Is WordPress good?
What happens when you have an idea or side project and don't know where to start? Easy: Wordpress.
WordPress is quick, cheap and easy to use.
It is SEO friendly and you can build anything you want in a matter of hours. It is also probably the best CMS right now and if you are working with non-tech literate people, they can do anything they want through plugins - although this is a double-edged sword.
Hosting solutions
However, the issue is always how/where to host your project - whether to go with shared hosting, dedicated server or VPS. There is also the cost to consider - after all this is a minor side project. I didn't want to spend any valuable time dealing with servers and just wanted to build something as quick as possible.
If the website would have been for a client, and they wanted Wordpress, I would have chosen Kinsta or Pantheon. I have used both in the past and I highly recommend them. The majority of my time was dealing with Kinsta, and while they both have amazing support (especially Kinsta), they were out of my budget.
List of cheap hosting services for WordPress:
- AwardsSpace
- NameCheap - EasyWP
- x10Premium
- Ionos (2022 update: STAY AWAY FROM IONOS)
- Bluehost
- Dreamhost
Popular hosting services that aren't dirt cheap:
I ended up going with NameCheap - EasyWP, I buy my domains there and it's been a good experience so far.
2022 edit: I had some issues with them but the service is worth checking out, from what I understand they have improved quite a bit.
So what's the best and cheap hosting for Wordrpess?
After my horrible experience I ended up looking into something a bit more complicated to set up, but still quite simple.
DigitalOcean with Plesk allows you to get a free Plesk license with 3 email accounts. The installation is really simple, you can follow my guide on how to install WordPress with Plesk on DigitalOcean here, the price is almost unbeatable for the amount of features you get.
This is the end result: BaitGaming, the site still needs optimization everywhere and I need to set up cache. But it's the v1.0.0 and we are up and running in record time, the rest of the team can start building online presence and in the near future I will rework the site. It is most likely going to be Next.JS with Wordpress as headless CMS.
To get in touch with me the quickest way is @tekbog and if you are looking for more WordPress content @natmiletic is a good and reliable source and so is @edanbenatar.