Tried WP Rocket, Cloudflare… still slow + 503 errors. What am I missing?

Hi all,

Total beginner here, so go easy on me 🙂

My website is still slow (especially on desktop) even though I feel like I’ve tried everything:

• WP Rocket
• ShortPixel (images optimized)
• Cloudflare enabled
• Upgraded my hosting plan (even though traffic is very low)

Still… slow.

Also, WordPress keeps warning me that my PHP version is outdated. I tried updating it once and the site completely crashed, so I restored a backup and never touched it again 😅

On top of that, I sometimes get this error:

Service Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

Additionally, a 503 Service Unavailable error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

At this point I feel like I’m just clicking random optimization buttons without understanding anything.

Could someone help me figure out:

• What the actual bottleneck is
• Where I should focus instead of guessing

Happy to share URL, PageSpeed report, plugins, etc. via private message

Thanks a lot

Edit: My PHP version: 8.3.30 and I have these plugins installed:

• Easy Table of Contents
• Element Pack Lite - Addons for Elementor
• Element Pack Pro
• Elementor
• Elementor Pro
• ElementsKit Lite
• ElementsKit Pro
• Plugins Garbage Collector (Database Cleanup) Old!
• Query Monitor (disabled)
• Rank Math SEO
• Rank Math SEO PRO
• ShortPixel Image Optimizer
• Simple User Avatar
• Turn Rank Math FAQ Block to Accordion
• WP Rocket
• WPForms
• WPForms Multilingual
• WPML Multilingual CMS
• WPML String Translation
• WPS Hide Login