50RPS must be tuned or cached in some way, as the memory load for 50 requests to the full app should overwhelm the 1GB server and ~50-100ms is typical and the $5 instance has one core.

Huh. That's a lot lower than I expected for a high ranked HN post. I'll agree, WP didn't start having issues until the 50-100+ range.

Thank you for sharing. :)