diff --git a/etc/example.conf b/etc/example.conf
index 655baaf..6c1b102 100644
--- a/etc/example.conf
+++ b/etc/example.conf
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@
 ; max. number of parallel connections piler-smtp can handle.
 ; Important! If you want to change this value, then you must first
 ; stop piler-smtp, change the value, then start piler-smtp.
-max_connections=256
+max_connections=64
 
 ; number of processed emails per each piler process
 max_requests_per_child=1000
diff --git a/src/cfg.c b/src/cfg.c
index 634b515..53af84a 100644
--- a/src/cfg.c
+++ b/src/cfg.c
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@
    { "listen_addr", "string", (void*) string_parser, offsetof(struct __config, listen_addr), "0.0.0.0", MAXVAL-1},
    { "listen_port", "integer", (void*) int_parser, offsetof(struct __config, listen_port), "25", sizeof(int)},
    { "locale", "string", (void*) string_parser, offsetof(struct __config, locale), "", MAXVAL-1},
-   { "max_connections", "integer", (void*) int_parser, offsetof(struct __config, max_connections), "256", sizeof(int)},
+   { "max_connections", "integer", (void*) int_parser, offsetof(struct __config, max_connections), "64", sizeof(int)},
    { "max_requests_per_child", "integer", (void*) int_parser, offsetof(struct __config, max_requests_per_child), "1000", sizeof(int)},
    { "memcached_servers", "string", (void*) string_parser, offsetof(struct __config, memcached_servers), "127.0.0.1", MAXVAL-1},
    { "memcached_to_db_interval", "integer", (void*) int_parser, offsetof(struct __config, memcached_to_db_interval), "900", sizeof(int)},