Rampant server problems

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend this plugin, though it has nice features. I have had major issues with this plugin causing CPU spikes, leading to database outages, and bringing my entire server cluster to a halt. I can fix it by killing rogue php-fpm processes, sometimes restarting apache, but the problems always come back. My server CPUs now run nice and cool at around 1% load, where they never ran below 50% with this plugin active. Having it on post sidebar killed my site completely, having it on homepage sidebar only still caused heavy CPU load. I am sure it’s a conflict with something else as my theme is custom, but who has time to chase these kinds of ghosts? Sorry – moving on.