Practical web ops
Practical hosting, WordPress, and server ops notes for people who run websites.
CronDaily publishes specific, honest guides for WordPress maintenance, server ops, migrations, and security — the stuff that searches turn up at 5pm the day before something breaks.
Featured reviews
All reviewsDigitalOcean
Long-term review of DigitalOcean droplets for hosting WordPress, web apps, and side projects. Pricing, performance, and what's changed in 2026.
Kinsta
Review of Kinsta's managed WordPress hosting — performance benchmarks, pricing, features, and whether the premium price is justified.
Featured guides
Cloudflare DNS cutover runbook for website migrations
How to use Cloudflare safely during hosting migrations: proxy mode, TTLs, SSL modes, cache purge, and rollback checks.
When to hire a DevOps engineer vs managed hosting
A practical breakdown of when managed hosting makes more sense than hiring a DevOps engineer — and when you genuinely need one on payroll.
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup for small business domains
A plain-English guide to email authentication records, safe DMARC rollout, and common DNS mistakes that hurt deliverability.
Browse by topic
All guidesWordPress
Maintenance, performance, WooCommerce, and the sticky parts of keeping WordPress running.
7 guidesServers
DNS, SSL, server location, hosting decisions, and the Linux fundamentals that matter.
13 guidesMigrations
Checklists, pre-flight checks, and the steps that make WordPress and DNS migrations less tense.
5 guidesSecurity
SSH keys, SSL certificates, hardening, and the security decisions that actually reduce risk.
8 guidesTooling
WP-CLI, cron, Docker, databases, and the automation that makes ops work repeatable.
8 guidesLatest comparisons
All comparisonsDetailed comparison of Cloudflare and Bunny CDN for WordPress and small business sites: pricing models, caching performance, image optimisation, DNS management, WAF and DDoS protection, and ease of setup.
Hetzner vs DigitalOceanDetailed comparison of Hetzner and DigitalOcean for VPS hosting in 2026: pricing per GB of RAM, benchmark performance, region coverage, managed services, documentation quality, and WordPress hosting suitability.
SiteGround vs CloudwaysIn-depth comparison of SiteGround and Cloudways for WordPress hosting: pricing over multiple years, performance benchmarks, email hosting, staging workflows, caching, support quality, and which to choose for different site types.
Latest reviews
All reviewsLong-term review of DigitalOcean droplets for hosting WordPress, web apps, and side projects. Pricing, performance, and what's changed in 2026.
Kinsta 4.5/5Review of Kinsta's managed WordPress hosting — performance benchmarks, pricing, features, and whether the premium price is justified.
Linode 4.1/5Review of Akamai Cloud's Linode compute platform: pricing tiers, plan types, performance, regions, support, WordPress suitability, and when it beats DigitalOcean or Hetzner.
Recently added guides
All guidesHidden costs of self-hosting in 2026
The real costs of running your own server — time, risk, security, and the things VPS pricing pages don't mention.
How to migrate email hosting without losing mail
A careful email migration plan: mailbox inventory, DNS TTL lowering, IMAP sync, SPF/DKIM/DMARC coordination, MX cutover sequencing, website SMTP testing, and post-migration clean-up.
Using the MySQL slow query log to fix slow WordPress sites
How to enable, read, and act on MySQL slow query logs for WordPress: identifying postmeta bloat, autoloaded option analysis, missing indexes, plugin-generated garbage queries, and Percona Toolkit usage.
Nginx and PHP-FPM tuning for busy WordPress sites
A practical tuning checklist for Nginx, PHP-FPM workers, OPcache, buffers, and slow request logging on WordPress servers.
Redis object cache for WordPress: when it helps and how to set it up
A complete guide to Redis object caching for WordPress: installation, memory configuration, eviction policies, cache key salts, WooCommerce considerations, performance benchmarks, and troubleshooting.
Server backup restore drill checklist
How to test backups properly: step-by-step database restore, file recovery, permission fixing, DNS and secret verification, restore timing measurement, and gap documentation.
Latest from the notebook
All guidesCloudflare DNS cutover runbook for website migrations
How to use Cloudflare safely during hosting migrations: proxy mode, TTLs, SSL modes, cache purge, and rollback checks.
When to hire a DevOps engineer vs managed hosting
A practical breakdown of when managed hosting makes more sense than hiring a DevOps engineer — and when you genuinely need one on payroll.
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup for small business domains
A plain-English guide to email authentication records, safe DMARC rollout, and common DNS mistakes that hurt deliverability.
Hidden costs of self-hosting in 2026
The real costs of running your own server — time, risk, security, and the things VPS pricing pages don't mention.
How to migrate email hosting without losing mail
A careful email migration plan: mailbox inventory, DNS TTL lowering, IMAP sync, SPF/DKIM/DMARC coordination, MX cutover sequencing, website SMTP testing, and post-migration clean-up.
Using the MySQL slow query log to fix slow WordPress sites
How to enable, read, and act on MySQL slow query logs for WordPress: identifying postmeta bloat, autoloaded option analysis, missing indexes, plugin-generated garbage queries, and Percona Toolkit usage.