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Monitoring your VPS's resource usage helps you catch performance problems before they cause downtime, and tells you when it's time to upgrade your plan. This guide covers the essential built-in Linux commands — no extra monitoring stack required.

Checking CPU Usage

top

For a friendlier, colorized view (install if not present):

sudo apt install htop -y
htop

Press q to exit either tool.

Checking Memory (RAM) Usage

free -h

The available column is the most accurate indicator of memory actually free for new applications (it accounts for reclaimable cache).

Checking Disk Space

df -h

To see disk usage by directory (useful for finding what's filling up storage):

du -h --max-depth=1 /var | sort -hr

Checking Disk I/O

sudo apt install sysstat -y
iostat -x 2

Checking Network Usage

sudo apt install vnstat -y
vnstat

Checking System Load Average

uptime

The three numbers represent load average over 1, 5, and 15 minutes. As a rule of thumb, sustained values above your CPU core count indicate the server is overloaded.

Finding What's Consuming the Most Resources

Sort processes by CPU usage:

ps aux --sort=-%cpu | head -10

Sort by memory usage:

ps aux --sort=-%mem | head -10

Setting Up Ongoing Monitoring

For a quick historical view without a full monitoring stack:

sudo apt install sysstat -y
sudo systemctl enable --now sysstat

Historical CPU stats are then available via:

sar

When to Upgrade Your VPS Plan

• Sustained load average above your core count
• Available RAM regularly near zero with active swap usage
• Disk usage consistently above 80–85%

Common Errors

htop/vnstat not found — these aren't installed by default on minimal images; install with apt install as shown above.

FAQ

What's a healthy CPU load for my VPS?
As a general guideline, a 1-minute load average below your number of CPU cores indicates headroom; consistently above it suggests the CPU is a bottleneck.

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Continue Reading

• How to Find and Stop Processes Using Too Many Resources
• How to Check and Manage Disk Usage on a Linux VPS
• How to Choose the Right VPS Plan for Your Workload

Browse more articles in Getting Started / VPS Basics.