Here is how to migrate from practically any SEO plugin, to practically any SEO plugin: Migrating from one SEO plugin to another - using SEO Data Transporter (free plugin, that can be deinstalled and deleted after everything's been sorted out).
Isn't that for Yoast seo only?
For changing anything on your site - the way to be "safe":
Create a backup (always have your website backups anyway - things will go bust just one hour before your next scheduled backup).
Test your backups - i.e. make sure that you can restore your site from a backup. Do it at least once, to confirm it really does work. Otherwise, you risk joining the "oh, all my work is gone" club.
Create a staging website copy.
Make any changes on the staging copy. Confirm that everything is OK.
Now you can push the changes on the "main" site. This goes for any updates as well - always test them on a staging website copy. Otherwise, you risk joining the "oh, this update crashed my site" club.
Yes, I will try to experiment with WP-Staging, it's easier for noob like me.
If you are on a LiteSpeed server, think there's not much speed to be gained from WP Rocket - so in that case it's not worth it (IMO). But if not - it's probably the best (and very beginner friendly) caching solution.
The latest version of Wp Rocket is not only about caching.
It manages :
1. Prefetch DNS Requests, prefetch Links
2. Preload fonts (or host external font locally)
3. Host Google Analytics Locally (Improve browser caching for Google Analytics)
4. Manage embedded media
5. Add missing width and height attributes to images automagically
6. WebP compatibility
7. Javascript (delay Javascript execution. Load Javascript deferred)
8. Manages varnish cache and sucuri cache (if any)
I am still experimenting with all its features.
In practice - LiteSpeed performance is very close (at least from my testing).
In other words: if they both cost the same, or were both free ( ), I'd go with WP Rocket. Otherwise, I don't think it's worth it.
Besides - LiteSpeed also does a lot of those liste stuff. It also does image optimization (if you don't do that before uploading them, which I'd recommend).
Relja of House Novović, the First of His Name, King of the Plains, the Breaker of Chains, WirMach Wolves pack member BikeGremlin's web-hosting reviews
Here is how to migrate from practically any SEO plugin, to practically any SEO plugin: Migrating from one SEO plugin to another - using SEO Data Transporter (free plugin, that can be deinstalled and deleted after everything's been sorted out).
Isn't that for Yoast seo only?
To quote myself?
"Here is how to migrate from practically any SEO plugin, to practically any SEO plugin"
Relja of House Novović, the First of His Name, King of the Plains, the Breaker of Chains, WirMach Wolves pack member BikeGremlin's web-hosting reviews
AIO Seo plugin (is it better than other seo plugin? Not so bloated compared to Yoast)
Updraftplus backup (is it enough?)
Amp plugin (do I really need AMP Plugin?)
Right now my site gets B (78) for performance rating and A (92) for Structure.
Using a paid cache plugin atm.
Any idea how to increase performance rating?
I'm hosted by HM Prem.
UpdraftPlus has served me well. With HM JetBackups to remote and their daily backips was all I needed but I moved one of my sites to Mike and decided to use UpdraftPlus for it. Works like a charm for WP installs.
Do you think using updraftplus alone is okay, I mean if something bad happen, will the backup from Updraftplus is adequate rebuild the site?
Yes you can build the site from the backup as long as there is no change in domain/subdomain name.
Install updraftplus
Backup using updraft
Download the backup
Reinstall wordpress
Install updraftplus
Upload backup
Restore WP site
Noted.
The problem with Updraftplus is you have to deploy core files first or install fresh wordpress.
Once my DB from Updraftplus could not be imported. Fortunately I still have another backup non Updraftplus.
Since UpdraftPlus just wraps everything in zip/archive you'd just have to extraft the db on your PC manually, then try importing it in phpmyadmin if restore doesn't work via the plugin. Always test your Backups though
Any experience with https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpscan/ ? Looks nice, but afraid it'll hit cpu/ram a lot. Shows/checks if there is a security vulnerability for your plugins and displays warning with details if so (uses wpscan database api call for that).
AIO Seo plugin (is it better than other seo plugin? Not so bloated compared to Yoast)
Updraftplus backup (is it enough?)
Amp plugin (do I really need AMP Plugin?)
Right now my site gets B (78) for performance rating and A (92) for Structure.
Using a paid cache plugin atm.
Any idea how to increase performance rating?
I'm hosted by HM Prem.
UpdraftPlus has served me well. With HM JetBackups to remote and their daily backips was all I needed but I moved one of my sites to Mike and decided to use UpdraftPlus for it. Works like a charm for WP installs.
Do you think using updraftplus alone is okay, I mean if something bad happen, will the backup from Updraftplus is adequate rebuild the site?
Yes you can build the site from the backup as long as there is no change in domain/subdomain name.
Install updraftplus
Backup using updraft
Download the backup
Reinstall wordpress
Install updraftplus
Upload backup
Restore WP site
Noted.
The problem with Updraftplus is you have to deploy core files first or install fresh wordpress.
Once my DB from Updraftplus could not be imported. Fortunately I still have another backup non Updraftplus.
Since UpdraftPlus just wraps everything in zip/archive you'd just have to extraft the db on your PC manually, then try importing it in phpmyadmin if restore doesn't work via the plugin. Always test your Backups though
I never have those experience, all I do is reinstall wordpress manualy or reinstall wordpress from softaculous, the first plugin I install is updraft plus, upload the backup then restore, all will be handled by updraftplus, and your old site will be back
⭕ A simple uptime dashboard using UptimeRobot API https://upy.duo.ovh
⭕ Currently using VPS from BuyVM, GreenCloudVPS, Gullo's, Hetzner, HostHatch, InceptionHosting, LetBox, MaxKVM, MrVM, VirMach.
AIO Seo plugin (is it better than other seo plugin? Not so bloated compared to Yoast)
Updraftplus backup (is it enough?)
Amp plugin (do I really need AMP Plugin?)
Right now my site gets B (78) for performance rating and A (92) for Structure.
Using a paid cache plugin atm.
Any idea how to increase performance rating?
I'm hosted by HM Prem.
UpdraftPlus has served me well. With HM JetBackups to remote and their daily backips was all I needed but I moved one of my sites to Mike and decided to use UpdraftPlus for it. Works like a charm for WP installs.
Do you think using updraftplus alone is okay, I mean if something bad happen, will the backup from Updraftplus is adequate rebuild the site?
Yes you can build the site from the backup as long as there is no change in domain/subdomain name.
Install updraftplus
Backup using updraft
Download the backup
Reinstall wordpress
Install updraftplus
Upload backup
Restore WP site
Noted.
The problem with Updraftplus is you have to deploy core files first or install fresh wordpress.
Once my DB from Updraftplus could not be imported. Fortunately I still have another backup non Updraftplus.
Since UpdraftPlus just wraps everything in zip/archive you'd just have to extraft the db on your PC manually, then try importing it in phpmyadmin if restore doesn't work via the plugin. Always test your Backups though
I never have those experience, all I do is reinstall wordpress manualy or reinstall wordpress from softaculous, the first plugin I install is updraft plus, upload the backup then restore, all will be handled by updraftplus, and your old site will be back
But, you must make sure the new wordpress installation has same version like the backup version right?
AIO Seo plugin (is it better than other seo plugin? Not so bloated compared to Yoast)
Updraftplus backup (is it enough?)
Amp plugin (do I really need AMP Plugin?)
