiteGround hosting account.