How to Set Up WordPress on OpenLiteSpeed

WordPress on OpenLiteSpeed with LiteSpeed Cache is the fastest WordPress configuration available — combining LSAPI PHP processing with built-in full-page caching at the web server level.

Install OpenLiteSpeed + MariaDB + LSPHP

sudo wget -O - https://repo.litespeed.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt update
sudo apt install openlitespeed lsphp82 lsphp82-mysql lsphp82-curl lsphp82-mbstring mariadb-server -y

Create WordPress Database

sudo mysql -u root -p

CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
CREATE USER 'wpuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPassword';
GRANT ALL ON wordpress.* TO 'wpuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Configure OpenLiteSpeed Virtual Host

# WebAdmin → Virtual Hosts → Add
# Document Root: /var/www/wordpress
# Enable PHP: select lsphp82

Install WordPress

cd /var/www
sudo wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
sudo tar -xzf latest.tar.gz
sudo mv wordpress/* .
sudo chown -R nobody:nobody /var/www/wordpress

Configure WordPress Rewrite Rules

# Create .htaccess for OLS
sudo nano /var/www/wordpress/.htaccess

# BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

# END WordPress

Install LiteSpeed Cache Plugin

WordPress Admin → Plugins → Add New → search "LiteSpeed Cache" → Install → Activate

Configure LiteSpeed Cache

LiteSpeed Cache → Cache → Enable Cache → ON

LiteSpeed Cache → Page Optimization → CSS/JS Minify → ON

LiteSpeed Cache → Image Optimization → Enable → ON

Performance Test

ab -n 1000 -c 50 https://yourdomain.com/

# Expected results with LiteSpeed Cache:
# First request: ~200ms (PHP generated)
# Cached requests: ~8ms (served from cache)
# Throughput: 6,000+ req/sec

Conclusion

WordPress on OLS with LiteSpeed Cache is the fastest WordPress configuration available. Our team deploys and optimises WordPress on OpenLiteSpeed for clients worldwide.