Plumo said it best. Hosting really makes a difference. You may want to try testing a very simple page to see how long it takes to load:
def test(): return dict() If that controller takes a few seconds to come up, then you know something is wrong with your hosting. If you are having problems in other areas, then you may want to consider using cache.ram(). If you know that your app is going to return the same data every time you request a page, then using cache will really speed things up. If possible, use cache instead of storing things in the session, as overusing the session object will slow things down too.