close

March 2024 only! Join our Discord free of charge.

Slick­Stack
Lightning-fast WordPress on Nginx

Requirements

Because SlickStack is built on top of Ubuntu LTS, the basic system requirements are generally the same. However, because several different modules are installed, and after several years of testing, we recommend installing SlickStack on cloud servers as explained below:

  1. Choose a quality datacenter located near your audience (if your SlickStack-powered website is for a local business in Miami, Florida, then selecting a datacenter in Atlanta, Georgia, would be better than Seattle, Washington).
  2. Setup a dedicated Virtual Machine (or a traditional dedicated server/bare-metal server) that provides root/console access.
  3. KVM virtualization is highly recommended for VM instances instead of e.g. OpenVZ, Xen, etc and is least prone to potential issues.
  4. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is required… use other Linux distros at your own risk.
  5. Allocate at least 2GB+ RAM memory (1GB RAM should work for small sites, but 2GB+ RAM is recommended for more dynamic sites… for example, WooCommerce sites). SlickStack also creates a 2GB swapfile by default, unless a swapfile already exists.
  6. At least 1 CPU core is recommended (but 2+ CPU cores is much more scalable).
  7. Do not install “containers” e.g. Docker, Kubernetes, etc.

After you’ve spun up your new server, proceed with SlickStack installation. For general support, you can browse our forum and ask questions from the community, and experienced web developers are encouraged to open a new Issue on GitHub if you discover a bug.

In addition, we recommend following these best practices:

  • Register your domain at a top-level ICANN-accredited registrar that has Anycast support (avoid low-end “resellers” who use an API to sell domain names).
  • Enable DNSSEC in Cloudflare (and at your registrar).
  • Use only the Cloudflare.com dashboard for all DNS records/pointing (don’t use your domain registrar or web hosting/cloud network for any DNS records, even if they tell you that their system “integrates” Cloudflare’s technology or CDN, etc).
  • Setup A records for IPv4 and AAAA records for IPv6 (avoid using CNAMES for the origin server, which can be slower).
  • Optimize all of your Cloudflare settings.

Refer to the installation page for warnings about SSL certificates and HTTPS. Cloudflare is not required to use SlickStack, but it’s strongly recommended for many reasons.

Thanks to our generous sponsors for their support!