Can Wordpress plugins cause High CPU usage?

Wordpress plugins are great. They offer a great deal of versatility when creating and running a Wordpress site. Some plugins though are very heavy on CPU usage and can not only cause your site to run slowly, but can also cause your server to have issues as well. It is always important to research a plugin properly to make sure it will work with your use.

Some examples like Divi theme and Divi Builder, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Visual Composer, Gravity Forms, and Wordfence plugins are all heavy CPU usage plugins.

• AdSense Click Fraud Monitoring
• Backup Buddy (use UpdraftPlus)
• Better WordPress Google XML Sitemaps (use Yoast)
• Broken link checker (use Dr. Link Check)
• Constant Contact for WordPress
• Contact Form 7
• Contextual Related Posts
• Digi Auto Links
• Disqus Comment System (use Disqus Conditional Load)
• Divi Builder
• Essential Grid
• Fuzzy SEO Booster
• Google XML Sitemaps (use Yoast)
• Jetpack
• NextGEN Gallery
• NewStatPress
• Pods
• Reveal IDs
• Revolution Slider
• S2 member
• SEO Auto Links & Related Posts
• Similar Posts
• Slimstat Analytics
• SumoMe
• Talk.To
• VaultPress
• WooCommerce
• WordPress Facebook
• WordPress Related Posts
• WordPress Popular Posts
• WP Bakey (formerly Visual Composer)
• WP Statistics
• WP-PostViews
• WP Power Stats
• wpCloaker
• WPML
• Yet Another Related Post Plugin
• Yuzo Related Posts

You can check and see which processes are consuming large amounts of resources by running the top command. These can manifest themselves under either Apache or Nginx showing very high CPU usage.

I have provided some links below that also talk about this subject.

This is a good guide for optimizing your Wordpress site.

The list of high CPU plugins came from here, along with some other useful information.

A good plugin for delving deeper into plugin issues

I hope this was helpful

Alex
Linode Support