LiteSpeed Web ADC

LiteSpeed Web ADC

LiteSpeed Web ADC is a high-performance application delivery controller and HTTP load balancer. It distributes traffic across backend servers while improving application speed and reliability and includes HTTP/3 (QUIC) support.

In this article
HTTP/3: HTTP/3 support is enabled by default, but a public IP is required to bypass the Shared Load Balancer and connect directly to LiteSpeed Web ADC over HTTP/3.
Commercial license: LiteSpeed Web ADC is commercial software and incurs an additional license fee.

Create LiteSpeed Web ADC

  1. Log in to the dashboard and click New Environment.
  2. Configure the required topology and select LiteSpeed Web ADC as the load balancer.
  3. Adjust the required environment variables if customization is needed.
  4. Click Create.
Create new environment
Create a new environment from the dashboard.
LiteSpeed ADC in topology wizard
Choose LiteSpeed Web ADC as the load balancer.

Environment Variables

JELASTIC_AUTOCONFIGEnables or disables automatic LiteSpeed worker-process configuration based on allocated RAM and CPU cores. Enabled by default.
DEFAULT_CLUSTERSelects request-proxying type: HTTP, AJP, FCGI, or LSAPI. It can be disabled for custom backends.
WP_PROTECTConfigures WordPress Brute Force Attack Protection: off, on, drop, deny, throttle, or captcha. Default: off.
WP_PROTECT_LIMITSets the WordPress protection limit. Default: 10.
LiteSpeed ADC variables
Use environment variables to customize LiteSpeed ADC behavior.

Access and Manage LiteSpeed ADC

Click Open in Browser for the LiteSpeed balancer to access one of the backend application servers automatically.

LiteSpeed ADC open in browser
Open in Browser forwards to one of the backend application servers.

To manage the load balancer itself, open its Admin Panel from the Additionally list. Access credentials are sent by email after node creation.

LiteSpeed ADC admin panel
Open the LiteSpeed ADC Admin Panel from the dashboard.
Platform-specific management: use the platform-native redeploy feature instead of Actions > Version Manager. Also, ignore license-key expiration notifications in Actions > Server Log Viewer, because license leasing is managed automatically by the platform.
LiteSpeed ADC version management
Use platform-native redeploy instead of the internal Version Manager.
LiteSpeed ADC license expiration notice
License-expiration messages can be ignored because licensing is platform-managed.

Configuration files can be adjusted through the dashboard File Manager or through SSH.

License Pricing

LiteSpeed licenses are billed for active containers on an hourly basis. License lifecycle management is automatic: licenses are issued for new containers, updated when resource limits change, and decommissioned when an environment is stopped or scaled in.

The LiteSpeed License Manager add-on is installed automatically on LiteSpeed-based nodes and allows switching between plans by changing the number of workers.

LiteSpeed ADC license manager
Use the LiteSpeed License Manager add-on to select a license plan.
Configure LiteSpeed ADC license
Switch between LiteSpeed Web ADC license plans.
License TypeWorkersPricing per 1 GB per HourMin (Max) per Month
Web ADC Small (default)1$0.01$7.30 ($65)
Web ADC Medium2$0.02$14.60 ($130)
Web ADC Large4$0.04$29.20 ($260)
Web ADC Ultimate8$0.08$58.40 ($520)
Pricing specifics: active environments are charged for at least 1 GB per hour even when no traffic is processed. Monthly license charges are capped at the documented maximum. LiteMage caching can be configured for an additional $149 per month.
LiteSpeed ADC license billing
Review LiteSpeed license charges in Billing History.

LiteSpeed ADC Testing

  1. LiteSpeed ADC uses Stateful mode by default, preserving session affinity so requests from one source continue to use the same backend while it is available.
  2. Without its own public IP, requests pass through the Shared Load Balancer and appear to LiteSpeed ADC as originating from a single IP.
  3. For proper production-style testing, attach a public IP and generate requests from multiple sources.
  4. For development/testing only, you can temporarily use Stateless mode, which does not preserve session affinity.

Temporarily Disable Health Checks

LiteSpeed ADC automatically checks backend health and removes problematic servers from routing. This can be undesirable in cases such as a WordPress maintenance page returning HTTP 503, because the backend can be excluded and users may see a generic balancer error instead.

  1. Open the LiteSpeed ADC console and go to Configuration > Clusters > clusterHTTP > Worker Group.
  2. Clear the Ping URL value. Repeat for all Worker Groups.
  3. Perform a Graceful Restart.
  4. After the maintenance operation is finished, restore the Ping URL values so real backend failures can be detected again.
LiteSpeed ADC worker group
Open the cluster Worker Group configuration.
LiteSpeed ADC ping URL
Clear Ping URL to disable automatic health checks temporarily.
LiteSpeed ADC graceful restart
Perform a Graceful Restart after changing health-check settings.

Expected Result

LiteSpeed Web ADC is deployed as the environment load balancer, routes traffic to backend application servers, can be managed through its Admin Panel, and supports platform-managed licensing, HTTP/3, session affinity, and configurable backend health checks.