How Much RAM and CPU Does a WordPress Site Need?
There is no trustworthy universal RAM formula for WordPress. Resource needs depend on PHP work, plugins, database load, logged-in users, cache hit rate, background jobs and traffic concurrency.
Start with workload type
A cached blog, membership site, LMS and WooCommerce store can have radically different CPU and memory needs at the same monthly traffic.
Watch the right signals
Monitor memory pressure, CPU saturation, PHP/process queueing, database response and slow requests. A single average number can hide peak-time failures.
Scale after optimization
Fix pathological plugins, slow queries, oversized autoloaded data and broken caching before treating hardware as the only solution.
How this maps to Cloudways
On Flexible, server sizing is an explicit decision. Start reasonably, monitor and scale when evidence says you need to. Autonomous shifts more of that scaling behavior to the platform.