Django memory usage going up with every request

I'm afraid I haven't got any definite answers. Graham Dumpleton's tips were most helpfull, but unfortunately he didn't make an answer (just comments), so there is no way to accept his response.

Although I still haven't fully resolved the issue, here are some basic tips for other people having similar problems:

• Read Webfaction's documentation:
  • Reducing Memory Usage in general
  • Reducing mod_wsgi Memory Consumption
  • Reducing Django Memory Consumption
• Make sure the DEBUG setting is set to False
• Don't use mod_python, use mod_wsgi
• Make sure you use the most recent version od mod_wsgi (Webfaction tends to install older versions)
• Don't use Django to serve static content
• Try running mod_wsgi in a daemon mode (Webfaction installs it in embedded mode by default) [thanks Graham Dumpleton for the tip]
• If you run in embeded mode, you can specify "inactivity-timeout=[seconds]" option. It will restart the process after [seconds] of inactivity, helping with increased memory usage. Read this forum post for detailed instructions.
• This script will help you monitor your memory usage easier, and more precisely [thanks ClaudioA for the tip]

We had a similar issue on Webfaction, but it turned out it wasn't because of them at all. There's a bug in Django about high memory usage when using the sitemap with lots of elements: http://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/11572

When we removed the sitemap it doesn't shoot up 90 Mb at the time any longer. Just thought I should mention it since it took a long time for use to troubleshoot.

I have the same problems with webfaction.

The method I use, and which webfaction told me I should keep using, is run a cron job that checks the memory every 5 minutes or so, and restarts any apps that are getting out of control.

Out of 4 python apps on webfaction, I average 4 restarts per day.