After four years of running this blog on Google Cloud, I’ve migrated it to WordPress.com. The migration process was hassle-free and worked quite well. The only unexpected change I had to make was to transfer philipotoole.com to WordPress, as Cloudflare‘s Terms of Service prohibit you from deleting their nameservers!
Back in 2009, when I first launched the site, reliable WordPress hosting options were limited. I also wanted the hands-on experience of managing an Apache-based website. Later, moving to GCP was another learning opportunity, as I’d started working there the year before.
The move to WordPress.com brings significant cost savings. I was paying around $70 per month to Google Cloud for a Virtual Machine and Cloud SQL instance. Now, WordPress.com hosting will only cost $250 for two years.
Overall, the switch to WordPress.com looks like it’s been a great move—simplifying site management while significantly cutting costs. I’m looking forward to focusing more on my writing and less on infrastructure.