(July 2, '18) Ugh! I’m gong to have to move my site. Looking for a new home… Is there a site/blog that looks at hosting and is not driven by affiliate commissions?
StudioPress managed hosting is overkill for my little blog. But their uptime is fine. I have not experienced the slows that crept into my BlueHost sites.
…the decision has been made to end StudioPress & Synthesis hosting services on December 3rd, 2018.— from StudioPress
When I went to Studio Press Aug 1, '18
StudioPress Sites is now powered by WP Engine. Joy higher fees … Not for me I alread migrated to Cloudways.
Perhaps consider switching to Squarespace. Earlier this year I switched my company’s website from WordPress to Squarespace and couldn’t be happier.
I remain a big fan of WordPress and use it for a membership site that requires more functionality that Squarespace can currently deliver. Though it is much more expensive to run. Costs include plugin renewals, paying developers, and the time I personally put into keeping the site up and running.
I’ve been a big fan of CloudWays https://www.cloudways.com/en/
They’re the fastest and most affordable option I could find and there support team is quick to help me with questions.
I’ve heard about StudioPress getting bought out, I hope they still keep there themes going as they’re the best around.
Yes, I use StudioPress themes too. Bought a license to use all of them a few years ago. The email I received only addressed hosting.
My site’s currently on Netlify, which offers free hosting for static sites. They seem to make their money from larger multi-user setups, but they’re venture-backed so anything’s possible down the line I suppose.
Netlify’s admin page is simple enough for what I use it for (personal site/blog). They can manage your DNS if you want, and automatic HTTPS support via LetsEncrypt is nice as well (I was using certbot manually when I was at NearlyFreeSpeech and I never looked forward to doing the certificate dance every few months).
What I do is use Hugo to generate a static site based on some Markdown files on my local computer, then I just drag the generated pile of HTML/CSS into Netlify’s admin page and it’ll deploy it. You can also tell Netlify to watch a GitHub repo for activity and then it’ll use Hugo or any static site generator of your choice to automate the build and deploy process whenever it sees a new commit.
There’s also an open-source NetlifyCMS project that provides a bare bones Wordpress-style web interface for editing the content on your site. What it does is edit the source files in your GitHub repo, and then Netlify does the usual build and deploy dance.
IIRC, Hugo has a WordPress import feature… so might be worth giving it a try if it seems up your alley. Certainly my Hugo-generated static site loads a whole lot faster than my WordPress one ever did.
3 Likes
I always prefer managed WordPress hosting.
I second Cloudways for a more geeky solution.
Flywheel is second.
For slightly less expensive solution Siteground beats all other hosts like bluehost greengeeks, etc.
Belated thanks… looking at Cloudways. Downloaded the migrator plugin but will continue in Terrier Mode (circle, dart in, tear off a bite, circle…). I plan to have the deed done before the end of July. Looks like I may save several dollars. Lower cost is useful for a site with no monitary pretense.
Anyway I’m having me some fun. Will post details here when the deed is done.
Advice appreciated if you have done the deed.
I use Siteground who are pretty good for Wordpress. Control panel can be a bit techie but plenty of functionality. Function to auto update your Wordpress sites which is useful.
They are here:
https://www.siteground.co.uk
Migration StudioPress to Cloudways
This is a celebratory post. Of interest to a select few…
StudioPress Managed WordPress hosting is shutting down.
I decided to move my blog to Cloudways. Thanks for the recommendations.
- backed up site saved copies to a couple locations — used All-in-One WP Migratio backup tool
- installed Cloudways (CW) migration plugin
- set up my server through CW
- watched video on how to do the deed. (text and picture video … I turned it into a slideshow on sections showing how to fill in some site info boxes)
- little discrepancies in instructions like install a new version of WordPress … err it was already installed
These steps perhaps took 30- 40 minutes. CW has a text instruction sheet, a better choice than the video mentioned above.
To do the deed
- start my CW server
- go to old site and start CW migration plugin
- fill in four or five boxes (yes that looks reasonable… let’s try it… nothing blew up)
- Push Button
- watch the aqua, blue, green progress bars for 15 minutes.
- Test Button
- By Zeus! That’s my site.
Next some fumble around time to get my name server (names. com) to point to my new server. This is simple in execution when on the right page… I wrote up my confusion sent it to CW. But, back at names. com I executed a maybe this will work. It worked. At least I was no longer pointed at StudioPress.
After a couple hours of propagation time… up and running.
To early to answer the question, good move, Smiling now.