Flexible website and LMS have accelerated launches but performance has needed constant tuning
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Wordpress on Amazon Linux is to deploy the website of our previous company and also the LMS. A specific example of how I used Wordpress on Amazon Linux for our website or LMS is that the company website was entirely on Wordpress and hosted on Amazon Linux using AWS Lightsail servers. Our LMS was also entirely on Wordpress and used a Wordpress LMS plugin, and it was also deployed on Amazon Linux on AWS Lightsail. Later, we switched to AWS EC2 servers.
About my use case or how I deployed Wordpress on Amazon Linux, we went through the AWS console and created a server and deployed AWS right there.
What is most valuable?
The best features that Wordpress on Amazon Linux offers include that Wordpress is a very good system where you can start building your website, and I would say one of the main things is the availability of themes. You have thousands of themes available, and you can buy a theme, install it there, and you get a very nice looking site. Another thing is the Wordpress ecosystem, the whole ecosystem. Those are the main things.
The features of themes and the Wordpress ecosystem helped my team and made our projects easier. Our LMS is entirely on Wordpress and it is using a plugin called LearnDash, which is a totally all-in-one Wordpress LMS plugin that has support for almost everything. If some support is not there, we can install another plugin or another theme, in this case, to change appearance as well. You can get basically anything done, and LearnDash is one of the best plugins I have seen that does the full job of an entire LMS.
Regarding the features of Wordpress on Amazon Linux, when it comes to specifically Amazon Linux, I have seen some good optimizations, such as how easy it is to start the whole server, start the database, and everything at one command. Those specific improvements for Amazon Linux when it comes to Wordpress are really good, such as checking status and restarting services with just one single command, unlike a normal Linux distribution where you would have to run multiple commands. Amazon Linux is actually optimized just for Wordpress in this case, so it is really good.
Wordpress on Amazon Linux has positively impacted my organization because it allowed us to start new websites really easily, and when there was something to edit on our website, we did not need to go to developers to get it done. Anyone could do it with the Wordpress element editor. We also needed landing pages for separate business entities or promotional campaigns, and when we needed that, Wordpress was the place to go because it was really easy to get started with.
With Wordpress, we saved a lot of time and money because if it was not for it, we would have to pay for developers and keep a team of web designers on our pocket to get our websites done. With the really easy, non-technical user-friendly editor, it is easy to do things. We could spin up a whole website within a few days, thanks to the Wordpress themes, which was a really big win.
What needs improvement?
While Wordpress is all good, one of the main key issues I see is performance. Wordpress is not actually suited for some tasks, especially with our LMS, as admin-side tasks such as adding new courses or changing course content used to take a lot of time, sometimes taking two or three minutes to reload or save simple content. Those kinds of performance lags are things we do not really appreciate.
Adding to needed improvements, Wordpress is not a system that is entirely optimized for some of the things that people use it for. Wordpress was meant to be a blogging system, but later optimizations were added, allowing it to be used for anything. The JavaScripts you run on top of Wordpress are causing performance issues. For our website, we had an issue where it would take five to ten seconds to load a very simple page, which is not good when it comes to performance. Performance is actually the number one complaint I have regarding Wordpress, along with the hidden errors that require effort to find.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working in my current field for around three years. I have been using Wordpress on Amazon Linux for around two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Wordpress on Amazon Linux is stable, but some plugins can make it a very unstable minefield. You have to be very mindful about the plugins you add, updates you do, and especially be cautious with unverified plugins as it can easily become unstable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Wordpress on Amazon Linux is scalable. You can set up load balancing to make it scalable, but for a million-user project, I would not say Wordpress is the best choice; you might need a clean-coded alternative. However, for companies scaling from 100 to 10,000, Wordpress is actually an ideal solution.
How are customer service and support?
The customer support for Wordpress on Amazon Linux was really good. Whenever we had issues, the AWS support team would contact us through messages or emails and resolve them easily.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
We did purchase Wordpress on Amazon Linux through the AWS Marketplace.
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it was free to use, but we had to pay for the servers. Lightsail actually offered us a very sweet deal at around $5 a month for the base plan, which was really good and provided us a lot of abilities with our website. For our LMS, which was memory intensive and had performance issues, we had to go for a higher plan.
What was our ROI?
With Wordpress, we saved money because we did not have to pay for products such as Framer or Webflow, which charge a ridiculous amount of money. It also allowed us to build sites quickly, helping us attract more visitors to our website and thus increasing sales.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
With Wordpress, we saved money because we did not have to pay for products such as Framer or Webflow, which charge a ridiculous amount of money.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not evaluate other options before choosing Wordpress on Amazon Linux, but we did consider Webflow and Framer while doing so. They had nice looking UIs and websites, but were very expensive, and moving an entire website from Wordpress to them did not make sense, so we decided to stick with Wordpress.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others looking into using Wordpress on Amazon Linux is that it is a really good platform to start your websites. One thing I would mention is to look for a good theme and start from there. When installing plugins, be mindful not to install everything, as it can easily become unoptimized, sluggish, and buggy. Also, do not install unauthorized installations such as nulled plugins, as that keeps your site at risk. Purchase the plugin you want, install it, and if it does not work, you can always get a refund and try a new one. Be mindful, and you can have a really nice working website or service up and running within a week. Guaranteed.
My name is Rusiru Sapnindu and I work as a marketing automation specialist and a software engineer at AdUp. I previously worked at a company called Metana as a research and development engineer. That is where I mainly used Wordpress on Amazon Linux.
Wordpress on Amazon Linux is deployed in my organization on public and private clouds. I would rate this product a 7 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
