At IO200, we take website performance seriously. Fast, reliable websites are critical for photographers to showcase their work and provide a seamless experience for visitors. That’s why we want to highlight a issue: Some customers have experienced that their websites become painfully slow - almost unusable - and frequently crash with 500 Internal Server Error messages when using ImageMagick 7.x as image processing library for PHP to generate thumbnails. The symptoms often include:
- Extremely slow page loads, especially on image galleries
- Very high RAM usage
- Huge disk I/O (sometimes writing hundreds of GB or even TB of data)
Why This Happens
ImageMagick 7 (depending on the build) processes images with very high precision (HDRI and 16-bit color by default). While this can improve image quality, it also uses much more memory and disk space during processing. For image-heavy portfolio websites, this can overload the server and cause timeouts.
| Feature | Imagick 7.x | Imagick 6.x | GD Library |
|---|---|---|---|
| Performance | Often very slow on typical hosting* | Much faster than 7.x | Fastest in most shared hosting setups |
| Memory usage | Very high (HDRI, 16-bit by default)* | Moderate | Low |
| Disk I/O | Very high on large images* | Moderate | Minimal |
| Image quality | Slightly higher for advanced effects | Excellent for most use cases | Excellent for most web use cases |
| File formats | Supports many formats | Supports many formats | Supports common web formats (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP) |
| Best for | High-end photo editing, special effects | Fast image processing with good quality | Fast thumbnail creation, normal CMS use |
*Depending on the build
The Simple Solution - Switch to GD
IO200 supports two image processors: Imagick and GD. If you are affected by this issue, go to Settings » Images & Protection and switch to GD as image processing library. GD is built into PHP, uses less RAM, and avoids the heavy I/O load of Imagick 7. Image quality differences are small for most use cases.
Advanced Option
If you still prefer Imagick, you can ask your hosting provider to use ImageMagick 6.x instead of 7.x, or recompile ImageMagick 7 with HDRI disabled and 8-bit precision (Q8) for better performance.
Why Choose IO200 CMS?
IO200 CMS is designed specifically for photographers with maximum speed in mind. Thanks to multiple caching mechanisms for sites and images it is lightning fast. Combined with optimized image delivery techniques, IO200 CMS ensures minimal loading times, making it one of the fastest systems available for building portfolio websites.
Start creating your portfolio website with IO200 today