One of my all-time favorite posts on LowEndBox – indeed, maybe on any site -is the seminal article “Yes, You Can Run 18 Static Sites on a 64MB Link-1 VPS“.

Published 16 years ago in 2009, the article might seem to be a little archaic.  The title refers to a memory config that very few readers are still using in 2025.  Yes, you can still do things with a VPS that has 64MB of RAM (a VPN, for example), but they’re just not sold much anymore.  These days, 1GB is usually the starting point.

The article also references Debian 5 (“Lenny”), which stopped getting updates in 2012.  I have a fond memory of this version, probably owing to the fact that I was really getting into VPS hosting at the time.  I remember LowEndTalk member @KuJoe (of SecureDragon fame) posting how he was able to get Lenny stripped down to using only 6MB of RAM.

Those kinds of conversations used to be common (indeed, LowEndBox.com once ran on an 80MB VPS).  Today, you just don’t see them as much because the smallest VPSes have so much more horsepower.  As the lower bound of VPS memory grew over the years, a lot of these problems simply went away.  People don’t obsess as much over swap sizes, because their systems simply don’t swap as much.  Going in and micro-managing each package because this one uses 2MB less than that one was a much bigger deal when you had 32MB instead of 1,024MB.

Oh, and VPSlink is long gone, too!

But I think there’s still an important mindset to learn from that article, and it’s at the core of the DIY ethos that so many in the LowEnd community share: our systems are modular and we can rip out, replace, tweak, and change anything we like.

For example, I haven’t used Apache in probably 15 years.  Why?  Nginx takes less resources, scales better, and is easier to configure.  I don’t replace sshd with Dropbear like LEAdmin did, but I could.  For smaller systems, I’ve played with using sqlite instead of MySQL/MariaDB (and it’s often surprising how far that will scale).

LEAdmin’s article also gave me the habit of looking through the process table on a new server and stripping out things I don’t need.  Today I do that more for security than to squeeze megabytes.

There was a time when nearly every VPS I got came with Apache installed and running, exim starting at boot, etc.  My ansible scripts still go through and apt-remove those packages and (if needed) install my preferences.  Ironically, most of the templates I encounter now have less stuff running by default, even thought the VMs themselves are bigger.

Yes, you can run 18 static sites on a 64MB VPS.  And you can still learn a lot from that article.

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.