It’s a bit of necro but I thought this is useful. I just spoke to Wordpress support and it seemed the ability to just buy domain mapping at $13/year without plan is only possible for WP accounts created a year ago. For new accounts, this is not possible anymore. I was trying to do this for a friend who started to blog and its not available anymore.
Huh, would you look at that. Seems that this goes a long way towards answering some questions I had. I’m currently contemplating setting up my own personal website for personal and professional reasons. Wordpress is of interest to me because of pricing. Let’s be honest, a website I’m creating as a way to put a few projects and programming samples isn’t exactly something I want to be paying much money for. I considered setting up a server box myself and self hosting, but that comes with a host of potential complications I’m not too interested in handling.
So, with that said, would wordpress be a good option? Or do some of you have a better choice for a mostly small scale project. Keep in mind tinkering with backend of the website isn’t just a plus, it’s half the point.
Hosted WordPress (wordpress.com) is a poor choice if you want to do anything on the backend. They won’t allow it. You have access to whatever is exposed in the WordPress dashboard, nothing else.
But normal web hosting (similar cost to WordPress.com hosting packages) would allow that, even with express installed versions, generally.
Yes, exactly. What ArmandoPenblade said.
Hmm well I’m trying to determine what I can and can not do. I’m not looking to go tinkering in the port setting and stuff. I am, however, wanting to create some more advanced features. Be it Javascript or other, and it had seemed this was doable. Also host links for files to download.
If not Wordpress, what then would you suggest?
Well… it depends on what type of skills you want to show off. The cool kids these days usually set up a static site with Jekyll or Hugo or the like and often host it for free on Github Pages. If you want a database driven site and a blank slate, you could roll your own site with Flask or another similar micro framework. Thinks like Vapor and Iron are pretty bleeding edge. Lektor has gotten some attention in the Python world. There’s Node.js, of course. If you go the custom route, I’d look at the $5/month droplets at Digital Ocean. Ghost is another one.
It really depends on your goals. I’d recommend the one that cuts out the most sysadmin while giving you the best balance of flexibility and customizability. Wordpress is good, but such a very over saturated developer market.