Hi everyone! I hope you all are doing well in spite of the ongoing pandemic. My apologies for the inactivity and for not posting any updates during the past couple of weeks. If you’re wondering why it’s because I just recently migrated to a new hosting provider.
I have lost count of how many times I have migrated my blog from one hosting provider to another. I’ve been on Dreamhost, MediaTemple and ServInt just to mention a few. The reasons have been varied but most of the time, I’ve migrated due to issues related to server performance, support, etc.
This recent migration was different. For the past 4 years, JaypeeOnline was hosted on Pressidium, a managed WordPress hosting provider. They have been one of the best hosting providers that I have dealt with in terms of performance and support. So why did I migrate or move away from them?
The main reason is to cut expenses. I was subscribed to their Personal plan which was the lowest priced one and it cost me $42/month.
In the effort to improve the page speed and loading times of JaypeeOnline, I have purchased WP Rocket which is a caching plugin for WordPress-powered sites. Unfortunately, due to Pressidium’s policy (certain plugins aren’t allowed that can cause conflict with the platform or duplicate functionality with an existing feature), I had to disable the caching features of WP Rocket and instead use Pressidium’s built-in caching system which in my experience, didn’t do a great job. This is another reason that made me decide to migrate to a different hosting provider.
While doing my research on improving page speed and load times for WordPress, I came across a blog called WP Speed Matters by Gijo Varghese. This is where I came across my new hosting provider – Cloudways managed hosting.
Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that allows users to build, deploy, scale & manage web applications. By itself, they aren’t the “real” hosting provider. Rather, they connect the users with companies like Digital Ocean, Linode and Vultr (hardware & infrastructure providers). Cloudways is the one who setups and helps manage the servers and provides the customer and technical support that the clients need.
The first thing that made me consider them is the pricing because as I mentioned earlier, I was trying to cut my expenses and was looking for a cheaper option. Their cheapest plans range between US$10-$12 (Digital Ocean, Linode & Vultr) and comes with 1GB RAM, 1 Core Processor, 25GB Storage and 1TB Bandwidth. Clients can choose which provider they want – Digital Ocean, Linode, Vultr, Amazon AWS and Google Cloud. Aside from that, there’s also an option to choose the data center location.
In my case, I opted for the $23/month plan on Vultr that offers 2GB RAM, 1 Core Processor, 50GB Storage and 2TB Bandwidth. I would’ve gone with Digital Ocean but I wanted a central location for my data center and only Linode & Vultr had options for a data center in Dallas.
Because of the switch to Cloudways managed hosting, I’m able to save almost half the amount of what I previously paid on Pressidium without compromising on the site or server performance. In fact, I even got an upgrade in terms of storage and bandwidth plus I get to use all the features of WP Rocket and install/use some plugins that were not allowed on Pressidium.
I’ve been on Cloudways close to a month now and it’s still early but so far, I have no regrets. My site is working great, I’ve had no issues with the server and their customer support has been quick and helpful.
This is not a full review of Cloudways that’s why I didn’t provide too many details. I will come up with a full review soon and if you’re interested in that, please stay tuned.