Right now my site gets B (78) for performance rating and A (92) for Structure.
Using a paid cache plugin atm.
Any idea how to increase performance rating?
I'm hosted by HM Prem.
UpdraftPlus has served me well. With HM JetBackups to remote and their daily backips was all I needed but I moved one of my sites to Mike and decided to use UpdraftPlus for it. Works like a charm for WP installs.
Do you think using updraftplus alone is okay, I mean if something bad happen, will the backup from Updraftplus is adequate rebuild the site?
Yes you can build the site from the backup as long as there is no change in domain/subdomain name.
Install updraftplus
Backup using updraft
Download the backup
Reinstall wordpress
Install updraftplus
Upload backup
Restore WP site
Noted.
The problem with Updraftplus is you have to deploy core files first or install fresh wordpress.
Once my DB from Updraftplus could not be imported. Fortunately I still have another backup non Updraftplus.
Since UpdraftPlus just wraps everything in zip/archive you'd just have to extraft the db on your PC manually, then try importing it in phpmyadmin if restore doesn't work via the plugin. Always test your Backups though
I never have those experience, all I do is reinstall wordpress manualy or reinstall wordpress from softaculous, the first plugin I install is updraft plus, upload the backup then restore, all will be handled by updraftplus, and your old site will be back
AIO Seo plugin (is it better than other seo plugin? Not so bloated compared to Yoast)
Updraftplus backup (is it enough?)
Amp plugin (do I really need AMP Plugin?)
Right now my site gets B (78) for performance rating and A (92) for Structure.
Using a paid cache plugin atm.
Any idea how to increase performance rating?
I'm hosted by HM Prem.
UpdraftPlus has served me well. With HM JetBackups to remote and their daily backips was all I needed but I moved one of my sites to Mike and decided to use UpdraftPlus for it. Works like a charm for WP installs.
Do you think using updraftplus alone is okay, I mean if something bad happen, will the backup from Updraftplus is adequate rebuild the site?
Yes you can build the site from the backup as long as there is no change in domain/subdomain name.
Install updraftplus
Backup using updraft
Download the backup
Reinstall wordpress
Install updraftplus
Upload backup
Restore WP site
Noted.
The problem with Updraftplus is you have to deploy core files first or install fresh wordpress.
Once my DB from Updraftplus could not be imported. Fortunately I still have another backup non Updraftplus.
Since UpdraftPlus just wraps everything in zip/archive you'd just have to extraft the db on your PC manually, then try importing it in phpmyadmin if restore doesn't work via the plugin. Always test your Backups though
I never have those experience, all I do is reinstall wordpress manualy or reinstall wordpress from softaculous, the first plugin I install is updraft plus, upload the backup then restore, all will be handled by updraftplus, and your old site will be back
But, you must make sure the new wordpress installation has same version like the backup version right?
Afaik you don't have to. Restoring a full Uodraft Backup also restores files and as such restores the WP version at time of backup
Afaik you don't have to. Restoring a full Uodraft Backup also restores files and as such restores the WP version at time of backup
generally true, but best avoided in case of WP 5.6
I would suggest installing WP 5.5.3 (clean install) + Updraft Plus, and restoring the WP installation.
To the other questions/ comments about CPU/ resource intensive plugins and applications (malware detection for e.g.) Here's what I do:
Get a VPS with @ 1 GB RAM, 12-15 GB Disk space. Or shared hosting with 5 GB space atleast
*Below is mostly applicable for vps, shared you can also apply similar logic *
- Install WP (my preference is Webinoly)
- Create 2 subdomains (say test.yourdomain.tld and beta.yourdomain.tld)
- Make a backup of the live site using Updraft Plus, lets call it "backup-of-live-site-WP"
- import your current WP installation in the "test" WP install
- Test out for malware, image compression, script optimizations, security settings (including httpauth, for e.g.) etc. Maintain snapshots say after every operation just in case.
- Once you are satisfied, make a copy using Updraft plus. lets call it "Backup-of-test.yourdomain.tld"
- Using updraft plus, first restore the original WP install "backup-of-live-site-WP" onto beta.yourdomain.tld.
- Now, overwrite it with "Backup-of-test.yourdomain.tld". This will be a simulation of what you may do actually on the main install. But, you are overwriting a clone of the live site with your "Backup-of-test.yourdomain.tld" version. So if anything breaks, it breaks on the beta and not the live site.
- Once staisfied, you can overwrite the live site with the modified/ ugraded version.
Takes about an hour or so depending on the complexity of your site. But I would recommend giving it a try.
To make life easier, you can read up on the Webinoly documentaiton on how to clone a site from test to beta, staging to live, etc.. And also reduce manual effort.
If you are going to use a VPS, then I would also suggest installing jpegoptim to compress the images in case you do not have Shortpixel or similar.
I am cautiously also playing around with database optimization / compression plugins to reduce overall WP installation size. At a minimum it deletes post revisions. You can retain them if you like. I do not.
Below are screenshots in case you are only looking to optimize images, and have @ 200 odd images in your wp-contents. I ran this locally on the VPS not using a subdomain. This was done using Shortpixel plugin. You can also use their command line based script, optimize the images on your server, and then upload the optimized images on to WP (which I prefer to do these days)
Before optimization, Sept 2020: (I do not have the screenshot from post optimization results) https://img.gaatha.co/ac98rx
Edit: (referencing the comment below: I did not get the bump in speeds only because of image optimization. There were some other tweaks. Also note that the pagespeed algorithm may have been updated between September and December.
But yes, image optimization alone can yield significant improvement
@vyas said:
Below are screenshots in case you are only looking to optimize images, and have @ 200 odd images in your wp-contents. I ran this locally on the VPS not using a subdomain using Shortpixel plugin. You can also use their command line based script, optimize the images on your server, and then upload the optimized images on to WP (which I prefer to do these days)
Before optimization, Sept 2020: (I do not have the screenshot from post optimization results) https://img.gaatha.co/ac98rx
@Fritz said: That improvement using Shortpixel plugin ?
Mobile pagespeed scores can be affected a lot by small things such as that.
@vyas, since you are playing around with your options, maybe you can try out the nginx pagespeed module? It supposedly auto-resizes images, compresses and reformats them (jpg and webp, in case webp isn't viewable). It also does some other stuff which might help with pagespeed.
Anyway, is there any reason to use those backup plugins apart from convenience? Are there any benefits compared to manually backing up files and your database? (rclone and mysqldump, or basically using the panel like bikegremlin does)
On the topic of caching... Honestly, they are all pretty much the same thing so don't expect much difference in performance. Litespeed would probably work better in theory in a shared hosting environment. What's most important is that your site doesn't break because of the caching.
@Fritz said: That improvement using Shortpixel plugin ?
Mobile pagespeed scores can be affected a lot by small things such as that.
@vyas, since you are playing around with your options, maybe you can try out the nginx pagespeed module? It supposedly auto-resizes images, compresses and reformats them (jpg and webp, in case webp isn't viewable). It also does some other stuff which might help with pagespeed.
Anyway, is there any reason to use those backup plugins apart from convenience? Are there any benefits compared to manually backing up files and your database? (rclone and mysqldump, or basically using the panel like bikegremlin does)
On the topic of caching... Honestly, they are all pretty much the same thing so don't expect much difference in performance. Litespeed would probably work better in theory in a shared hosting environment. What's most important is that your site doesn't break because of the caching.
