WordPress Hosting

The Problem

WordPress plugins generate complex .htaccess rules for security, caching, SEO, and image optimization. Stock OpenLiteSpeed ignores most of these directives, leaving your site unprotected and misconfigured.

Note

Full WordPress .htaccess compatibility — including RewriteRule execution and php_value/php_flag — requires LiteHTTPD (Full edition, installed via openlitespeed-litehttpd). LiteHTTPD-Thin handles security headers, caching, and ACL directives but RewriteRule redirects and PHP INI overrides require the Full edition with OLS patches applied.

Tested with 15 Popular Plugins

LiteHTTPD has been tested with the most popular WordPress plugins that write .htaccess rules:

Category	Plugins	.htaccess Directives Used
Security	All-In-One Security, Wordfence	FilesMatch, Require, Order/Deny, Files
Cache	W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, Far Future Expiry	ExpiresByType, Header set Cache-Control, AddType
SEO	Yoast SEO, Rank Math	Redirect, RewriteRule
SSL	Really Simple SSL	RewriteCond %{HTTPS}, RewriteRule [R=301]
Image	WebP Express, EWWW, Imagify	RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT}, AddType
Headers	HTTP Headers	Header set (CSP, X-Frame-Options)
Cache (OLS)	LiteSpeed Cache	CacheLookup, RewriteRule
Hide	WP Hide & Security Enhancer	RewriteRule path obfuscation

All 15 plugins pass the compatibility test with identical behavior to Apache httpd.

What Works Out of the Box

• WordPress permalink rewrite rules
• Security plugin IP blocking and file protection
• Cache plugin Expires and Cache-Control headers
• SEO plugin redirects and sitemap rules
• SSL/HTTPS forced redirect
• Custom error pages (ErrorDocument)
• PHP configuration (php_value, php_flag)
• Directory index settings
• File upload restrictions

Quick Setup

# Install LiteHTTPD (Full edition) via RPM
dnf install ./openlitespeed-litehttpd-*.rpm

# Or manually install the module
cp litehttpd_htaccess.so /usr/local/lsws/modules/

# Enable in OLS config
echo 'module litehttpd_htaccess { ls_enabled 1 }' >> /usr/local/lsws/conf/httpd_config.conf

# Enable .htaccess for WordPress vhost
echo -e "allowOverride 255\nautoLoadHtaccess 1" >> /usr/local/lsws/conf/vhosts/wordpress/vhconf.conf

# Restart
/usr/local/lsws/bin/lswsctrl restart

Performance vs Apache

Running WordPress 6.9 with all 15 plugins active (217-line .htaccess):

Metric	Apache httpd	LiteHTTPD
Static file RPS	10,618	21,960 (2.1x faster)
.htaccess parsing overhead	-4.2%	-0.7%
Baseline memory	969 MB	676 MB (30% less)
.htaccess compatibility	100%	90%+