How migrating from AWS to DigitalOcean helped WPMU DEV grow to support more than 700,000 clients

Key takeaways for platform providers:

Ease of use

The simple and easy nature of the DigitalOcean API reduces the time it takes a platform provider to migrate a customer’s workload to DO to just about an hour.

Service and reliability

DigitalOcean’s uptime guarantee and SLA translates to reliability, which helps platform providers who are accountable by their clients if something goes wrong. If an issue does arise, it’s easy to get help with around-the-clock support teams and a dedicated Slack channel.

Background

Based in Melbourne, Australia, WPMU DEV identified and pioneered the premium WordPress plugin and services industry as the first membership marketplace for WordPress, Multisite, and BuddyPress. The WPMU DEV team is fully committed to building quality products and services for WordPress, so they have a distributed workforce that allows them to work with the most talented and dedicated staff around the world.

Why DigitalOcean?

When WPMU DEV was looking to expand its service offerings to include a new managed WordPress hosting business line, they spent a year trying to build it using AWS since that was where their in-house expertise was. After a year of frustrating obstacles, the team nearly called the project off. They soon realized there was another option available to them: DigitalOcean. Having used DigitalOcean for Smush, an API service that optimizes millions of images for the web each month, the team decided to give it a try for their new managed hosting service too.

The DigitalOcean API is one of the biggest reasons WPMU DEV has been so satisfied with the platform. It has been affordable, easy to use, and has allowed them to manage the infrastructures of their large customer base efficiently. The WPMU DEV team is confident that if they push an email invitation to 500,000 to try a new feature, that they’ll be able to support that increased workload and traffic. This has given them the reliability and speed they need to continue to grow their business, and has allowed them to invest heavily in expanding their support staff to provide a better experience for their customers.

WPMU DEV also says the support they’ve received has far exceeded the level of attention received from their previous cloud provider. Chief Business Officer, Ronnie Burt, says this is something the team really values, as it aligns with how they work internally. WPMU DEV has been added to a DigitalOcean Slack channel, where they can communicate with technical folks, their Channel Account Manager, and other members of the support team.

The open, frequent, and timely communication has proven very valuable to WPMU DEV, as their customer base is highly technical and used to managing their own servers and environments, leading to a lot of questions around what they’re getting with DigitalOcean. The immediate response time from DigitalOcean’s team has allowed WPMU DEV to provide their customer with the nitty-gritty tech details, which gives them increased credibility and confidence from their customers.

Since implementing the DigitalOcean platform, WPMU DEV’s team hasn’t looked back. Today, they are supporting well over 700,000 site owners, developers, freelancers, and agencies through their suite of products and tools. And with their confidence in both the platform and service, Incsub remains confident in their ability to continue growing and scaling with DigitalOcean.