So with all the WP Engine drama, I've taken to the idea of switching over to my own servers and hosting myself utilizing SpinupWP. I guess this post would be better off in r/webhosting but I'm also concerned about the WP side of things so figured I would post here.
Wanted to get some info from others on what should I be aware of when it comes to maintaining my own servers, migrating sites over from WP Engine, what differences I will see, and how to get comfortable with the command line or alternatives to being able to access the DBs on the server if need be.
I've read a bit of the documentation on SpinupWP but also wanted to hear from users or past users about it as well.
Grateful for your help!
I have not heard much positive about SpinupWP lately and don’t see it recommended alot anymore. I remember it had a great name years ago.
Also checkout runcloud.io and xcloud.host
I have been using Spinup WP for few years (right after the beta ended) and it’s a been a fantastic experience. I use it with Digital Ocean so the setup is very simple. They consistently make thoughtful improvements to the platform. Support has been helpful friendly in my experience as well.
Both server and WordPress management tools are great. Their documentation is fantastic! I’m not developer/server admin but the docs have helped me work through any settings I needed to adjust.
10/10, highly recommend.
If you’re willing to do a bit of maintenance it’s a very affordable and reliable way to run WordPress.
We’ve been using it since it launched in ~2017. It’s been amazing and has the most well-polished UI I’ve used in this space, and I’ve tried tons. They use very sensible defaults. They continue to update the product. They have good docs that explain how to do a lot of things. You can email the founder directly and he’ll respond. We’ve had exactly 0 issues with it. I’m pretty sure they used to give a free trial as well, I’d suggest doing that if it’s still an option.
Disclaimer: at the risk of doxxing myself, i was a developer at spinupwp and lost my job in the shuffling that happened when delicious brains sold to WP Engine a few year ago. So maybe I’m biased?
I can’t think of any obvious gotchas WRT to running your own server on SU. For the most part, it eliminates the need to ever touch the command line unless you really want to. And when I worked the support queue, i would always make a good effort to help out users who may have done something funky to mess up their servers. I don’t know what support is like these days.
Just go Cloudways
been using it for a few years and its always worked really well. no complaints.
I got started with server stuff thanks to [EasyEngine v3](https://easyengine.io/docs/commands/) and then the fork called [WordOps](https://wordops.net/). They’re botj command line tools but are completely free.
For client sites I use Cloudways on Digital Ocean droplets. Cloudways is set up similar to the way I would setup a server so the service clicked for me. It’s a more technical dashboard experience compared to WPEngine.
My advice would be to keep detailed notes of the steps you take to set things up and why. Make sure you have off-site backups nailed down because it’s possible your VPS could just die one day out of the blue.
I would dive in with SpinupWP on a personal site first to get your feet wet. In terms of hosting providers I like Hetzner cloud for the most bang for your buck.