For backups - there are practical upsides to automation. Because people make mistakes, and/or forget.
Over the year's, I've made sure to have at least one remote copy always automated.
This can be achieved without using any plugins - which (at least IMO) is a better solution. Why? Each plugin puts more load on the server, presents more potential security problems, and I expect a WordPress plugin to be less reliable compared to any backup scripts run on the server, separate from the WordPress website.
In terms of convenience, JetBackup, and/or Softaculous are quite easy to use, and convenient (love JetBackup one-click account restore, when supported by the hosting provider).
@Fritz said: That improvement using Shortpixel plugin ?
Mobile pagespeed scores can be affected a lot by small things such as that.
@vyas, since you are playing around with your options, maybe you can try out the nginx pagespeed module? It supposedly auto-resizes images, compresses and reformats them (jpg and webp, in case webp isn't viewable). It also does some other stuff which might help with pagespeed.
Anyway, is there any reason to use those backup plugins apart from convenience? Are there any benefits compared to manually backing up files and your database? (rclone and mysqldump, or basically using the panel like bikegremlin does)
On the topic of caching... Honestly, they are all pretty much the same thing so don't expect much difference in performance. Litespeed would probably work better in theory in a shared hosting environment. What's most important is that your site doesn't break because of the caching.
For backups - there are practical upsides to automation. Because people make mistakes, and/or forget.
Over the year's, I've made sure to have at least one remote copy always automated.
This can be achieved without using any plugins - which (at least IMO) is a better solution. Why? Each plugin puts more load on the server, presents more potential security problems, and I expect a WordPress plugin to be less reliable compared to any backup scripts run on the server, separate from the WordPress website.
In terms of convenience, JetBackup, and/or Softaculous are quite easy to use, and convenient (love JetBackup one-click account restore, when supported by the hosting provider).
JetBackup definitely one of the perks of HM. But I think @MikePT added it as a feature now, too?
@Fritz said: That improvement using Shortpixel plugin ?
Mobile pagespeed scores can be affected a lot by small things such as that.
@vyas, since you are playing around with your options, maybe you can try out the nginx pagespeed module? It supposedly auto-resizes images, compresses and reformats them (jpg and webp, in case webp isn't viewable). It also does some other stuff which might help with pagespeed.
Anyway, is there any reason to use those backup plugins apart from convenience? Are there any benefits compared to manually backing up files and your database? (rclone and mysqldump, or basically using the panel like bikegremlin does)
On the topic of caching... Honestly, they are all pretty much the same thing so don't expect much difference in performance. Litespeed would probably work better in theory in a shared hosting environment. What's most important is that your site doesn't break because of the caching.
For backups - there are practical upsides to automation. Because people make mistakes, and/or forget.
Over the year's, I've made sure to have at least one remote copy always automated.
This can be achieved without using any plugins - which (at least IMO) is a better solution. Why? Each plugin puts more load on the server, presents more potential security problems, and I expect a WordPress plugin to be less reliable compared to any backup scripts run on the server, separate from the WordPress website.
In terms of convenience, JetBackup, and/or Softaculous are quite easy to use, and convenient (love JetBackup one-click account restore, when supported by the hosting provider).
JetBackup definitely one of the perks of HM. But I think @MikePT added it as a feature now, too?
Couldn't get it to work properly (probably due to not still patched to work with DirectAdmin control panel).
Relja of House Novović, the First of His Name, King of the Plains, the Breaker of Chains, WirMach Wolves pack member BikeGremlin's web-hosting reviews
@Fritz said: That improvement using Shortpixel plugin ?
Mobile pagespeed scores can be affected a lot by small things such as that.
@vyas, since you are playing around with your options, maybe you can try out the nginx pagespeed module? It supposedly auto-resizes images, compresses and reformats them (jpg and webp, in case webp isn't viewable). It also does some other stuff which might help with pagespeed.
Anyway, is there any reason to use those backup plugins apart from convenience? Are there any benefits compared to manually backing up files and your database? (rclone and mysqldump, or basically using the panel like bikegremlin does)
On the topic of caching... Honestly, they are all pretty much the same thing so don't expect much difference in performance. Litespeed would probably work better in theory in a shared hosting environment. What's most important is that your site doesn't break because of the caching.
For backups - there are practical upsides to automation. Because people make mistakes, and/or forget.
Over the year's, I've made sure to have at least one remote copy always automated.
This can be achieved without using any plugins - which (at least IMO) is a better solution. Why? Each plugin puts more load on the server, presents more potential security problems, and I expect a WordPress plugin to be less reliable compared to any backup scripts run on the server, separate from the WordPress website.
In terms of convenience, JetBackup, and/or Softaculous are quite easy to use, and convenient (love JetBackup one-click account restore, when supported by the hosting provider).
JetBackup definitely one of the perks of HM. But I think @MikePT added it as a feature now, too?
Couldn't get it to work properly (probably due to not still patched to work with DirectAdmin control panel).
Initially, it wouldn't show me daily backups either. Now it shows me 7 restore points (daily) to choose from. Backup to remote, unfortunately, doesn't work yet. I think @MikePT is on it though
I am posting the subsequent parts of the post on "WordPress on a Budget" in this forum instead of a blog- as per discussion with Anthonysmith
Summary
In Part I of this two part series, I had discussed the mad rush for WordPress. Also included was a list of 'specialist' WordPress hosts and their rather expensive pricing plans. In this part II, I will discuss different ways to set up a WordPress website in under 10 US Dollars a year. Learn how you can find frugal web hosting for an entry level blog or portfolio site.
WordPress on Shared Hosting
WordPress Hosting in Under US $ 10 a Year
For sake of simplicity, we will consider a new WordPress site, which has a blog with about 20 posts and around 100 images. The reason for choosing this threshold is as follows: Most of the beginner to mid level bloggers may find it difficult to keep producing new content. After the first two or three months, producing content on a steady basis is a difficult ask.
ClassicPress- A fork of WordPress
Consider the case where the blogger is moderately familiar with managing their website. In other words, they could be a candidate for either shared hosting (not managed hosting) or even a small VPS with some hand holding. We will set a budget of US $ 10 a year for the WordPress Hosting. The assumption is that each of these hosting plans cost less than US $ 10 including any discounts if any.
For the purpose of our testing, we will only use the base (free) tier of the following
Theme: Astra, Blocksy, GeneratePress, Neve or Hestia
Plugins: Optimization, security and similar tools. The most common ones
include : ShortPixel, WordFence, Database cleaner, All In One WordPress Migration..
CDN: using either of: Cloudinary or Imagify for images and scripts. Quic.Cloud for LiteSpeed based web hosting.
The hosting plans are a mix of the following:
Shared hosting (with or without LiteSpeed server),
VPS (OVZ or KVM) with a script based installer using terminal,
(Alternate) VPS with a panel based GUI installer such as Cloudpanel or HestiaCP.
Script based installer for VPS (OVZ or KVM)
Note
Our $10 a year threshold applies to website hosting only. The prices for paid version of themes, plugins, scripts and CDN might be much higher. I am a proponent of 'pay if you find value' when it comes to Freemium products or open source projects.
In some cases, I will use ClassicPress instead of WordPress. ClassicPress is a fork of WordPress, which I have come to like in recent months because of its relative lightweight and ease of use. It is based on WordPress 4.95, i.e. it does not carry the Gutenburg and other 'bloatware' as they like to put it. For hosting with less resources, or where speed is more important than features, ClassicPress is my tool of choice.
