shariff-backend-php | Shariff enables website users

Using dynamic configuration files (".htaccess") will definitely slow down your server. That is documented and actually easy to understand:

The static configuration is read exactly once at startup time. When dynamic configuration files are enabled, then the server has to check each physical folder from the root up to the requested object (if mapped to the file system) whether there are such configuration files (which can occur on every level of the file system). And if some are found then each has to be read and interpreted for every single request. All that is additional load.

These files are only supported for two typical situations:

1. when you have no access to the actual host configuration of the server (read: really cheap hosting providers)
2. for applications that insist on writing their own rewriting rules (which is an obvious security nightmare once you start thinking about it)

If none of the two situations apply to you, then the clear recommendation is to not use dynamic configuration files but use the static configuration instead. And possibly even to disable those files completely.

Take care however for the details. You cannot simply move the directives in all cases, sometimes you need to adapt them:

• there are directives you cannot use in all locations (consult the http server documentation for details on that, it is of excellent quality and comes with great examples and details)
• you may have to adjust a few details, for examples the matching pattern in RewriteRules which is applied to absolute paths in the static configuration but to relative paths in dynamic configuration files. Again this is clearly documented.