Wordpress - Best-of-Breed Features of a High-End WordPress Web Host?
I think we also need a few more features:
- Minifying JS, CSS and the HTML that is being sent down the wire.
- Caching the op-code of the PHP that will be generated (apart from Memcached).
- Upload the JS, CSS and Images that are used in the theme and/or plugin to a CDN and sync automatically.
- Option to use one of the public CDN netwoks like Google for common resources like jQuery.
- Offer a common CDN for all the WordPress admin scripts and images (which should be the exact same on multiple installations of WordPress) so that I can have that work just a little faster.
- Managed DNS - To ensure that they can restore a backup of your site on another location automatically in case they have issues with the current hardware. With this they can automatically switch your domains over to the new settings.
It always depends on the point of view. A webhost should offer
- much RAM
- much more RAM
- much CPU
- much more CPU
- a separated Database Server from the Server hosting the Website (HTTP Server)
- to setup the Database as Master/Client
- to automatically outsource Files to a (private or public) CDN
- a hosting service for comments so they don't rely on your blog (like outsourcing Comments to Disqus)
- automatically cache your wordpress site with a special, wordpress aware caching module running in apache.
- a Bytecache like xcache (to complete the list for Zend Optimizer, APC etc. that were already named)
From a security and performance perspective I think a high end WordPress web host should be run more like a managed server than a hosting company meaning that users would not have access to a control panel and should only be permitted SFTP access to a subdomain directory where their WordPress was installed. This would eliminate the need to run SuPHP and allow the host to run APC or another opcode cache.
High End WordPress Host Features
- Staging area for development and testing before going live with changes
- Nginx front end proxy for static content
- Dedicated MySQL server
- version control and alerts on file changes
- Redundant nightly file and database backups
- Built in support ticket system in WP admin
- SFTP and WordPress admin panel access only
- Pre-configured caching plugin