For years, the dominant message in the WordPress world has been clear: “if you want peace of mind, use managed hosting.” Automatic updates, scheduled backups, specialised support and easy-to-use panels have turned this model into the “safe” option for freelancers, agencies and small businesses.
However, on forums like Reddit another narrative is gaining strength: that of those who have abandoned managed hosting to move to self-hosting on a VPS… and say they have no intention of going back.
More performance for less money
The economic argument is the first that comes up again and again.
Several users report that with an affordable VPS from providers like Hetzner, NetCup, Ginernet, Raiola Networks or DigitalOcean, they’ve achieved better performance than they had on managed plans costing €30 per month or more. In other words, for a similar price (or even less) they get:
- More dedicated CPU and RAM
- Better performance under load
- Greater control over the stack (PHP, Nginx/Apache, cache, etc.)
A small agency taking part in the discussion explained that they moved from a WHM/cPanel environment with 80 sites to their own infrastructure on a VPS hosting provider. The total cost, they said, is “more or less the same”, but the experience is “ten times better” in terms of speed and control.
Behind that shift there’s a key point:
with managed hosting you pay both for the infrastructure and for the management service, support, licences and automation layers. On a VPS, the user takes on part of that work… but stops paying the “managed service premium”.
Full control instead of limits and fine print
Another recurring theme in these conversations is the feeling of freedom.
People who choose self-hosting value being able to decide:
- Which plugins to use, without provider-imposed blacklists
- Which PHP version to run and with what settings
- Whether they prefer Nginx, Apache or OpenLiteSpeed (often mentioned together with panels like RunCloud)
- How to configure cache, PHP-FPM workers, firewall or WAF
On some managed plans, limits on monthly visits, bandwidth or CPU usage can become a barrier for projects that grow quickly or have traffic spikes. On a VPS, those limits are more transparent: they’re managed at the server resource level, not through opaque commercial policies.
One user summed it up very clearly: with their own server, their WordPress is optimised for their site, not for “the average” of all the provider’s customers.
The key factor: panels that remove “sysadmin pain”
For a long time, the big barrier to self-hosting was obvious:
managing a Linux server is not the same as installing a plugin.
That’s where modern tools and panels come into play, massively lowering the difficulty:
- RunCloud, highly rated for its integration with OpenLiteSpeed, site cloning and migration options
- Platforms like SpinupWP, Pivotlar, ServerAvatar, FlyWP, Ploi.io or xcloud.host, which let you deploy and manage servers at cloud providers with just a few clicks
These panels sit somewhere in the middle:
- They’re not traditional managed hosting, but they also don’t force you to edit everything over SSH and hand-crafted config files.
They automate tasks such as:
- Installing optimised LEMP/LAMP stacks
- SSL certificates and automatic renewal
- Deploying new sites, clones and staging environments
- Basic security and firewall setup
Thanks to these layers, many users who are comfortable with the command line but don’t want to act as “full-time sysadmins” feel confident enough to make the jump.
It’s not all upside: responsibility and learning curve
The other side of the coin is also very clear in the debate: self-hosting is not for everyone.
Those who have already moved to a VPS highlight several risks:
- If something breaks, you are responsible.
- There is no level-1 support team that logs in, checks logs and applies a standard fix.
- You need to understand at least the basics of:
- Linux (permissions, processes, logs)
- PHP-FPM and memory management
- External backups (not just provider snapshots)
- Security (SSH, updates, basic hardening)
- There is a real learning curve:
- FPM tuning
- MySQL/MariaDB tuning
- Worker limits
- Monitoring, etc.
Several participants say they actually enjoy that process (“it makes me feel like a real nerd,” one of them said), but they admit it’s not an easy path for someone who “just wants to log into WordPress and write”.
AI as a sysadmin? Better to be cautious
An interesting question also pops up in the thread:
is it a good idea to install some kind of AI sysadmin agent on the VPS and let it handle everything?
The answers are generally cautious:
- The main recommendation is not to allow an AI agent to execute changes directly on production.
- The suggestion is to use AI as an assistant to generate commands, review configurations or propose improvements, but always with human validation before applying anything.
- For day-to-day operations, many prefer simple, reliable monitoring + automation tools (scripts, Ansible, cron, management panels) over “magic” solutions that could break the server with a bad decision.
In short: AI can help, but it does not replace the responsibility of the person administering the server.
Does self-hosting WordPress make sense?
The conclusion drawn from these experiences is nuanced:
Self-hosting is worth considering if…
- You manage several WordPress sites or projects and the cost of managed plans is starting to spiral.
- You really value full control over the stack and want to squeeze out as much performance as possible.
- You’re reasonably comfortable with the command line, or at least willing to learn.
- You’re prepared to invest time in understanding the infrastructure instead of relying solely on “support tickets”.
Staying on managed hosting is probably better if…
- You only have a corporate site or a blog and peace of mind is your priority.
- You have no interest or time to learn system administration.
- The 24/7 support and tools from your current provider already cover your needs well.
What does seem clear is that, thanks to panels like RunCloud, ServerAvatar, Ploi.io, FlyWP, SpinupWP and others, self-hosting WordPress on a VPS is no longer a territory reserved for veteran sysadmins. More and more developers, agencies and power users are discovering that, with the right tools, they can have the best of both worlds: the performance and control of their own server, with a management experience close to that of managed hosting.
And once they’ve crossed that bridge, many of them are very clear about one thing: going back to fully managed hosting… would be hard.
