TaylorNet Stack Dive
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I’ve attended a few awesome StackDives that dive into what software is used in a company’s stack, so here is the TaylorNet edition.
Shared Hosting: LiteSpeed Server & CPanel at VPShared
My hosting requirements are easily met with shared hosting, but after growing frustrated with the diminishing cost versus performance ratio of Bluehost, I’ve recently finished migrating everything to VPShared and I’m extremely pleased.
As part of the migration I consolidated the entire Nat Taylor Web Designs network, so now all of the sites I maintain are managed on the same server which greatly simplifies my life, especially when it comes to backups.
Some of the best features of VPShared, besides the basics like CPanel and SSH, include:
- Automated and Free SSL certificates Thanks to Let’s Encrypt and AutoSSL, all of my domains (including subdomains) and mail server get automatically updated, free SSL certificates.
- LiteSpeed Cache LSCache is very similar to mod_cache, but it is built into the server and has an easy WordPress plugin. So far it has been very performant and easy to configure.
- Email I am very pleased with the out-of-the-box email configuration as it includes SSL, authentication via DKIM and SPF, and SpamAssassin.
- Backups JetBackup is available and supports incremental backups, which makes restoration quite simple.
- Speed The server speed has been excellent for everything including CPanel, the WordPress Dashboard and WordPress itself.
- Server Load Currently I feel pretty confident that the server won’t get overcrowded since there are limits Physical Memory, CPU Usage, I/O and IOPS as well as Number Of Processes and Entry Processes.
Websites: WordPress (Mostly)
WordPress has a lot going for it including: ubiquity, cost, web UI and extensibility, among others. It can be overkill and a performance drag, but with good caching its fine and it lets users easily edit their sites.
My WordPress theme is extremely boring.
Version Control System: Git
Git is ubiquitous and serves my purposes well, especially when couple with hooks to do deployments and my deployment of Gitweb to view repositories.
Site Metrics: Awstats
AWStats is maintained reasonably well and offers a wealth of usage statistics which makes it my goto. The alternatives like Webalizer have gotten stale and the juggernaut Google Analyics loads too much Javascript for my taste.
It’s also well documented, so it can be extended if needed–something that I have done myself which you can read about in my post Web Analytics with awstats in 2018.
Email: Roundcube, SpamAssassain
Roundcube is a great little web-based email client. SpamAssassain is brilliant.
Project Management: Freelance Cockpit
Freelance Cockpit 2 is a brilliant project management tool that I vastly underutilize.
Security: SSL, BasicAuth & ModSecurity
I keep security simple. Basic Auth over SSL is pretty good, so I have a “private” realm that’s easy to manage and relatively secure. I also use ModSecurity for brute force attacks.