Oh yeah!
[This post is part of the Ultimate Guide to Launching a WordPress-Powered Blog series.]
I’ve been asked this a few times and I wanted to at least create a post that I could always refer to and update as things change.
I’ve tried a number of different hosting and server solutions over the past two decades and I’ve got 4 very active solutions right now that I have varying opinions about with another 5 hosting services that are used for a variety of different side projects.
All-in-all I’ve simply got some experience with more than a few hosting solutions and hosting providers but I would never call myself an “expert” at any of this.
Currently I actively use the following services:
The last 3 I use for smaller sites, web apps, and a variety of different environments for experimenting. I could go into detail about each one but I want to spend some time focusing on the first one which currently manages TentBlogger.com (which you care about most anyways, right?):
FireHost is Epic Awesomeness
I am absolutely in love with FireHost right now as they are managing this blog here and will house even more properties as time grows.
They’ve come at a perfect time as my business and blogs have expanded their needs and after having experienced some significant failures it was time to move on to much greener pastures.
For those that aren’t familiar FireHost has a cloud-hosting solution which has a distributed network of systems for speed, load-balancing, and management of data.
Combined with a use of a CDN solution I have an ultimate delivery system world-wide. With the ability to scale the system on-the-fly, robust monitoring tools, root access, backup systems, and a great customer support system I am as pleased as I can possibly be with a hosting provider.
To be honest, the hardware is amazing but the customer support so far has been their most telling value. Incredible!
But, what it does absolutely knock-the-socks-off is a custom WordPress environment.
The Ultimate Killer WordPress Setup:
I’ve custom architected my solution over at FireHost with WordPress solely in mind – in fact, it’s so custom that I don’t use it for any systems or websites that aren’t running WordPress (I have other providers for those apps)!
Here’s what it looks like under the hood (major systems internal and external):
- Currently 4 Processing Cores with 4GB of RAM with 30GB of redundant and backed up SAS storage.
- cPanel
- LiteSpeed
- Linux (Ubuntu 64 bit)
- Varnish
- APC
- Memcache
- W3 Total Cache
- MaxCDN
- DynDNS
- VaultPress Backups
- Managed Redundant Firewall
- Managed Redundant Web Application Protection
- Managed Redundant DoS/DDoS Mitigation
- High Availability Configuration
- Managed Backups with 14 Day Retention (Snapshots)
- 24 x 7 x 365 Monitoring and Response
- World Class customer support and service
Firehost gives me the freedom to customize a solution to my exact needs and specs. I’m a freak when it comes to experimenting to find the perfect WordPress setup and after more than a few years I think I’ve got at least one (of the many) optimal installations and environments.
What is the Cost of This Particular Setup?
A typical question I also get is what this might actually cost me on a per month and per year basis for this particular setup. Let me begin by saying that it’s not for the faint of heart!
The total cost on a per month-basis is approximately $500.
A lot? Yes but not in comparison to to what I’m paying one of the other dedicated hosting solutions for my other properties which is about $1,100 per month. I’m looking to move majority of those systems to FireHost very soon.
The reason though that this is the best solution is simple: Scalability. A dedicated solution cannot scale well or easily and compared to FireHost is ridiculous – I can scale on-the-fly with a simple flick of my wrist (literally):
Easy to scale and grow.
I could scale it permanently or even just for a day or two when I expect larger traffic numbers!
Love this flexibility which is hard to find in many other solutions – and it’s so pretty!
*Sigh* – I’ll Never Get to Have That…
You might be thinking about how you wish you had a setup like this and I just want to encourage you and say a few things about that:
- You’re not there yet, but you could be as your blog grows and becomes more profitable!
- Make sure that your blog hosting costs never out-distance your ability to make money from your blog. I like to keep things “in the black” from a financial perspective.
- You don’t need everything in my aforementioned setup to be optimal. In fact, my other hosting solution has an entirely different configuration for my other blogs and it works just fine (but it’s a bit too expensive for my taste).
- Make this your goal! Make it your goal to get to a point where you need a configuration like this. This is more of a long-term goal but you can easily get there with a combination of many short term goals!
Sure, FireHost is certainly not a “starter” blog package but it’s something that may, at some point, fit your needs. If you’re spending more than this already then you may want to consider it!
The “TentBlogger” WordPress Hosting Solution:
I just want to plant a “seed” of thought in you as you finish reading this: I’m exploring an opportunity to provide to you, my community, this type of solution at a fraction of the cost.
This is still very much a project in the “exploration” phase but I’d love to hear your thoughts – would you sign up for a hosting service that was specifically crafted by me for your WordPress hosting needs? What would it take? What would you love to see? How much would you pay for such a service?
Love to hear any and all thoughts and I’d love to know your current setup too for your WordPress-powered blog!
[This post is part of the Ultimate Guide to Launching a WordPress-Powered Blog series.]
