I was thinking about starting a blog, but WordPress hosting costs seemed expensive ($50-80/month for managed options). Decided to see if I could build a cheaper alternative using GCP Cloud Run + Terraform.
Result: Production-ready WordPress for $36/month with full infrastructure control.
What's included:
- One-command deployment (~10 minutes)
- Complete Terraform IaC (reproducible infrastructure)
- Auto-scaling (0-5 instances, scales to zero when idle)
- Interactive cost calculator: https://tohidsmart.github.io/serverless-wordpress-gcp/calcul...
Trade-offs vs managed hosting:
- Cold starts (~2-5 seconds after idle)
- You manage WordPress updates yourself
- Requires basic GCP/Terraform knowledge
Benefits:
- 60-75% cheaper than WP Engine/Kinsta
- Pay only for actual traffic (not idle capacity)
- Full infrastructure control (no vendor lock-in)
- Free tier covers up to 75K visitors/month
New GCP accounts get $300 credits = first 3 months free.
Built this as a learning project that turned into something production-ready. Open to questions about the architecture or cost optimization.
Author here.
I was thinking about starting a blog, but WordPress hosting costs seemed expensive ($50-80/month for managed options). Decided to see if I could build a cheaper alternative using GCP Cloud Run + Terraform.
Result: Production-ready WordPress for $36/month with full infrastructure control.
What's included: - One-command deployment (~10 minutes) - Complete Terraform IaC (reproducible infrastructure) - Auto-scaling (0-5 instances, scales to zero when idle) - Interactive cost calculator: https://tohidsmart.github.io/serverless-wordpress-gcp/calcul...
Trade-offs vs managed hosting: - Cold starts (~2-5 seconds after idle) - You manage WordPress updates yourself - Requires basic GCP/Terraform knowledge
Benefits: - 60-75% cheaper than WP Engine/Kinsta - Pay only for actual traffic (not idle capacity) - Full infrastructure control (no vendor lock-in) - Free tier covers up to 75K visitors/month
New GCP accounts get $300 credits = first 3 months free.
Built this as a learning project that turned into something production-ready. Open to questions about the architecture or cost optimization.