You can replace WordPress with ClassicPress. Test System: Hostslick, 512 MB RAM, 2 VCPU, 20 GB SSD.
$5/year
Table compiled by A Vyas based on installation, configuration, and testing of WordPress sites. November/December 2020.
Note: I have also tested on the following configurations:
a. SmallWeb Singapore, 1 GB Plan ~ 10 US dollars / year @SmallWeb
b. Myw.pt 2 GB Plan "Lifetime" deal at ~ 12 US Dollars/ year @MikePT
c. Nexusbytes' ServedEZ 1 GB Plan, Germany ~ 12 US dollars/ year @seriesn
The above three are all LiteSpeed based shared hosting plans, expected results should be similar to the first installation in the table above.
In addition, I also have a setup with 512 MB RAM, 4 Cpu plan from Inception Hosting. WordPress installation took several trials, but finally things worked well with WordOps. This VPS Plan It cost me 12 Euros (~ 15 US Dollars), which is higher than the US $ 10 threshold I have set for this post. Therefore, I have excluded it from the table.
Installation of ols1clk: list of options
Results from Testing the different installations
For each of the options in the below table, we tested the following:
Loading speed using Google Page Speed Insights or GTMetrix
Website performance using K6 page load tester (similar to loader.io)
Based on the above set of tests, below are my suggestions
Shared Hosting for WordPress
Minimum Disk space: 2 GB (NVMe) or 5 GB (SSD) with LiteSpeed server/ LS Cache plugin and QUIC.Cloud OR non-LiteSpeed hosting with CDN (e.g.BunnyCDN) and optimization plugins.
VPS with Server Panels
For testing our VPS with Cloudpanel.io or aapanel (or similar) you would need a KVM with atleast 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 10 GB Disc space.
Minimum specifications for VPS hosting WordPress with a server panel
Testing the Frugal Hosting Setups
I tested nearly every installation on key 6, a load testing simulator similar to loader.io
The testing scenarios were run for:
a. Up to 40 concurrent visitors, 10 minute test duration
b. Up to 50 concurrent users, 5 minute test duration
Results of load test for shared hosting with LiteSpeed server/ LS Cache
Results of load test for shared hosting with ClassicPress on Gullo's LittleVZ 512 MB Plan, Singapore
Note that the specifications and the test factor consider the early stages of your blog or website, say up to the first two years. As traffic builds up, you may want to move on to more robust resources. However, optimization of the scripts, images and using caching plugins, etc. you may be able to cater to the increased traffic for much longer.
Our focus here is on frugality without compromising on speed or security. Particularly for the advent of WordPress 5.6, which is. separate topic of discussion.
When Should you Upgrade
My philosophy has always been that once an activity starts paying for itself, that is the time to invest further into it. But at the same time when choosing a hosting plan, account for least two or three times the capacity. That is you may yet be able to cater to up to 20,000 visitors a month with these setups without much challenge.
For example for LiteSpeed based hosting, Quic.cloud gives you 10 GB CDN traffic, optimization of 10,000 images and hosting / delivery of scripts for free. For entry level bloggers, these limits should be more than adequate.
Similarly, a gigabyte of RAM on a 1 VCPU KVM with atleast 10 GB disc space allows installation of a server panel, and WordPress for up to 3 sites with pagebuilder like Elementor. You can add a CDN and optimization plugins for greater efficiency and loading speeds.
A WordPress site is a function of many moving parts, which include but not limited to, the following:
Version of PHP on the server
version of MySQL or equivalent database
Which version fo WordPress is used
Theme: whether it is lightweight or a loaded / heavy weight one
What plugins you use
The specifications of the server itself (CPU, Ram, Disk space, network. Etc)
Scripts or any other functions that you may have added.
Firewall and security settings including Limit rating.
The type of site and content (media heavy site versus text heavy)
Use of Content delivery network for images, videos, scripts, etc
Caching
Traffic
As you may realise, there is no single way to address all of the above. Therefore it is important to do your homework particularly for hosting. Optimized hosting, something that is not oversold something that offers hardware and software specifications that can cater to the traffic are some of the criteria I am talking about. Secondly, we need to have as lightweight a site as possible by that I mean not having too much of a bloat, which many of the stock theme and plugin installations tend to do. Third, constantly update your site for plugins themes security settings, etc, keep monitoring the performance. The sites can have many points of failure, it's your job to make sure things go right.
Wrapping it all up
There are Christmas deals coming up you may yet be able to pick up a deal or two around the price range I have discussed for different hosting options. One of the motivations for writing this post was to create a hand resource for you, the go to person whom friends family significant others approach for help with their website related matters.
That was my case a few years ago, when someone very near and dear to me wanted a website for their blog and they were adamant on using WordPress. And Thus began my journey int he maze called WordPress hosting, which led me literally down a rabbit hole. Personally, I am not a super fan of WordPress. But the sites for our podcasting business, and my personal blog use WordPress as poison of choice. These are hosted on PHP Friends VPS and managed using Gridpane.
I hope that my above experiments and learnings allow me to share with you some insights. In this lost, you will find one or more WordPress hosting options to suit to your taste.
Resources:
Alternatives to k6 and Loader.io for Website load testing
Goes without saying, but worth noting nonetheless: good work @vyas
Question(s):
How does the storage size play?
I.e. why 5 GB for SSD, and 2 GB for NVMe?
Small WP site takes under 200 MB of storage.
I did notice problems when using backup plugins - they need more space (up to 10 times more than the website size) to use for packing all the data (temporarily, then it gets freed up again).
Is that the reason?
Still, even if that's that - I'm confused with different storage size recommendations for SSD, compared to NVMe storage.
Does the extra storage size somehow help with the performance?
If so, how did you compare/measure that?
@bikegremlin said:
Goes without saying, but worth noting nonetheless: good work @vyas
Question(s):
How does the storage size play?
I.e. why 5 GB for SSD, and 2 GB for NVMe?
Small WP site takes under 200 MB of storage.
I did notice problems when using backup plugins - they need more space (up to 10 times more than the website size) to use for packing all the data (temporarily, then it gets freed up again).
Is that the reason?
Still, even if that's that - I'm confused with different storage size recommendations for SSD, compared to NVMe storage.
Does the extra storage size somehow help with the performance?
If so, how did you compare/measure that?
Great question(s)
The determinant was price.
Most providers with SSD offer more disk space for same price, compared to NVMe. Usually by a factor of 2 or 2.5.
Yes, backups do take up space. So does the multiple versions of images that WP creates (and by extension image optimization plugins) therefore a bigger disk space requirements.
In my tests, I did not take up more than 180 MB including database for blog sites (as per the number of posts and images I have mentioned above) . But over period of time, the following can take up disk space
-old/ archived backups (Softaculous for eg gives option of keeping the 'n' most recent backups. I limit them to 2. Many choose for past 4 or more backups)
-bloated database
-Staging site(s)
- more images
- Post revisions
- Videos or audio
@bikegremlin said:
Goes without saying, but worth noting nonetheless: good work @vyas
Question(s):
How does the storage size play?
I.e. why 5 GB for SSD, and 2 GB for NVMe?
Small WP site takes under 200 MB of storage.
I did notice problems when using backup plugins - they need more space (up to 10 times more than the website size) to use for packing all the data (temporarily, then it gets freed up again).
