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Use bigger machines instead of more machines.

There's always a limit on how big you can go, and a smaller limit on how big you should go, but eitherway it's pretty big. I wouldn't go past dual Intel Xeon, because 4P gets crazy expensive; I haven't been involved in systems work on Epyc, 1P might be a sensible limit, but maybe 2P makes sense for some uses.

If you have a single machine with 64 cores running 256 threads of your daemon that's considered vertical scaling? Odd definition

If multiple cores/threads shouldn't be considered vertical scaling, what should?

Overclocking a single-core processor from 2.8Ghz to 4.2Ghz can only take you so far after all...

Yes, because it's still a single system image (one running OS with one process table).

Usually it involves having an insane amount of ram and keeping the entire DB in ram.

'Scale up' vs 'scale out' are, to me, more intuitive terms for the same thing. Up/vertical are aligned, I guess

I have found this to be a helpful resource when it comes to scaling in general.

https://alexpareto.com/scalability/systems/2020/02/03/scalin...

Get a more powerful single machine (in contrast to multiple machines). However I wonder if multisockets Xeons count as vertical or horizontal. I never understood how programmable those machines are..