Economical WordPress AWS Architectures
Published: 2023-02-20 17:06:04

As one of the most popular content management systems, WordPress is used by millions of websites worldwide. And while it’s known for its user-friendly interface and flexibility, hosting WordPress on the cloud can be a bit challenging if you’re not familiar with AWS.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud computing platform that offers a wide range of services for businesses of all sizes. However, it can be overwhelming to navigate AWS’s vast offerings and select the right services for your WordPress site.

In this blog, we’ll explore cost-effective AWS architectures for WordPress that can help you optimize performance and reduce your hosting expenses.

Use Amazon Lightsail
Amazon Lightsail is a simple and affordable way to host your WordPress site on AWS. It’s designed for small to medium-sized websites and offers a range of pre-configured plans to choose from, making it easy to get started.

With Lightsail, you get a virtual private server (VPS) that includes SSD storage, a static IP address, and a content delivery network (CDN) to improve site performance. You can also easily scale up or down your server as your site grows or experiences fluctuations in traffic.

One of the best features of Lightsail is its predictable pricing. You pay a flat monthly fee based on your plan, and there are no surprise charges for data transfer or storage.

Use Amazon EC2
If you’re looking for more customization and flexibility, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is a great option for hosting your WordPress site on AWS. EC2 is a scalable compute capacity that allows you to launch and manage virtual machines (instances) as needed.

With EC2, you can choose the type of instance that best suits your needs based on factors like CPU, memory, and storage requirements. You can also configure your own security groups and access controls to protect your site from cyber threats.

EC2 also offers a range of pricing options, including on-demand, reserved, and spot instances. Reserved instances can help you save money by committing to a specific instance type and capacity for a certain period, while spot instances allow you to bid on unused EC2 capacity for a lower price.

Use Amazon RDS
Managing a database can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. That’s where Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) comes in. RDS is a managed database service that makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud.

Using RDS to host your WordPress database can help you reduce operational costs and increase efficiency. RDS automatically handles tasks like software patching, backups, and monitoring, so you can focus on your site content.

You can also choose the type of database engine that best suits your needs, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB. RDS offers several pricing options, including on-demand, reserved, and Aurora Serverless.

Use Amazon S3
Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is a highly scalable object storage service that can be used to host your WordPress media files, such as images, videos, and audio files. S3 provides high durability and availability, so you can be sure your files are safe and accessible at all times.

Using S3 to host your media files can help you reduce your hosting costs, as you only pay for the storage and data transfer you use. You can also set up lifecycle policies to automatically move older files to lower-cost storage tiers as they become less frequently accessed.

You can use a plugin like WP Offload Media to easily offload your media files to S3 and serve them from there. This can also help improve site performance by reducing the load on your server.

Use Amazon CloudFront
Amazon CloudFront is a global content delivery network (CDN) that can help improve site performance by caching your WordPress site content.