John, if my blog was making even a modest amount of revenue and you came out with a custom, WodPress hosting solution, I’d be your first customer. I’d be stoked to know that there is a provider out there who specializes in WP hosting solutions so, if something goes a little wacky–like high SQL usage/connections–I’d have a provide who knows where to either point me to fix it and/or help me diagnose and fix the problem. Since I make zero from my blog right now, I can’t really tell you what I’d pay. I’ll leave that answer to other folks (for now). Great post.
awesome! thanks joe!
I agree with everything Joe said above. I would dearly love someone who could assist me with some of the WP things I still need to learn.
cool! btw, do you have a gravatar? http://tentblogger.com/gravatar/
John,
You forgot to mention one thing about vps.net…. it’s not a managed service out of the box. You are in charge of configuring and maintaining your server(s).
that’s true, but you could get a lot of customer support if you upgrade the service plan (if you wish). great reminder.
Cool. Nice setup. I just blog for personal family updates, occasional tech topic, etc. So, I’m even having a hard time justifying the $10 a month that Dreamhost wants me to renew for. (Had the awesome $27 for first year with humanerror promo). Considering going to cheaper host, but Dreamhost has been nice and it’s probably a pain to switch providers.
brett,
sweet! you won’t need anything more than that for the time!
Very interesting write up. I have a similar setup
I use Slicehost and Bluemilecloud XEN servers, MAX CDN, and some custom sql caching for optimization. Backups are done via snapshots on XEN and also rsync to another server. Not a fan of any shared hosting plans or services, if I can’t be ROOT I don’t want it.
Great article John, definitely a lot fo people that need to know more about scaling their sites.
sweet! nice setup josh! how long have you been with slice?
I’ve had one site on slicehost for about two and a half years now, and i love it. Bit pricey compared to others but their snapshot capabilities make it completely full of awesome.
sweet. slicehost is a good solution for many.
I am all over having that server solution brother! I would pay for it for our business.
Would you recommend VPS over media temple for a multsite setup? Saving cash is always on my mind!
it might just be. what service are you on on MT?
I have a DV4 512.
ah. how do you like the new interface?
Sold! I’d definitely consider using anything you provide for hosting, and would recommend it to other people. I’ve currently been referring small businesses and individuals (with no experience in web technology) to Dreamhost, but that would change if you offered a similar (sounds like a ‘better) service. ESPECIALLY if it was WordPress optimized!
vps.net is not optimized for WordPress. All they do is provide you with resource nodes. You need to build, and configure the server to be optimized for WordPress.
Gotcha, Brian. I wasn’t clear that I was ‘sold’ on John’s idea to offer a hosting service that is wordpress optimized.
With that, I feel like I’m not quite to the level of understanding how to ‘build and configure’ the servers like John is currently doing. BUT, I have installed local versions of wordpress via MAMP and XAMPP. Is working with a service like vps.net similar to doing a local install, or is there a lot more involved?
It’s easy to set up a server… the real trick is understanding how to configure, secure and optimize. I tried to do something with vps.net but gave up because of lack of free time.
vps.net does have a new “cloud hosting” service that I’m going to try when it goes live. It’s only $25 a month and they handle everything server related.
actually you almost never set up a server. It’s built out at certain levels for you for most hosts. You either have a managed solution or a unmanaged solution.
VPS is looking better each minute I stare at the pricing plans. I have a few clients though that may care!
teehee. you make me smile.
……. and that’s fantastic! proud of you doing the local installs… wow!
was i not clear on that?
ah, thanks man! this is encouraging.
I have very limited tech knowledge when it comes to hosting, so a lot of the above comments are beyond my current understanding. But I am looking for a new hosting provider – my current hosting has been inconsistent and unreliable. Your potential offer sounds very intriguing to me, John!
sweet larry!
John, thanks for sharing. Your posts like this are very valuable for those of us asking these types of questions. Two follow-up questions:
1. What do you think of Rackspace’s Cloud Server product (http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/servers/)? It seems to be very comparable to VPS.NET and priced competitively. Curious if you’ve tried them, had a back experience, etc.? Why VPS.NET over Rackspace? I’ve heard great things about Rackspace, but went with Media Temple because of the desire for managed hosting that’s affordable.
2. We just switched to a Media Temple (dv) VPS for $33/mo. (with a nice 20% off coupon code). Coupled with MaxCDN, it seems like a good setup for a blog that gets about 10,000 pageviews a day. Would you recommend something different?
Thanks!
rackspace does it well but i really feel vps was one of the first on the scene and their system is superb – you can’t beat experience within this type of market. but, you probably would be just as good i’d imagine.
i also have some “interesting” history with rackspace which would take me too long to share… but generally i’m not a fan of them.
10k pvs a day? that’s great! if you get the right setup your system should do fine… but i’ll require some configuration for their apache-based system.
Cool! I’d been curious to see what was under the hood here! I’d love to try out VPS…but the pricing is far too steep for me right now…and you know me and Amazon…! If I had more time to blog and money to throw into it I’d definitely do it though!
you are a machine!
I’ll take that as a compliment! But I think you’re the machine here! 5:50 AM? No human gets up that early. Everyone – I think John is half robot.
….
