Whether you are considering starting a blog or are an experienced blogger, if you run the self hosted version of WordPress, you will have to select hosting for your blog (if you need a refresher on hosted versus self-hosted WordPress see our introductory post on the topic ). Unfortunately, a large part of your journey will require deciphering marketing jargon related to hosting platforms. In this post, I will explain WordPress hosting options ranging from shared hosting to dedicated servers. I will try my best to simplify the topic.
WordPress requires a Apache, MySQL, and PHP stack. This is most commonly found on default LINUX installations. This is commonly referred to as a LAMP stack (acronym is based on the first letter of each component).
- Linux – The operating system that allows other software components to work with the server hardware.
- Apache – The web server that serves up content to web surfers who visit your blog.
- PHP – a programming language used to create complex functionality on the web. WordPress is written in PHP.
- MySQL – The database server used to store all of your WordPress configurations, content, comments, and more.
Though the “AMP” part of the stack are available on both Windows Server and LINUX platforms. Under Windows, the platform is called a WAMP stack. Still, LINUX is the best choice for your WordPress installation. Why? Well, it is kind of like ordering a margarita at an Itallian restaurant. They will make you one but it isn’t going to be like the one from the Tex-Mex joint down the street! Even the Wikipedia page that defines “WAMP” is incomplete and lacks citations.
Your options for LINUX hosting will generally include: shared hosting, cloud/grid hosting, virtual private servers, dedicated servers, and content delivery networks.
Shared Hosting
A shared hosting offering takes a single Linux server and allows multiple websites to share both Apache and MySQL. This offering is quite common as both Apache and MySQL were designed to host hundreds if not thousands of websites and databases. The pros of shared hosting are that it is very inexpensive and is fully managed by the hosting company. Most hosting companies provide some sort of “one click installation” of WordPress on the shared hosting offerings making it very easy to get your blog up and running. The downside of shared hosting is that you lack control which places limitations on performance, reliability, and security. If your blog sees less than 30 concurrent users or 250 users per day, shared hosting is probably the right solution for you. An example of shared hosting is GoDaddy’s shared hosting.
Grid/Cloud Hosting
Grid or Cloud hosting servers are very similar to shared hosting; yet, instead of using a single server, the LAMP stack scales across a server farm using very complex software. A grid or cloud version of shared hosting generally removes the performance limitation of shared hosting; reliability and security are still concerns. Media Temple’s Grid Server is a good example of cloud based shared hosting.
Virtual Dedicated Servers
Virtual server technology uses software to imitate actual computer hardware allowing you to run multiple “virtual” computers on a single physical computer. For example, I use a Mac for my daily computing needs but from time to time I will run Windows under a virtual machine in my Mac using Parallels Desktop for the Mac. Parallels and other companies make enterprise versions of this technology designed to run on very large servers where they run hundreds of virtual machines. This is very similar to the way that mainframes run. The technology is designed to address the concerns of performance, stability, and security. In the case of hosting a WordPress blog, most hosting companies having a virtual server offering that provides a LAMP stack and is compatible with WordPress.
Virtual Servers offer high performance, high levels of control, performance, and reliability. The downside to a virtual server is that you have to manage it which requires UNIX skills or at least some knowledge of how UNIX servers work so that you can configure the server through a control panel. Virtual servers are good for blogs that need to support up to 500 concurrent users or as many as 30K visitors in a day. Virtual servers start at $50 per month and can go as high as several hundred dollars per month.
Dedicated Servers
Dedicated servers forgo the “virtualization” software and provide you an actual server with your own dedicated processors, hard drives, and network connectivity. Dedicated servers are expensive and require a in depth knowledge of server management. There are ways to achieve the performance of a dedicate server without taking on the expense and headache. Thus, I am not going to go into anymore detail on this post.
Content Delivery Networks
Content Delivery Networks are highly complex hosting solutions that use enterprise level caching and replication to make your web content accessible in multiple parts of the world as if it were local. Though some of the top bloggers in the world are beginning to experiment with these offerings, this solution is not cheap and the complexity of the underlying software makes it succeptible to reliability issues. If you think your blog requires a content delivery network, you are probably seeing over 1,000,000 visitors a month from across the globe. If so, contact Media Temple or Amazon and inquire about their CDN offering.
What is the Right Choice?
I’ve given you a few numbers to help you make your decision on a hosting provider. The majority of bloggers will have their needs met with a shared hosting or cloud hosting solution. Some might need a dedicated virtual server. The bottom line is that moving a WordPress installation is very easy and only takes about 1/2 hour. Thus, if you make a wrong decision or if your blog grows, you can simply move it to a different solution. The upside of moving a blog is that it gives you a complete backup of your blog and provides you the confidence that you can take that backup and put your blog back together. The second thing that happens is that when you move a blog, your MySQL database is rewritten and this eliminates “fragmentation” in the database which is a common cause of performance and reliability issues.
In the next week or two, I am going to be writing a post that will explain how to create a high performance virtual dedicated server that handle hundreds of thousands of users a day. Thus, I will defer higher end bloggers to this type of solution before getting recommending CDN’s or dedicated servers.