Is that the reason?
Still, even if that's that - I'm confused with different storage size recommendations for SSD, compared to NVMe storage.
Does the extra storage size somehow help with the performance?
If so, how did you compare/measure that?
Great question(s)
The determinant was price.
Most providers with SSD offer more disk space for same price, compared to NVMe. Usually by a factor of 2 or 2.5.
Yes, backups do take up space. So does the multiple versions of images that WP creates (and by extension image optimization plugins) therefore a bigger disk space requirements.
In my tests, I did not take up more than 180 MB including database for blog sites (as per the number of posts and images I have mentioned above) . But over period of time, the following can take up disk space
-old/ archived backups (Softaculous for eg gives option of keeping the 'n' most recent backups. I limit them to 2. Many choose for past 4 or more backups)
-bloated database
-Staging site(s)
- more images
- Post revisions
- Videos or audio
So, if I understand correctly, provided there's enough space for all the files (and backups), any extra storage does not affect performance?
Another question: have you noticed any measurable performance gains from allowing WP to make multiple image copies?
Because, it can be configured to just leave the original, uploaded image size and be done with it.
Relja of House Novović, the First of His Name, King of the Plains, the Breaker of Chains, WirMach Wolves pack member BikeGremlin's web-hosting reviews
@flips said:
I guess ClassicPress is bound to break with newer versions of WP themes, like Divi etc.(?)
I have tested Elementor and Brizy with ClassicPress. But that defeats the purpose of using ClassicPress. It serves a different purpose altogether.
@bikegremlin said:
So, if I understand correctly, provided there's enough space for all the files (and backups), any extra storage does not affect performance?
Another question: have you noticed any measurable performance gains from allowing WP to make multiple image copies?
Because, it can be configured to just leave the original, uploaded image size and be done with it.
Best option for images is to host it on a cdn. I use Gumlet on production sites for feature images.
You can host all other inline images on a web folder, link to cdn and use url based transformations. That solves problem of multiple images that WP creates, derived from the original image. Keeps backup sizes small.
Many options these days posting a link from
Imagekit, for example
More space equals better speed is a myth and probably mis selling. Caveat: my post, testing and all work excludes membership sites, woo commerce. Dynamics might be different there (bigger database, more transformations, cpu cycles ...)
Ideally, even if we add US Dollar 1 a month for BunnyCDN, maximum one will spend 22 dollars a year on hosting- assuming cdn is considered as part of hosting.
But then a seven dollar a year vpsdime and coupons from BunnyCDN (most recent was 6 USD at OGF for BF) bring down the price again to same ten dollar threshold.
@vyas Cloudflare does pretty well as a free cdn + some other optimizations features. Most of the time, free cloudflare would perform better than other options like bunnycdn unless you have a pretty serious stack.
Your posts have been quite interesting, but I find that it's not a fair comparison if you compare wordpress on shared vs classicpress on a vps. I think it would have been more interesting if you just did a webinoly wordpress stack for the comparisons. Anyway, it is pretty clear that vps > shared in almost every scenario in terms of value proposition if you're looking at performance.
Also, with regards to the topic on SSD vs NVMe, when it comes to wordpress, it's pretty much all a marketing gimmick. You wouldn't see any performance differences between SSD/NVMe AND HDD if you're on a shared environment that's not severely oversold because of I/O limits. Honestly, this applies to vps as well, but you may see some minor performance benefits compared to shared. (In my opinion, the only performance benefit is probably backups)
@bikegremlin, more allocated space in the context of webhosting does nothing to affect performance. However, bigger drives are usually faster than smaller drives because they have better engineering. However, this means nothing in the context of webhosting because with bigger drives, there would be more users and so you get less performance. Also, drives that are nearing full capacity tend to run slower.
In any case, avoid shared hosting and page builders like divi if possible. They are seriously bad news if your website grows or if you want to make changes to your site. I understand there is a market for these things but if you are making your own website and not doing it as a web dev business... Do it right. (You learn more things too)
@bibi
I concur on most of your views.
My point behind this exercise was to discover the price point which is workable for the beginner. And the available options in that range.
Was not keen on presenting the Henry Ford option “any colour as long as it it black”.
Similarly, it would do dis service to the community if I presented only one or two options “If your budget is under ten US dollars, you only have two options”.
That fortunately is not the case.
SSD/ NVMe debate is more relevant for woo commerce sites, etc. My first WP site on VPS had HDD. The host (another great guy I met) told me point blank.
“Disk type does not matter for blog. “ He even bumped up my RAM to 2x - 8 GB- for free, to prove it to me.
CF free tier for me does not work well. The traffic is routed via Germany or UK on multiple occasions.. when CF have 10 POPs in India. Maybe they are all reserved for paid plans, I am not ready for that option yet.
On a lighter note,
I have excluded Cloudflare because many members in this forums have strong emotions about CF :-)
@bibi said: @vyas Cloudflare does pretty well as a free cdn + some other optimizations features. Most of the time, free cloudflare would perform better than other options like bunnycdn unless you have a pretty serious stack.
Your posts have been quite interesting, but I find that it's not a fair comparison if you compare wordpress on shared vs classicpress on a vps. I think it would have been more interesting if you just did a webinoly wordpress stack for the comparisons. Anyway, it is pretty clear that vps > shared in almost every scenario in terms of value proposition if you're looking at performance.
Also, with regards to the topic on SSD vs NVMe, when it comes to wordpress, it's pretty much all a marketing gimmick. You wouldn't see any performance differences between SSD/NVMe AND HDD if you're on a shared environment that's not severely oversold because of I/O limits. Honestly, this applies to vps as well, but you may see some minor performance benefits compared to shared. (In my opinion, the only performance benefit is probably backups)
@bikegremlin, more allocated space in the context of webhosting does nothing to affect performance. However, bigger drives are usually faster than smaller drives because they have better engineering. However, this means nothing in the context of webhosting because with bigger drives, there would be more users and so you get less performance. Also, drives that are nearing full capacity tend to run slower.
In any case, avoid shared hosting and page builders like divi if possible. They are seriously bad news if your website grows or if you want to make changes to your site. I understand there is a market for these things but if you are making your own website and not doing it as a web dev business... Do it right. (You learn more things too)
Related to the parts of your post concerning shared (vs VPS) hosting:
I would say it depends. I wrote here about VPS (vs shared).
I would also add that there are good, and poor quality shared, as well as VPS providers.
I've seen WP sites run noticeably (and, definitely measurably) faster on a good shared hosting (with LiteSpeed), compared to a VPS.
I'd say that VPS is not always, in every way, better, and/or cheaper than shared hosting.
Relja of House Novović, the First of His Name, King of the Plains, the Breaker of Chains, WirMach Wolves pack member BikeGremlin's web-hosting reviews
@vyas said: CF free tier for me does not work well. The traffic is routed via Germany or UK on multiple occasions..
That's interesting. But yeah, not using cloudflare can be better if your server is geographically close to you. I felt like the only way to beat cloudflare on a global scale is if you ran a high availability setup, so I just stuck with cloudflare.
@bikegremlin said: I would also add that there are good, and poor quality shared, as well as VPS providers.I've seen WP sites run noticeably (and, definitely measurably) faster on a good shared hosting (with LiteSpeed), compared to a VPS.