Hi John, fascinating article, thanks. Can I ask how much traffic your base solution (I assume the 7 nodes/$500 per month) supports without needing to scale up? And when you do need to scale, what warning systems do you have in place to know that you need to add capacity, is it just site monitoring for pageload time or something else? And finally, how long after adding capacity (click the pretty chart above to add a grid unit or whatever) does it take for you to notice improvement?
Thanks!
i’m actually over-powering the current site. i don’t need 7 nodes.
the node upgrades are noticeable quickly.
Done Deal!
Love the concept of having a turn-key solution to maximize and optimize the technical side of my blog to make sure I’m ulitilizing Standard Theme & WordPress fully. I think it would really reduce the learning curve which would offer an opportunity to learn more and be more strategic, plus allow me focus on content.
Looking forward to the updates!
sure thing tom!
Can you share what MediaTemple one you are using to compare ?
Just to get a better idea in why VPS is your primary and not MediaTemple.
Thanks for sharing.
peter.
i’m using a heavily customized nitro server. in fact, the architect from mashable himself helped me configure it.
Wow, even with that you get better performance with VPS ?
Are prices the same ?
I want to know if paying for example 200 in each service, which one is better for you and which one you think is a way to go.
Or maybe are the same thing.
actually about the same… but, it’s a different configuration and it’s a bit more cost-effective.
Thanks John !
I was looking back over this and had a few questions! Are the7 nodes you have in different parts of the country or world or all in one place? If they are scattered across the country/globe how does the viewer get routed to the closest node? If they do…where does the GSLB take place?
the nodes are dedicated resources in the virtual environment, located geographically. i’ve chosen to come out of the atlanta main nodebase but has redundancy worldwide.
Sweet. What Linux distro? Paid or free Litespeed?
paid litespeed for sure!
Wow, you name-checked cPanel. Awesome! I work there in my day job (blogger by night). Glad you like the product.
Nah, I’m new here. Kind of new to blogging, too. I love your site. Great info!
that is pretty cool. how long have you been doing that?
Been working at cPanel for almost 3 years. I do documentation (so if you have any trouble with it, let me know
).
that is pretty awesome! full time and you’re also a tentblogger?
Working on it… although my husband, who’s a stay-at-home-dad, will be doing a lot of the work associated with the blog. So he’s probably the REAL tentblogger.
haha! awesome!
Thanks for the great post! I’m considering to switch to VPS.net but have heard of some negative comments about the stability. So did you experience any downtime?
simon,
depends on where your vps is located. there have been a few burps but they’ve got redundancy. no host is perfect!
Hi John,
I am sure a lot of people would love a hosting company that actually caters to WP users, myself included.
My first hosting server (who I wont mention to protect the innocent) was horrible at giving any help with wordpress or database setups!
I setup a new blog website with inmotion hosting and so far so good. Ill be moving two of my blogs over to inmotion within the next couple months.
I dont have a need for a more powerful solution yet, but it would be super nice to be on a hosting server that is controlled by a WP expert.
So yes, great idea! Keep us informed!
Cheers,
Jeremy
jeremy,
thanks for this encouragement!
Hey John, great post! I wanted to get your input on recommendations for a non-Wordpress site I am working on building. It’s a mashup of Facebook/Meetup/Yelp. It’s going to be a social network for communities and businesses.
I’m not super experienced at writing my own code, but I do know Expression Engine pretty well, so that’s what I’m doing my initial build in, and if it takes off, I’ll consider re-writing the whole thing as a custom site using a PHP framework of some sort.
What I wanted to ask was, what would you recommend for a site like this? Would you recommend VPS.net and some CDN for caching? Right now (while I build) I’m just using MAMP locally and looking at different hosting solutions. I have zero budget as this is a personal site, but the site *should* bring in plenty of revenue as the site will have different levels of accounts, based on features the user would get to use.
Any ideas would be great. Thanks John!
mike,
you could easily start on something much smaller perhaps just to save money and then migrate to another larger plan or service provider as it grows and scales.
i’m pretty averse to spending money so i’d rather start small and then build as it becomes more profitable.
starting on something like dreamhost (http://tentblogger.com/blog-hosting/ ) might be a good place to start.
Hi, I was wondering what you’d recommend for reselling some hosting for about a dozen clients, all running low-traffic wordpress sites (wordpress as CMS, brochure style sites).
I was looking at VPS.net’s “Business” Cloud Hosting. I currently have more bandwidth and storage with my current reseller host, but their uptime is terrible. Media Temple’s (dv) VPS looks appealing but it also looks over my head. I’m not technically savvy when it comes to hosting. Are those two services even comparable?
I need something managed, with easy to use GUI tools, preferably white-label cPanel reselling, and RELIABLE uptime.
This post has been very helpful so far, thank you thank you!
Also, can you tell me what plugin you’re using for your socail sharing that’s fixed to the left?
the social sharing is from my theme: http://tentblogger.com/standard-theme/
in terms of reselling… especially low-level sites, use dreamhost: http://tentblogger.com/blog-hosting/