While we work on bringing auto-scaling to Kinsta’s Application and Database Hosting, there is a way to scale manually, either by changing a pod’s size (vertical scaling) or increasing the number of pods that simultaneously run your application (horizontal scaling).

  • Vertical scaling gives pods more power to complete resource-intensive tasks.

  • Horizontal scaling improves resilience and load balancing for applications that process many requests. For example, if you run three versions of the same pod, the underlying technology routes requests to one of the three pods, effectively distributing the load between them. If one pod becomes unstable, requests will route to the other two until the third pod is healthy again.

Here’s how to set it up.

To change a pod size on a process, go to MyKinsta > Applications > your application name > Processes. Click the pencil icon to open Edit process.Edit the applications process

Update the Pod size to increase the resources available to a single pod, or update the number of Instances to add pods and improve the load balance. There is a maximum of 50 instances. Each instance represents one pod, and all instances use the same pod size.

Note: If you choose a Hobby pod size for your web process, you will not be able to add a custom domain to your application. If you need a custom domain for your application, you can upgrade this anytime.

editing the application process in MyKinsta

Once you have made your changes, click Edit process to finish the setup.