diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index 3b49f63..64bc2dc 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ ENV PYTHONUNBUFFERED 1
 
 WORKDIR /app
 
-RUN apk add --no-cache gcc musl-dev python3-dev libffi-dev
+RUN apk add --no-cache gcc musl-dev python3-dev libffi-dev openssl-dev
 
 COPY ./requirements.txt /app/requirements.txt
 RUN pip install --no-cache-dir --prefix=/install -r requirements.txt
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index 2d8f3c8..a9cb68a 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -12,6 +12,10 @@ services:
       - /etc/letsencrypt/live/diningfee.iiti.ac.in/privkey.pem:/etc/letsencrypt/live/diningfee.iiti.ac.in/privkey.pem
     env_file:
       - ./.env
+    environment:
+      - GUNICORN_WORKERS=9
+      - GUNICORN_THREADS=4
+      - GUNICORN_TIMEOUT=300
 
   nginx:
     build: ./nginx
diff --git a/entrypoint.sh b/entrypoint.sh
index 07591a0..17ffb4e 100644
--- a/entrypoint.sh
+++ b/entrypoint.sh
@@ -8,4 +8,15 @@ python manage.py migrate --noinput
 python manage.py collectstatic --noinput
 
 # Start server
-gunicorn messWebsite.wsgi:application --bind 0.0.0.0:8000 --workers=16 --preload --timeout 300
+# Counts are env-tunable (see docker-compose.yml). gthread + --max-requests keep
+# memory bounded; the previous 16 sync workers were OOM-killed under load.
+gunicorn messWebsite.wsgi:application \
+    --bind 0.0.0.0:8000 \
+    --worker-class=gthread \
+    --workers="${GUNICORN_WORKERS:-3}" \
+    --threads="${GUNICORN_THREADS:-4}" \
+    --timeout="${GUNICORN_TIMEOUT:-300}" \
+    --graceful-timeout=30 \
+    --max-requests=1000 \
+    --max-requests-jitter=100 \
+    --preload
diff --git a/messWebsite/settings.py b/messWebsite/settings.py
index fa911c4..9ec7a60 100644
--- a/messWebsite/settings.py
+++ b/messWebsite/settings.py
@@ -98,9 +98,14 @@
     "default": {
         "ENGINE": "django.db.backends.sqlite3",
         "NAME": BASE_DIR / "db.sqlite3",
+        "OPTIONS": {
+            # Wait up to 30s for the write lock instead of failing fast with
+            # "database is locked" under concurrent writes.
+            "timeout": 30,
+            "transaction_mode": "IMMEDIATE",
+        },
     }
 }
-DATABASE_OPTIONS = {"timeout": 30}
 
 
 # DATABASES = {
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 4b20341..c237474 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -15,3 +15,4 @@ django-cloudinary-storage==0.3.0
 gunicorn==23.0.0
 whitenoise==6.4.0
 django-cors-headers==4.7.0
+PyJWT[crypto]==2.10.1