I recently moved my blog from self-hosted WordPress.org to the WordPress.com Business Plan.
Previously, I was running WordPress on AWS. I set up an EC2 instance with CentOS, using nginx as the web server, and manually installed WordPress. For speed optimization, I used PHP-FPM FastCGI caching. To handle load balancing and redundancy, I set up an RDS instance running MariaDB for the database. Naturally, a load balancer was required, and I assigned a free SSL certificate from AWS Certificate Manager. DNS was managed through Route 53. For load distribution, media files were directed to S3 using a plugin, and they were served from there…
And it all became exhausting.
At some point, I realized, why not just let WordPress.com handle everything? Doing it all myself, achieving that sense of accomplishment, and spending over 10,000 yen per month—did I really need to keep going through this?
I mean, the Business Plan is cheap!
To migrate, I exported data from the original site using the export tool and imported it to the Business Plan site. However, due to media files being stored on S3, they didn’t transfer over. So, I had to manually download each file through the browser and upload it to the Business Plan site. Luckily, there weren’t that many files, so I managed with brute force.
After migration, I deleted the DNS settings on AWS Route 53 and transferred the domain via the WordPress.com domain menu. Since I originally purchased the “.blog” domain through WordPress.com, the transfer was instant. I anticipated a brief downtime during configuration.
Once the domain was transferred to WordPress.com, I adjusted the domain settings in Microsoft 365, which I had registered with to use email addresses. Since Route 53 was only set up for the website and Microsoft 365, it didn’t take much effort.
Due to missing images from the original import, I had to go back and reset all the featured images and in-post images.
All in all, everything was wrapped up within a day. It would have been a lot of work if I had more articles, but thankfully, I made this decision early when there weren’t too many posts.
I chose the Business Plan for three reasons: unlimited file storage (as of the time of writing; this has since been significantly restricted), plugin installations, and theme uploads.
Having been used to the freedom of self-hosting, I still wanted the ability to add plugins freely and customize my theme. File storage was another concern; on the Premium Plan, with larger photos, storage would eventually run out. For now, I chose a theme from the defaults, though.
The “Used Storage” display in the settings showed an initial capacity of about 1.91TB, so it seems nearly 2TB is allocated when you first subscribe to the Business Plan.
The admin interface is now the WordPress.com dashboard instead of the self-hosted one. You can’t customize permalinks, so dates are automatically added, but that’s not really a problem.
Regarding ads, Premium Plan and above include WordAds, while Business Plan users can freely add Google AdSense and other networks.
Now, I can focus solely on writing my blog without worrying about server management.
In this sense of freedom, I look forward to updating my blog with a refreshed spirit.
