slow first byte

[Andy5000]

When you see a slow first byte time like 8 seconds or more, are there any steps you should take before deciding that the hosting company is to be blame and switching hosts.

[dfavor]

This relates to your hosting (runtime environment).

So your entire LAMP Stack... what's required for your Linux Kernel + Apache + MariaDB/MySQL + PHP + OpenSSL + CMS (like WordPress, if you're using a CMS) or your custom code if no CMS is being used.

Each of these layers must be at latest stable versions + configured/tuned properly for speed.

If your project is actually generating income, likely your first investment will be better hosting.

---

Also, post your site URL, so people can take a look.

Likely other optimizations will also stand out, if people can test your actual site.

[simevidas]

You could measure how long it takes your server-side app to process a request for a web page and send a response.