HN Traffic Overload

This cluster centers on websites and servers crashing or slowing down due to sudden traffic surges from Hacker News front-page posts, with site owners apologizing, scaling servers, and users recommending solutions like Cloudflare, caching, and CDNs.

➡️ Stable 0.5x DevOps & Infrastructure
3,869
Comments
20
Years Active
5
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#874
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Keywords

PHP bieh.net pragprog.com SQL HN Vultr.com KB nyud.net MaxClients WordPress traffic server handle load site wordpress sorry requests apache increase

Sample Comments

a_t48 Dec 12, 2021 View on HN

There's a good chance his server can't handle HN level traffic

stulogy Mar 29, 2011 View on HN

Might be the load. Had about a thousand visitations in 20 minutes.

draganm Nov 24, 2020 View on HN

Sorry for that - seems I've under-estimated possible traffic. Scaled up the server a bit now.

tylerreed Jul 20, 2011 View on HN

Sorry, never expected the post to reach the front page of HN. I'm busy bumping up my Rackspace cloud server to handle the traffic.

minimaxir Jan 3, 2013 View on HN

I recommend looking into Cloudflare. Even the free plan can handle HN spikes.

technotony Jan 18, 2026 View on HN

It would also help with sites that can't handle the hacker News traffic load. Happens all the time

sammy2255 Oct 27, 2022 View on HN

I’m shocked by how many websites can’t handle a few requests a second

matte8000 Dec 4, 2009 View on HN

Yeah sorry, our site suffered from traffic overload and we quickly implemented some caching. :)

citrin_ru Apr 20, 2015 View on HN

It seems to be mercurial server (used only be a few developers usually) is not ready to handle slashdot effect.

gigatexal Mar 2, 2017 View on HN

The site is getting hammered it seems.