I'm posting this as a community wiki because I'd like to get a collaboratively edited list of features for a high-end WordPress webhost.
I'm posting this as a community wiki because I'd like to get a collaboratively edited list of features for a high-end WordPress webhost. For example, if you are running a high-tra. High End WordPress Host Features. If you do all the caching, CPU, compression, RAM, and database tweaks, and still need more performance, consider a web farm for your blog, as in hooking up a shared NFS volume among several web nodes, and have your web nodes all use the same central MySQL database. You can build something like this with a free package called Ultra Monkey.
For example, if you are running a high-traffic WordPress-based site and/or a WordPress site that needs really hardened security what features would you love to see offered so that you don't have to implement everything that exceeds the most basic installation of WordPress core? Many of us know that WP Engine has just launched and it's the closest thing to a high-end webhost specifically for WordPress that I'm aware of. But rather than have there be only one, it would be great if there were many webhosts offering a much higher level.
Admittedly I'm weak in this area which is one of my reasons for posting but I'll start with a strawman list of desired features. Let's ignore the non-WordPress related things like 24 hour phone support, etc. and ask that we also be specific i.e. don't just say 'performance optimized' or 'highly secure' like you see on this site, but actual specifics that indicate a specific implementation:
Preinstalled Memcached support
Standard .htaccess tuning for GZIP support
Optional integration with Amazon Cloud Front for upload files
Automatic file and database backup with an advanced admin console like a 'Time Machine' on the Mac but for WordPress in the Browser.
Files that are automatically versioned upon FTP upload into SVN or GIT
Automatic database versioning into SVN or GIT
Pre-selected list of verified and supported plugins
What else? I'm sure there's a much longer list than I've come up with.
Another speciality feature could also be White-labeled turnkey WordPress multisite hosting. What I mean by this is a service that allows someone with marketing and sales experience in a vertical niche (for example, 'Dry Cleaners') to offer website hosting for their market without having to do any technical work whatsoever, including having the host handle all support as well as signup and billing but do it white-label. I think there's a huge market for this.
Note I'm not asking because I want to create such a service, I don't, but I would like to see a definitive reference for webhosts who would consider offering such a service.
UPDATE #1:
Another feature that would be nice to have would be to have a service that could synchronize WordPress core, themes and plugins across multiple servers so that managing multiple server instances for a site that needs to scale would be easier and handled by the hosting company. (ref: Ticket #13067 - Configuration of Plugin and Theme Repository/ies)
UPDATE #2:
Yet another feature would be to offer an option to use a Sphinx Search server and to interface it with WordPress using one of these plugins:
Search API (See Also)
UPDATE #3:
Cron scheduling via robust and reliable Linux cron as an alternative to WordPress' pseudo-cron (see also and this). Possibly incorporate admin functionality i.e. with one of the following plugins:
UPDATE #4:Over on the LinkedIn WordPress group someone offered free hosting and I asked him what his service would offer to which he replied the following (need to become a member to see this link, membership is free but I think you have to be approved by the group moderator first):
PHP Mcrypt and all Dependancies
W3 Total Cache plugin for use with Highwinds CDN
In addition to those items he also mentioned:
Latest up to date version of PHP
Latest up to date version of MySql
MySql configured with high allocations of RAM
Systems configured to do their best not to run anything in Swap
And in addition to all the above someone else in the group suggested it would be nice to have:
Opcode PHP cache like APC or eAccelerator
UPDATE #5:
The question 'What steps can I take to optimize wordpress in regard to server load' has some useful comments related to this topic.
closed as not constructive by anu, Brian Fegter, Wyck, kaiser, Stephen HarrisSep 24 '12 at 10:51
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6 Answers
I think we also need a few more features:
Minifying JS, CSS and the HTML that is being sent down the wire.
Caching the op-code of the PHP that will be generated (apart from Memcached).
Upload the JS, CSS and Images that are used in the theme and/or plugin to a CDN and sync automatically.
Option to use one of the public CDN netwoks like Google for common resources like jQuery.
Offer a common CDN for all the WordPress admin scripts and images (which should be the exact same on multiple installations of WordPress) so that I can have that work just a little faster.
Managed DNS - To ensure that they can restore a backup of your site on another location automatically in case they have issues with the current hardware. With this they can automatically switch your domains over to the new settings.
It always depends on the point of view. A webhost should offer
much RAM
much more RAM
much CPU
much more CPU
a separated Database Server from the Server hosting the Website (HTTP Server)
to setup the Database as Master/Client
to automatically outsource Files to a (private or public) CDN
a hosting service for comments so they don't rely on your blog (like outsourcing Comments to Disqus)
automatically cache your wordpress site with a special, wordpress aware caching module running in apache.
a Bytecache like xcache (to complete the list for Zend Optimizer, APC etc. that were already named)
From a security and performance perspective I think a high end WordPress web host should be run more like a managed server than a hosting company meaning that users would not have access to a control panel and should only be permitted SFTP access to a subdomain directory where their WordPress was installed. This would eliminate the need to run SuPHP and allow the host to run APC or another opcode cache.
High End WordPress Host Features
Staging area for development and testing before going live with changes
Nginx front end proxy for static content
Dedicated MySQL server
version control and alerts on file changes
Redundant nightly file and databasebackups
Built in support ticket system in WP admin
SFTP and WordPress admin panel access only
Pre-configured caching plugin
Access to a shell for the operations better done from the command line than the dashboard.
If you do all the caching, CPU, compression, RAM, and database tweaks, and still need more performance, consider a web farm for your blog, as in hooking up a shared NFS volume among several web nodes, and have your web nodes all use the same central MySQL database. You can build something like this with a free package called Ultra Monkey.
Hmmm, interesting... no one mentioned using LiteSpeed web server.
I ran some informal benchmarks in a review of 4 web hosts and the LiteSpeed server (MDD) had some of the fastest numbers. Scroll down the page to see the spreadsheet view: http://wpverse.com/eak
I forgot but I also saw one web host company said they were using SSD based RAID for their MySQL database farm.
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I have a client who I made a wordpress website for. It has Woocommerce installed on it and a set of content managed pages including an image gallery. The site is sort of supplemental to a TV show (in the USA) and is subject to large spikes in traffic. So when the TV show is finished we get large amounts of traffic. We also have a mailing list with 10,000 people on it. They have over 30,000 Facebook fans too. We have to be careful not to send out new content to all of them at once! but this is no way to go forward.
I'm currently hosting on Linode and everything is great until we see a spike. For example last Friday we send out an email and got 5000 unique visitors over 2 - 3 hours. The site fell over.
I'm thinking of putting all the images / stylesheets on a CDN like Amazon S3 and perhaps buying a better linode with more memory, but I'm not sure how much this would help.
The client have suggested these people http://wpengine.com/ and they are willing to pay $300 a month just for hosting but something is telling me this is just crazy and isnt the best idea. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions?
EDIT Thanks for all the great help. I've got plenty to go on.