WordPress, Plesk or cPanel on a single box: not a fit
A single box that holds the site, its database and its uploads cannot be cloned or removed without touching that data, so autoscaling does not apply to it. Hetscale’s preflight says so before Observe starts, with the reason and the changes that would make the setup scale. Other ways to scale on Hetzner, and when each is the better choice, are on Compare.
- Prerequisite work
- re-architecture
- Time to set up
- days
- Adapter
- none
- Fit
- 1/101 — preflight declines
Prerequisites, time and fit are this case's row in the onboarding cases table. Hetscale's own setup is about 15 minutes in every case; the rest is work on your side.
Steps
- 01Why it is declined
Autoscaling clones and removes servers. A server that holds the database and the uploads cannot be cloned without splitting the data and cannot be removed without losing it. Preflight refuses the group and says so before anything is touched.
- 02What would change it
A database on its own server or a managed service, uploads in object storage, sessions outside the box, TLS at a load balancer, and a way to reproduce the web server (snapshot or cloud-init). That is a re-architecture measured in days, not a setting.
- 03What to do instead
Keep the box; size it for the peak. For a single server with stable load, one fixed server is cheaper than any control plane, and Hetscale says so on its own calculator.
FAQ for this case
Can Hetscale at least replace the box if it dies?
No. Healing creates a replacement from a template; a box with local state has no template that preserves its data. Use Hetzner’s own backups and snapshots for that server.
Will the trial tell me the same thing?
Yes, earlier: once the project has been read, onboarding asks what runs on the server and where the database is, maps the answers to this case and declines it with the reason before Observe starts.