Is Cloud Hosting is Better Option for WordPress ? The right answer is – where and from whom you have heard it ? Secondly why you are thinking for an upgrade ? There are many things to know about before jumping to one service provider to another. The things like hidden costs can be same like traditional web hosting, in fact can be worse. A free Platform as a Service (PaaS) is also a Cloud Hosting option and a Cloud Virtual Dedicated Server is also a hosting on cloud. To answer the question, rather to understand the answer to the question – Is Cloud Hosting is Better Option for WordPress, demands few things to learn about.
Is Cloud Hosting is Better Option for WordPress ?
Is Cloud Hosting is Better Option for WordPress ? In one word, no. Because to run WordPress, you will hardly need 1 GB of RAM. Most do not have tens of thousands pageviews per day. The load is very low on the server. A dedicated server would work fine for a serious website who needs a better uptime. Unfortunately, both Cloud Hosting and Dedicated / Virtual Dedicated Server demands a managed level. More knowledgeable the support team is, more higher will be the cost.
What basically we try to do on a Cloud Hosting Platform is to use the basic features of cloud – scalability, elasticity, redundancy etc. Unfortunately, WordPress has very pathetic coding quality along with only support of MySQL as database. By default WordPress actually has no ability to scale. So, we need to work on the backend both on the server and WordPress to fix these issues. It requires some knowledge of UNIX commands, modification of PHP, WordPress hooks and overall idea of Apache, MySQL, HTML, CSS, Javascripts etc. Otherwise there is no difference between a good dedicated server and a cloud server for WordPress.
Cloud Hosting is good for WordPress when you want to reduce the cost of dedicated hosting. As requests will be more per second for websites with tens of thousands pageviews; a cloud platform is great. But one server configuration can not make it scalable. We wrote how to create a scalable cloud for WordPress. For PaaS or aPaaS cloud, you might need to configure HyperDB plugin properly. Basically WordPress needs a scalable MySQL database, a good CDN, minification of javascripts, CSS etc. and high caching. The catch is that, you might end up with higher bill if you can not find the right timing of clearing cache – too much caching actually increases the billing – Reduce Cache to Reduce Operational Cost on Cloud Server. WordPress plugins are quite badly coded and honestly the cache clearing process plus regeneration process itself sucks more computing cycle than the pageviews would do. If there are 4 posts per day on average, clearing cache every 10-12 hour usually is good but keep in mind – the homepage, category page, feed etc. should be cleared properly.
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Uptime honestly is far better in Cloud Hosting. This point is definitely a big, big plus point. But this is only valid for multiple server configuration. Straightforwardly, there is no benefit if you have only 1000 visitors per day for a blog, for example. It is better to use a good web hosting company’s VPS along with CDN.
Is Cloud Hosting is Better Option for WordPress : Understanding the Cloud Hosting
We said “It is better to use a good web hosting company’s VPS along with CDN.” But, if the option of hosting becomes fully free ? Yes, that is for Red Hat OpenShift, Heroku Cloud, AppFog like PaaS services are. They have a free usage tier that is sufficient for very small websites. So first understand the Cloud Computing Service Models. Second consider whether your need will be fulfilled by a PaaS service mentioned above. We have textual and video guide for almost all popular platforms for the noobs. For example- you can try Installing WordPress on Free OpenShift PaaS.
The question – Is Cloud Hosting is Better Option for WordPress was probably from a different mood – as if traditional is crap. Traditional shared are really crap, but good dedicated servers are never bad. In fact you will notice that, Github like websites run on Rackspace’s Dedicated Server. What we basically want – instead of getting sucked by the companies, suck the companies. Choose which is the best. Also read (this s must if you are new, plus there is link on that article on how to calculate the cost the ultimate cost) Cloud Computing : Beware of Hidden Costs. By the way, never use those “WordPress Optimized / WordPress Managed” etc. hosts. They have no control over the hardwares – they have no datacenter of their own, they are basically resellers. Today, the competition is so high, the original service provider delivers the service at a much reduced cost, you need a bit manual tweaking. Do not go with buzz words. WordPress is just another PHP MySQL web application like Joomla!, Magento. There can never be any “WordPress Cloud Hosting” from technical points.