I agree that shared can sometimes be better. However, my claim was that VPS gives you better performance per dollar. Spend the same amount of money on shared hosting and a VPS, and 99% of the time the VPS will give you better performance on the same website.
Your site briefly touches on overselling. However, the reality is the situation is usually much, much worse on shared hosting environments because there's gonna be resellers who fill up those servers. You said on your blog that a host could sell 64 plans of 2 GB ram on a server with 64 GB ram and 12 threads. Okay, for the sake of argument, I'll accept that as fact. However, among some of the shared hosts which you use, I am aware that they use servers with 8 threads and 32 GB ram, and they sell reseller plans on those servers. You could be looking at THOUSANDS of accounts on ONE server. Then, there's the issue of the stack. What you get with litespeed etc. on a default softaculous wordpress install is a much slower stack than stacks which you can run on a VPS.
There's many more details which can be discussed, but I cannot imagine a shared plan doing better than a VPS provided they have the same price tag. The stress tests which @vyas did show a clear picture here. It's a shame you can't really tell what the average response time is on shared because of the failed requests.
Comments
Isn't that for Yoast seo only?
Yes, I will try to experiment with WP-Staging, it's easier for noob like me.
https://microlxc.net/
In practice - LiteSpeed performance is very close (at least from my testing).
), I'd go with WP Rocket. Otherwise, I don't think it's worth it.
In other words: if they both cost the same, or were both free (
Besides - LiteSpeed also does a lot of those liste stuff. It also does image optimization (if you don't do that before uploading them, which I'd recommend).
Relja of House Novović, the First of His Name, King of the Plains, the Breaker of Chains, WirMach Wolves pack member
BikeGremlin's web-hosting reviews
To quote myself?
"Here is how to migrate from practically any SEO plugin, to practically any SEO plugin"
Relja of House Novović, the First of His Name, King of the Plains, the Breaker of Chains, WirMach Wolves pack member
BikeGremlin's web-hosting reviews
Since UpdraftPlus just wraps everything in zip/archive you'd just have to extraft the db on your PC manually, then try importing it in phpmyadmin if restore doesn't work via the plugin. Always test your Backups though
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
Any experience with https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpscan/ ? Looks nice, but afraid it'll hit cpu/ram a lot. Shows/checks if there is a security vulnerability for your plugins and displays warning with details if so (uses wpscan database api call for that).
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
I never have those experience, all I do is reinstall wordpress manualy or reinstall wordpress from softaculous, the first plugin I install is updraft plus, upload the backup then restore, all will be handled by updraftplus, and your old site will be back
⭕ A simple uptime dashboard using UptimeRobot API https://upy.duo.ovh
⭕ Currently using VPS from BuyVM, GreenCloudVPS, Gullo's, Hetzner, HostHatch, InceptionHosting, LetBox, MaxKVM, MrVM, VirMach.
But, you must make sure the new wordpress installation has same version like the backup version right?
https://microlxc.net/
Sorry, meant to direct this to @Fritz
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
Afaik you don't have to. Restoring a full Uodraft Backup also restores files and as such restores the WP version at time of backup
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
generally true, but best avoided in case of WP 5.6
I would suggest installing WP 5.5.3 (clean install) + Updraft Plus, and restoring the WP installation.
To the other questions/ comments about CPU/ resource intensive plugins and applications (malware detection for e.g.) Here's what I do:
*Below is mostly applicable for vps, shared you can also apply similar logic *
- Install WP (my preference is Webinoly)
- Create 2 subdomains (say test.yourdomain.tld and beta.yourdomain.tld)
- Make a backup of the live site using Updraft Plus, lets call it "backup-of-live-site-WP"
- import your current WP installation in the "test" WP install
- Test out for malware, image compression, script optimizations, security settings (including httpauth, for e.g.) etc. Maintain snapshots say after every operation just in case.
- Once you are satisfied, make a copy using Updraft plus. lets call it "Backup-of-test.yourdomain.tld"
- Using updraft plus, first restore the original WP install "backup-of-live-site-WP" onto beta.yourdomain.tld.
- Now, overwrite it with "Backup-of-test.yourdomain.tld". This will be a simulation of what you may do actually on the main install. But, you are overwriting a clone of the live site with your "Backup-of-test.yourdomain.tld" version. So if anything breaks, it breaks on the beta and not the live site.
- Once staisfied, you can overwrite the live site with the modified/ ugraded version.
Takes about an hour or so depending on the complexity of your site. But I would recommend giving it a try.
To make life easier, you can read up on the Webinoly documentaiton on how to clone a site from test to beta, staging to live, etc.. And also reduce manual effort.
If you are going to use a VPS, then I would also suggest installing jpegoptim to compress the images in case you do not have Shortpixel or similar.
I am cautiously also playing around with database optimization / compression plugins to reduce overall WP installation size. At a minimum it deletes post revisions. You can retain them if you like. I do not.
Link: Rather comprehensive but easy to follow documentation from Webinoly on this
https://webinoly.com/en/documentation/webinolys/
———-
blog | exploring visually |
Below are screenshots in case you are only looking to optimize images, and have @ 200 odd images in your wp-contents. I ran this locally on the VPS not using a subdomain. This was done using Shortpixel plugin. You can also use their command line based script, optimize the images on your server, and then upload the optimized images on to WP (which I prefer to do these days)
Before optimization, Sept 2020: (I do not have the screenshot from post optimization results)
https://img.gaatha.co/ac98rx
Image Compression/optimization complete:
https://img.gaatha.co/cMG2Ih
Speed Test results- 3 months later.
https://img.gaatha.co/dcxnDF
Edit: (referencing the comment below: I did not get the bump in speeds only because of image optimization. There were some other tweaks. Also note that the pagespeed algorithm may have been updated between September and December.
But yes, image optimization alone can yield significant improvement
———-
blog | exploring visually |
That improvement using Shortpixel plugin ?
https://microlxc.net/
Mobile pagespeed scores can be affected a lot by small things such as that.
@vyas, since you are playing around with your options, maybe you can try out the nginx pagespeed module? It supposedly auto-resizes images, compresses and reformats them (jpg and webp, in case webp isn't viewable). It also does some other stuff which might help with pagespeed.
Anyway, is there any reason to use those backup plugins apart from convenience? Are there any benefits compared to manually backing up files and your database? (rclone and mysqldump, or basically using the panel like bikegremlin does)
On the topic of caching... Honestly, they are all pretty much the same thing so don't expect much difference in performance. Litespeed would probably work better in theory in a shared hosting environment. What's most important is that your site doesn't break because of the caching.
.> @bibi said:
For backups - there are practical upsides to automation. Because people make mistakes, and/or forget.
Over the year's, I've made sure to have at least one remote copy always automated.
This can be achieved without using any plugins - which (at least IMO) is a better solution. Why? Each plugin puts more load on the server, presents more potential security problems, and I expect a WordPress plugin to be less reliable compared to any backup scripts run on the server, separate from the WordPress website.
In terms of convenience, JetBackup, and/or Softaculous are quite easy to use, and convenient (love JetBackup one-click account restore, when supported by the hosting provider).
Relja of House Novović, the First of His Name, King of the Plains, the Breaker of Chains, WirMach Wolves pack member
BikeGremlin's web-hosting reviews
JetBackup definitely one of the perks of HM. But I think @MikePT added it as a feature now, too?
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
Couldn't get it to work properly (probably due to not still patched to work with DirectAdmin control panel).
