Optimizing Hosting Memory for WordPress News Site

For a WordPress site with news and photo galleries, 5GB of hosting space will be insufficient in the long term with regular content updates. The most effective way to save memory is to use cloud storage together with a CDN, as offered by modern optimization plugins, which allows storing images on servers and loading only links to them.

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Table of Contents

• Memory Optimization for News Sites
• Efficiency of Cloud Image Storage
• Practical Solutions Using Kadence
• Evaluation of Required Disk Space
• Hosting Recommendations

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Memory Optimization for News Sites

The primary consumers of disk space on a WordPress site with news and photo galleries are images and multimedia files. For effective memory optimization, a comprehensive approach should be applied:

1. Using CDN for images — as research shows, CDN services significantly reduce the load on the main hosting. Cloudimage provides cloud storage and “on-the-fly” image optimization, which allows reducing the amount of occupied space.

2. Image size optimization — plugins like Sirv offer automatic compression and resizing of images without quality loss. This can save up to 70% of disk space compared to original files.

3. Lazy loading — modern plugins automatically implement this feature, which loads images only when scrolling the page, also reducing the initial server load.

4. Using modern formats — transitioning to WebP, AVIF, and other modern formats can reduce file sizes by 25-50% compared to JPEG.

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Efficiency of Cloud Image Storage

Storing photos in cloud storage and using links instead of direct upload is indeed a highly effective solution for news sites. Here’s why:

Advantages of cloud storage:

• Significant savings in hosting space — as noted in the Infinite Uploads study, images, videos, and audio files are the primary resource consumers. Storing media files in the cloud frees up to 90% of disk space on the main hosting.

• Improved performance — cloud storage services like Cloudflare Images use distributed servers worldwide, which speeds up image loading for users from different regions.

• Scalability — cloud solutions automatically scale to meet needs, which is especially important for sites with regular news updates.

• Backup and security — cloud providers typically offer built-in backup and data security.

How this works in practice:

Plugins like WP Offload Media automatically upload images to cloud storage (e.g., Cloudflare R2 or Bunny CDN) and replace the original links on the site with URLs from the cloud service. Thus, only thumbnails and links remain on your hosting.

Important: When using cloud storage, ensure the plugin is properly configured and has backup configurations to avoid issues when moving hosting.

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Practical Solutions Using Kadence

The Kadence plugin offers powerful capabilities for creating photo galleries, but for maximum memory savings, it should be used in combination with cloud solutions:

Kadence Galleries + Cloud Storage

1. Kadence Advanced Gallery — as specified in the official documentation, this block allows creating stunning galleries with the ability to configure image sizes for thumbnails and lightboxes.

2. CDN Integration — when using plugins like Sirv or Infinite Uploads, images are automatically optimized and uploaded to the cloud, and Kadence Galleries will use links to the optimized versions.

3. Kadence Advanced Image Block — according to the image optimization guide, this block provides additional optimization and control over image sizes.

Step-by-step setup:

1. Install a cloud storage plugin (Sirv or Infinite Uploads recommended)
2. Configure automatic upload of new images to the cloud
3. In Kadence Galleries settings, select the option to use CDN links
4. Optimize image sizes through plugin settings

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Evaluation of Required Disk Space

For a news site with regular updates and photo galleries, 5GB of hosting space will be insufficient in the long term. Here’s why:

Estimated consumption calculation:

• Daily updates — 10 news items per week × 50 weeks = ~500 news items per year
• Number of images — on average 3-5 images per news item = 1,500-2,500 images per year
• Image sizes — when optimized to 200-300KB per image = 300-750MB per year
• Other files — themes, plugins, database, thumbnails = ~1-2GB

Total for the first year: ~1.3-2.75GB (excluding growth and backups)

Long-term perspective:

• After 2 years — 2.6-5.5GB (5GB may already be insufficient)
• After 3 years — 3.9-8.25GB
• After 5 years — 6.5-13.75GB

Recommended disk space volume: 10-15GB with scaling capability.

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Hosting Recommendations

For a news site with photo galleries, hosting should be selected considering the following parameters:

Minimum Requirements:

• Disk space: 10-15GB (with expansion capability)
• Memory (RAM): 1-2GB (for optimization plugins to work)
• Processor: 2-4 cores
• SSD storage: for faster database and file operations

Optimal Solutions:

1. Hosting with built-in CDN — some providers offer integrated solutions for image optimization.

2. Cloud hosting — AWS, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean provide flexible, scalable solutions.

3. Specialized WordPress hosting — with optimized configuration for multimedia sites.

Additional Optimizations:

• Enable caching — through plugins like WP Rocket or built-in hosting solutions
• Database optimization — regular cleanup of revisions and spam
• Use GZIP compression — to reduce the size of transferred files
• Enable HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 — to speed up loading of multiple files

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Sources

1. How to Speed Up WordPress Using Two Free Tools - Root & Branch Group
2. How to speeding up Your WordPress Site - Kadence WP
3. Kadence Galleries v1.3.3 - OceanTheme
4. Preparing Images for Upload - Kadence Themes
5. Kadence Galleries - Kadence WP
6. Gutenberg Blocks with AI by Kadence WP - WordPress.com
7. Kadence Gallery Block Guide for Beginners - WordPress Basics Guide
8. Kadence Blocks: Enhanced WordPress Content Creation - Elev8 Web Studio
9. The Best WordPress Gallery Plugins for 2022 - iThemes
10. Advanced Gallery - Kadence Blocks
11. Top 6 Best Image CDN for WordPress - Orbiting Web
12. QUIC.cloud - Complete WordPress Optimization Solution
13. Image Optimizer, Resizer and CDN - Sirv
14. Hosting - Host images only on CDN - WordPress Stack Exchange
15. Infinite Uploads - Offload Media and Video to Cloud Storage
16. WordPress Image Optimization & CDN Plugin • Sirv
17. Best Image CDN Solutions for WordPress - CodeinWP
18. Infinite Uploads Media Cloud for WordPress
19. Image CDN: What Is It and How to Add It to WordPress - ThemeIsle
20. Solution for personal WordPress sites needing lots of storage - Reddit

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Conclusion

1. 5GB of hosting space will be insufficient for a news site with regular updates and photo galleries in the long term. It’s recommended to choose hosting with 10-15GB of disk space with scaling capability.

2. Cloud storage is indeed efficient — it can save up to 90% of disk space on the main hosting, improve performance, and ensure data security.

3. Combine Kadence with cloud solutions — use plugins like Sirv or Infinite Uploads for automatic image upload to the cloud, and Kadence Galleries for creating optimized galleries.

4. Regularly optimize content — compress images, remove unnecessary files, clean the database to maintain site performance.

5. Plan for growth — consider the annual growth in content volume and choose hosting with flexible plans and upgrade options in advance.

For a news site with photo galleries, the optimal solution would be to use specialized WordPress hosting with built-in CDN support or separate cloud hosting with plugins for media optimization.