Hello!
I have a question regarding the topic: Which is more beneficial for an article website - having a large number of cores, or a significant amount of RAM?

None of these factors are as important as having an SSD, which allows for quick retrieval of articles from the database. Depending on the cache type, both RAM and hard drive caching can be utilized. For sites with up to 500 entries, 2GB of RAM should suffice if caching is set up properly.

If static caching is employed, especially with compression on the server side, the processor becomes more important than RAM, which will be consumed minimally even with high traffic volumes provided that the server has switched to php7 or higher. The best approach would be to test a server and monitor resource usage over a period of a few days.

Since VPS hosting involves the allocation of its own independent resources for each site, the question is relevant. But the common IP remains the weak link, that is, you cannot predict what neighbors you will have, but for a well-known resource with high traffic, this may matter.
As for such elements of the server as the processor and memory, for a serious project with a lot of attendance, I would prefer memory. And both operational and disk. Although if you intend to use additional software, processor power also matters.

If there is insufficient RAM on a VPS server, each request by a visitor to browse pages leads to the creation of a new process in RAM by the web server. This can lead to a slow system due to the need to write data to disk, ultimately increasing the risk of freezing. The lack of sufficient RAM can result in a shortage of memory when there are many processes. In such cases, the web server may display an "Internal Server Error" message or completely disappear. A site with several hundred visitors per day can be managed with 1-2 GB of RAM, but for 100-200 thousand visitors per month, a VPS server with 4-8 GB of RAM is required.

However, it is important to consider a few other factors while calculating resources, such as traffic distribution and optimization of services that run on the site. Also, it is necessary to ensure that the web server is configured by a qualified specialist and that network services are distributed across multiple machines. As some CMS requires more RAM than others and dynamic pages consume more memory than static ones, upgrading to a more productive VPS is highly likely as the site grows.

When running dynamic applications such as online stores, sites with a large number of users who complete registration procedures, and advanced web services that present dynamic data, a powerful computing unit is required. It is also essential to note that VPS servers are used for high-quality operation of gaming web services, business applications, databases, mail servers, and audio/video streaming services. While the number of processor cores is significant, the type and model of the CPU, clock frequency, and the number of cores assigned to the virtual server are critical for determining the computing power of a VPS server.

The speed of creating web pages in PHP depends primarily on the core's performance (clock speed), while the number of these cores impacts the number of simultaneously supported connections. For instance, a CPU with a clock speed of 3.3 GHz can load WordPress site pages 40% faster than a similar web server in a configuration with a lower-clocked CPU.

Let's consider the workload of an article website. Such a website typically serves a large volume of static content, such as text, images, and multimedia files. When a user visits the site, the server needs to quickly retrieve and deliver these assets. This process heavily relies on the server's ability to efficiently handle concurrent connections and access frequently requested data.

Having a substantial amount of RAM is crucial for optimizing this process. When a server has enough RAM, it can cache frequently accessed data, reducing the need to fetch it from slower storage devices such as hard drives or SSDs. This caching mechanism speeds up content delivery and improves the overall user experience by ensuring that visitors can access content quickly.

Furthermore, a generous amount of RAM enables the server to handle a larger number of concurrent requests without experiencing performance bottlenecks. This is especially important for article websites that may experience spikes in traffic, such as during viral content sharing or marketing campaigns.

On the other hand, while having a large number of CPU cores can be beneficial for handling computational tasks and processing dynamic content, the nature of an article website's workload is generally more focused on serving static content and handling concurrent read operations. Therefore, investing in a high-RAM configuration would likely provide more tangible benefits for the performance and responsiveness of the website.

I would recommend prioritizing a significant amount of RAM when hosting an article website. This approach is likely to yield better overall performance, faster content delivery, and improved scalability to accommodate varying levels of user traffic.