Relja of House Novović, the First of His Name, King of the Plains, the Breaker of Chains, WirMach Wolves pack member
BikeGremlin's web-hosting reviews
Initially, it wouldn't show me daily backups either. Now it shows me 7 restore points (daily) to choose from. Backup to remote, unfortunately, doesn't work yet. I think @MikePT is on it though
Ympker's VPN LTD Comparison, Uptime.is, Ympker's GitHub.
I am posting the subsequent parts of the post on "WordPress on a Budget" in this forum instead of a blog- as per discussion with Anthonysmith
Summary
In Part I of this two part series, I had discussed the mad rush for WordPress. Also included was a list of 'specialist' WordPress hosts and their rather expensive pricing plans. In this part II, I will discuss different ways to set up a WordPress website in under 10 US Dollars a year. Learn how you can find frugal web hosting for an entry level blog or portfolio site.
WordPress on Shared Hosting
WordPress Hosting in Under US $ 10 a Year
For sake of simplicity, we will consider a new WordPress site, which has a blog with about 20 posts and around 100 images. The reason for choosing this threshold is as follows: Most of the beginner to mid level bloggers may find it difficult to keep producing new content. After the first two or three months, producing content on a steady basis is a difficult ask.
ClassicPress- A fork of WordPress
Consider the case where the blogger is moderately familiar with managing their website. In other words, they could be a candidate for either shared hosting (not managed hosting) or even a small VPS with some hand holding. We will set a budget of US $ 10 a year for the WordPress Hosting. The assumption is that each of these hosting plans cost less than US $ 10 including any discounts if any.
For the purpose of our testing, we will only use the base (free) tier of the following
Theme: Astra, Blocksy, GeneratePress, Neve or Hestia
Plugins: Optimization, security and similar tools. The most common ones
include : ShortPixel, WordFence, Database cleaner, All In One WordPress Migration..
CDN: using either of: Cloudinary or Imagify for images and scripts. Quic.Cloud for LiteSpeed based web hosting.
The hosting plans are a mix of the following:
Script based installer for VPS (OVZ or KVM)
Note
———-
blog | exploring visually |
Comparing different Hosting Options
Combination of Different Hosting Tested for this post
Minimum disk space recommended 2 GB.
NVME or SSD disc Preferred
Minimum 5 GB SSD preferred
Nginx
WordPress (replaced with ClassicPress) with Cloudpanel
Test System: Hostslick, 512 MB RAM, 2 VCPU, 20 GB SSD.
Table compiled by A Vyas based on installation, configuration, and testing of WordPress sites. November/December 2020.
Note: I have also tested on the following configurations:
a. SmallWeb Singapore, 1 GB Plan ~ 10 US dollars / year @SmallWeb
b. Myw.pt 2 GB Plan "Lifetime" deal at ~ 12 US Dollars/ year @MikePT
c. Nexusbytes' ServedEZ 1 GB Plan, Germany ~ 12 US dollars/ year @seriesn
The above three are all LiteSpeed based shared hosting plans, expected results should be similar to the first installation in the table above.
In addition, I also have a setup with 512 MB RAM, 4 Cpu plan from Inception Hosting. WordPress installation took several trials, but finally things worked well with WordOps. This VPS Plan It cost me 12 Euros (~ 15 US Dollars), which is higher than the US $ 10 threshold I have set for this post. Therefore, I have excluded it from the table.
Installation of ols1clk: list of options
Results from Testing the different installations
For each of the options in the below table, we tested the following:
Loading speed using Google Page Speed Insights or GTMetrix
Website performance using K6 page load tester (similar to loader.io)
———-
blog | exploring visually |
Based on the above set of tests, below are my suggestions
Shared Hosting for WordPress
Minimum Disk space: 2 GB (NVMe) or 5 GB (SSD) with LiteSpeed server/ LS Cache plugin and QUIC.Cloud OR non-LiteSpeed hosting with CDN (e.g.BunnyCDN) and optimization plugins.
VPS with Server Panels
For testing our VPS with Cloudpanel.io or aapanel (or similar) you would need a KVM with atleast 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 10 GB Disc space.
Minimum specifications for VPS hosting WordPress with a server panel
Testing the Frugal Hosting Setups
I tested nearly every installation on key 6, a load testing simulator similar to loader.io
The testing scenarios were run for:
a. Up to 40 concurrent visitors, 10 minute test duration
b. Up to 50 concurrent users, 5 minute test duration
Results of load test for shared hosting with LiteSpeed server/ LS Cache
Results of load test for shared hosting with ClassicPress on Gullo's LittleVZ 512 MB Plan, Singapore
Note that the specifications and the test factor consider the early stages of your blog or website, say up to the first two years. As traffic builds up, you may want to move on to more robust resources. However, optimization of the scripts, images and using caching plugins, etc. you may be able to cater to the increased traffic for much longer.
Our focus here is on frugality without compromising on speed or security. Particularly for the advent of WordPress 5.6, which is. separate topic of discussion.
When Should you Upgrade
My philosophy has always been that once an activity starts paying for itself, that is the time to invest further into it. But at the same time when choosing a hosting plan, account for least two or three times the capacity. That is you may yet be able to cater to up to 20,000 visitors a month with these setups without much challenge.
For example for LiteSpeed based hosting, Quic.cloud gives you 10 GB CDN traffic, optimization of 10,000 images and hosting / delivery of scripts for free. For entry level bloggers, these limits should be more than adequate.
Similarly, a gigabyte of RAM on a 1 VCPU KVM with atleast 10 GB disc space allows installation of a server panel, and WordPress for up to 3 sites with pagebuilder like Elementor. You can add a CDN and optimization plugins for greater efficiency and loading speeds.
Server Monitoring installed by WordOps
———-
blog | exploring visually |
Final Thoughts and Takeaways
A WordPress site is a function of many moving parts, which include but not limited to, the following:
As you may realise, there is no single way to address all of the above. Therefore it is important to do your homework particularly for hosting. Optimized hosting, something that is not oversold something that offers hardware and software specifications that can cater to the traffic are some of the criteria I am talking about. Secondly, we need to have as lightweight a site as possible by that I mean not having too much of a bloat, which many of the stock theme and plugin installations tend to do. Third, constantly update your site for plugins themes security settings, etc, keep monitoring the performance. The sites can have many points of failure, it's your job to make sure things go right.
Wrapping it all up
There are Christmas deals coming up you may yet be able to pick up a deal or two around the price range I have discussed for different hosting options. One of the motivations for writing this post was to create a hand resource for you, the go to person whom friends family significant others approach for help with their website related matters.
That was my case a few years ago, when someone very near and dear to me wanted a website for their blog and they were adamant on using WordPress. And Thus began my journey int he maze called WordPress hosting, which led me literally down a rabbit hole. Personally, I am not a super fan of WordPress. But the sites for our podcasting business, and my personal blog use WordPress as poison of choice. These are hosted on PHP Friends VPS and managed using Gridpane.
I hope that my above experiments and learnings allow me to share with you some insights. In this lost, you will find one or more WordPress hosting options to suit to your taste.
Resources:
Alternatives to k6 and Loader.io for Website load testing
I came across multiple resources, posting a few
Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/alternatives/loader-io
Stackshare: https://stackshare.io/loader-io/alternatives
Website Speed Tools
GTMetrix: https://gtmetrix.com
Note: You should create an account / sign in to select a server closer to your location. Default is on Google Chrome/ Desktop in Vancouver.
