KA Cartlidge Science Fiction and Fantasy Author

As may or may not be apparent, this blog is now WordPress (which is PHP based).

For a while I was using Blogger as the last time I used WordPress one of the plugins I had installed started covertly inserting stuff into my page’s mark-up. However, in my efforts to de-Google (see a future post) I have switched back to WordPress.

Incidentally this is one good reason why, even with Blogger, you should always use a custom domain. If I hadn’t then anyone used to accessing my Blogger version would need to be redirected from an active Blogger blog to here. With a custom domain I just switch hosts and visitors are sent to the right place automatically (the specific page/post URLs are different, but that doesn’t bother me and could be fixed if I chose).

So, where to host it?

I have an annually-paid account with DreamHost who are pretty good in what they offer. There are instances, however, when the performance drops notably for an hour or two at a time. I use them for hosting test sites or demo stuff, but I wanted something more reliable for my blog; something more on a par with Blogger.

I could have gone to a virtual server (VPS) or even a dedicated server but (a) that really is overkill and (b) they require a fair bit of maintenance. I know what I’m doing (I am in IT) but I don’t want to have to do it, so they were out of the window.

So I looked at AWS (Amazon Web Services).

It was too geeky and involved for me, plus I am weaning myself off them (as a consumer). Before anyone asks, I have no problem with their tax affairs – provided they follow the law then it is the lawmaker’s fault if that doesn’t work out too great for tax collection. My issue is their behaviour in the eBook market, but again that’s for another post.

So I then looked at Microsoft Azure.

I didn’t hold out much hope as this is PHP we are talking about, and Microsoft are obviously heavily into .Net, but I checked them out nonetheless.

Their performance you can judge for yourself, as they are my hosts at the time of this writing. For me in the UK it is virtually instant. Ease of use is pretty good too as they have a very nice control panel and you can choose the level of complexity you require.

They have the usual Cloud Service which has the same levels of complexity as AWS, but they also have Websites which works pretty much the same as shared hosting, only on their Azure platform. You do need to move up a step within the Websites option (from Free to Shared) to get a custom domain and FTP, but I still estimate around £10 a month gets me everything including 60gb of outbound traffic (a ridiculous amount I know) and unlimited inbound.

To make it even easier they also offer instant installations of many packages – including WordPress – at a single click just like DreamHost and others. Oh, and multiple sites per account.

The end result is great uptime, simple setup, very good value, and the superb performance of a VPS or better without any of the maintenance or cost implications. All backed my Microsoft’s decades of expertise (their cloud business turns over more than a billion dollars a year).

Currently, I cannot recommend them enough. Click here for details on the Azure platform (not an affiliate link).