In this episode, we talk about the different types of hosting options for your WordPress site – shared, managed, dedicated, or closed systems.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:06 — 21.2MB)
The Changelog
- First episode we’re recording in person, both in Bangkok with new microphones
- Thanks for the 5-star reviews!
- MoneyPlan SOS from US
- davbrn from UK
- LuisMartinspt from Portugal
- PiersJW from Australia
- downandproud from Australia
The Core
- We’ve seen people have bad experiences with shared hosts like BlueHost – slow, less secure
- Lots of hosting comparisons are skewed due to affiliate links to lower quality hosts
- Examples of these (we don’t recommend): BlueHost, HostGator, GoDaddy, DreamHost, etc.
What You Should Look for in a Hosting Provider
- Fast load times for usability and SEO, especially important for mobile
- Preventing malware and the chance of getting hacked
- High uptime – check your uptime with Pingdom, Uptime Robot
- Great support, ideally specialized WordPress support
Beginner – Shared Hosting
- Inexpensive but lower performance, security, etc.
- We only recommend this option for less non-business websites
- Recommendations:
Business – VPS / Dedicated Server
- Can be very cheap to start out (if you have low usage)
- Requires more overhead and a capable in-house team
- For most business, we don’t recommend this option
- Options:
Business – Managed Hosting
- WordPress-only, blacklist for some plugins (caching, backup, security, etc)
- Fast, secure platform
- Recommendations:
- WPEngine (David’s choice, has staging area) (non-affiliate link)
- Synthesis (most cost-effective for extremely high traffic sites)
- Flywheel (Doug’s choice, fastest and highest uptime)
Business – Closed System
- Can be a great solution depending on your requirements, upside is no technical work for you
- Limited features and customization, can’t install your own themes and plugins
- Options:
- WordPress.com (designed mainly for blogs)
- PodWP (Doug’s company, designed for podcast websites)
- EfficientWP (Doug’s company, designed for business websites)
Our conclusion: invest in quality and peace of mind.
What host are you using, and are you happy with them? We’re happy to give recommendations!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:06 — 21.2MB)
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Can’t thank you guys enough for this episode as I am looking for new wordpress hosts. I will be using WPEngine for my main site and A Small Orange for my other small sites. Keep up the good work. I appreciate the insights!
Actually – have a question for you guys. Right now I’m using Libsyn to host my podcast ($20/month). Can I get the same performance for cheaper cost using AWS? I feel like I’m paying $20/month just for the stats!
Hey Darren, great to hear from you again!
AWS is probably cheaper, unless you’ve got huge bandwidth needs. With S3 you’d be paying about $0.12/GB (see http://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/). You’ll need to do a calculation based on your stats (monthly downloads x file size) to see what it would cost.
You can get free stats with Blubrry and if you’re using the PowerPress plugin, it will add the tracking code automatically.
You may also want to look into Blubrry for media hosting, which starts at $12/month. It also allows you to upload your media to Blubrry from within the WordPress editor, saving the extra steps of uploading elsewhere. If it’s only saving you a few bucks a month now to move to S3, it may end up getting more expensive later on as your podcast grows. We’re using S3, and it’s currently cheaper, but I’m considering moving us to Blubrry soon.
Thanks Darren, and great to hear from you. Hope things are going well =)
-David
Hi Guys,
Awesome Podcast! As former tech guy, but WordPress newby, I have been listening to your old Podcasts as fast as I can to come up to speed on WP tools and technologies. Your Podcast has been most useful. Thank you.
So here is my situation. I have prototyped my application using Wix, and now want to re-create it in WordPress. Then use it to launch my online advertising business. My web site will be mostly a WordPress implementation, but also I want to develop an application in NodeJS/Meteor webapp to implement the onboarding sequence for new users. (I will likely hire a developer to do this).
As far as hosting providers goes, if I just had a WP site, then a Managed Hosting provider would be sufficient. But the fact that I need to have a little code behind it, kind of complicates things. Do I have to pay a VPS/Dedicated server plus hire a SysAdmin to host this dual solution?
Would appreciate your thoughts on this.
Thanks,
Jeff
Hey Jeff, sorry for the late reply.
I think you’re going to have to go with the VPS/dedicated route instead of managed hosting. I don’t know any of the technical details behind NodeJS/Meteor, so don’t take this as a definitive answer, but if you have to install other software, it probably won’t work with managed WordPress hosting. Unless you can build the application with PHP and JavaScript.
Depending on your needs, maybe it would make sense to keep the site on managed hosting, and put just the application on the VPS. This way your sysadmin would only have to manage the application and not WordPress.
Hope this helps!
Thanks Doug. That’s a big help in getting me started. Right now I am learning toward your idea of hosting my WP site with a managed host, and putting my application on a VPS.
Enjoy the Podcasts, thanks so much.