Page Speed Insights: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
Pingdom: https://tools.pingdom.com
Note: You can select server (destination) location on the page.
As an aside, I recommend using WordPress upto version 5.5 only because of numerous issues with WordPress 5.6.
———-
blog | exploring visually |
Goes without saying, but worth noting nonetheless: good work @vyas
Question(s):
How does the storage size play?
I.e. why 5 GB for SSD, and 2 GB for NVMe?
Small WP site takes under 200 MB of storage.
I did notice problems when using backup plugins - they need more space (up to 10 times more than the website size) to use for packing all the data (temporarily, then it gets freed up again).
Is that the reason?
Still, even if that's that - I'm confused with different storage size recommendations for SSD, compared to NVMe storage.
Does the extra storage size somehow help with the performance?
If so, how did you compare/measure that?
Relja of House Novović, the First of His Name, King of the Plains, the Breaker of Chains, WirMach Wolves pack member
BikeGremlin's web-hosting reviews
Great question(s)
The determinant was price.
Most providers with SSD offer more disk space for same price, compared to NVMe. Usually by a factor of 2 or 2.5.
Yes, backups do take up space. So does the multiple versions of images that WP creates (and by extension image optimization plugins) therefore a bigger disk space requirements.
In my tests, I did not take up more than 180 MB including database for blog sites (as per the number of posts and images I have mentioned above) . But over period of time, the following can take up disk space
-old/ archived backups (Softaculous for eg gives option of keeping the 'n' most recent backups. I limit them to 2. Many choose for past 4 or more backups)
-bloated database
-Staging site(s)
- more images
- Post revisions
- Videos or audio
———-
blog | exploring visually |
So, if I understand correctly, provided there's enough space for all the files (and backups), any extra storage does not affect performance?
Another question: have you noticed any measurable performance gains from allowing WP to make multiple image copies?
Because, it can be configured to just leave the original, uploaded image size and be done with it.
Relja of House Novović, the First of His Name, King of the Plains, the Breaker of Chains, WirMach Wolves pack member
BikeGremlin's web-hosting reviews
I guess ClassicPress is bound to break with newer versions of WP themes, like Divi etc.(?)
I have tested Elementor and Brizy with ClassicPress. But that defeats the purpose of using ClassicPress. It serves a different purpose altogether.
Best option for images is to host it on a cdn. I use Gumlet on production sites for feature images.
You can host all other inline images on a web folder, link to cdn and use url based transformations. That solves problem of multiple images that WP creates, derived from the original image. Keeps backup sizes small.
Many options these days posting a link from
Imagekit, for example
https://docs.imagekit.io/features/image-transformations/resize-crop-and-other-transformations
More space equals better speed is a myth and probably mis selling. Caveat: my post, testing and all work excludes membership sites, woo commerce. Dynamics might be different there (bigger database, more transformations, cpu cycles ...)
Ideally, even if we add US Dollar 1 a month for BunnyCDN, maximum one will spend 22 dollars a year on hosting- assuming cdn is considered as part of hosting.
But then a seven dollar a year vpsdime and coupons from BunnyCDN (most recent was 6 USD at OGF for BF) bring down the price again to same ten dollar threshold.
———-
blog | exploring visually |
@vyas Cloudflare does pretty well as a free cdn + some other optimizations features. Most of the time, free cloudflare would perform better than other options like bunnycdn unless you have a pretty serious stack.
Your posts have been quite interesting, but I find that it's not a fair comparison if you compare wordpress on shared vs classicpress on a vps. I think it would have been more interesting if you just did a webinoly wordpress stack for the comparisons. Anyway, it is pretty clear that vps > shared in almost every scenario in terms of value proposition if you're looking at performance.
Also, with regards to the topic on SSD vs NVMe, when it comes to wordpress, it's pretty much all a marketing gimmick. You wouldn't see any performance differences between SSD/NVMe AND HDD if you're on a shared environment that's not severely oversold because of I/O limits. Honestly, this applies to vps as well, but you may see some minor performance benefits compared to shared. (In my opinion, the only performance benefit is probably backups)
@bikegremlin, more allocated space in the context of webhosting does nothing to affect performance. However, bigger drives are usually faster than smaller drives because they have better engineering. However, this means nothing in the context of webhosting because with bigger drives, there would be more users and so you get less performance. Also, drives that are nearing full capacity tend to run slower.
In any case, avoid shared hosting and page builders like divi if possible. They are seriously bad news if your website grows or if you want to make changes to your site. I understand there is a market for these things but if you are making your own website and not doing it as a web dev business... Do it right. (You learn more things too)
@bibi
I concur on most of your views.
My point behind this exercise was to discover the price point which is workable for the beginner. And the available options in that range.
Was not keen on presenting the Henry Ford option “any colour as long as it it black”.
Similarly, it would do dis service to the community if I presented only one or two options “If your budget is under ten US dollars, you only have two options”.
That fortunately is not the case.
SSD/ NVMe debate is more relevant for woo commerce sites, etc. My first WP site on VPS had HDD. The host (another great guy I met) told me point blank.
“Disk type does not matter for blog. “ He even bumped up my RAM to 2x - 8 GB- for free, to prove it to me.
CF free tier for me does not work well. The traffic is routed via Germany or UK on multiple occasions.. when CF have 10 POPs in India. Maybe they are all reserved for paid plans, I am not ready for that option yet.
On a lighter note,
I have excluded Cloudflare because many members in this forums have strong emotions about CF :-)
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blog | exploring visually |
Related to the parts of your post concerning shared (vs VPS) hosting:
I would say it depends. I wrote here about VPS (vs shared).
I would also add that there are good, and poor quality shared, as well as VPS providers.
I've seen WP sites run noticeably (and, definitely measurably) faster on a good shared hosting (with LiteSpeed), compared to a VPS.
I'd say that VPS is not always, in every way, better, and/or cheaper than shared hosting.
Relja of House Novović, the First of His Name, King of the Plains, the Breaker of Chains, WirMach Wolves pack member
BikeGremlin's web-hosting reviews
That's interesting. But yeah, not using cloudflare can be better if your server is geographically close to you. I felt like the only way to beat cloudflare on a global scale is if you ran a high availability setup, so I just stuck with cloudflare.
I agree that shared can sometimes be better. However, my claim was that VPS gives you better performance per dollar. Spend the same amount of money on shared hosting and a VPS, and 99% of the time the VPS will give you better performance on the same website.
Your site briefly touches on overselling. However, the reality is the situation is usually much, much worse on shared hosting environments because there's gonna be resellers who fill up those servers. You said on your blog that a host could sell 64 plans of 2 GB ram on a server with 64 GB ram and 12 threads. Okay, for the sake of argument, I'll accept that as fact. However, among some of the shared hosts which you use, I am aware that they use servers with 8 threads and 32 GB ram, and they sell reseller plans on those servers. You could be looking at THOUSANDS of accounts on ONE server. Then, there's the issue of the stack. What you get with litespeed etc. on a default softaculous wordpress install is a much slower stack than stacks which you can run on a VPS.
There's many more details which can be discussed, but I cannot imagine a shared plan doing better than a VPS provided they have the same price tag. The stress tests which @vyas did show a clear picture here. It's a shame you can't really tell what the average response time is on shared because of the failed requests.