In this blog post, we will provide a step-by-step tutorial on how to host a WordPress website for free using Microsoft Azure. Whether you are a blogger, entrepreneur, or simply beginning out, this information will assist you in getting your internet site up and running for free.
- It’s free: Azure’s free tier permits you to host your website for free without any upfront cost, which is mainly really helpful for small companies or people with limited budgets.
- Reliable and secure: Microsoft is a relied-on and legit enterprise with a strong infrastructure and safety measures in place, making sure that your website is up and running smoothly and securely.
- Easy-to-use interface: Azure affords a straightforward interface that makes it convenient to set up and manipulate your website, you can rapidly set up WordPress and personalize it to suit your desires except the need for big technical knowledge.
- Scalability and flexibility: as your website grows, you can easily upgrade to more advanced hosting plans to accommodate your website’s increasing traffic and storage needs.
Step 1: Sign up for Microsoft Azure free tier
go to the Microsoft Azure website and sign up for the Azure free tier. In order to sign up for the free tier a credit card will be required to verify your account unless you have a student account.
Also, check out: how to create a .edu email for free
Step 2: Installing WordPress Bitnami
- On the Microsoft Azure home page click on all services, search for marketplace and select it.
- On the marketplace search for WordPress Bitnami, and select the one written WordPress packaged by Bitnami which is free, as shown in the image below.
On the next page just click on Create, then you will be asked to create a virtual machine.
Edit the following:
- Resource group: create a new resource group or select an existing one.
- virtual machine name: Put any name which will make it easy to identify your instance, it helps if you have multiple instances.
Leave everything as default and click on Review + Create
wait for about a minute or so for it to load, On the next page click on Create, and click on Download private key and create resource.
Once it is done click on Go to Deployment and copy the public IP address
Step 3: Point the IP address to your Domain name via Cloudflare
In order to get free SSL we will Point the IP address to our Domain name via Cloudflare.
Go to this blog post “How to add a website on Cloudflare “
After Pointing the IP address to your Domain name via Cloudflare using the information in the link above. continue there with me.
- To make sure that the process was successful got your website on your browser, it must look like this.
Step 4: Log in to your WordPress account
- Go back to the Microsoft Azure tab, on the left corner of your screen, and scroll down until you find Boot Diagnostics click on it.
- click on Serial log
- click anywhere on the log
- click Ctrl+f
- write user and click enter
- click the arrow pointing down until you see “the default application username is “user”
- Above that you will see the password copy it.
now to go to your domain/wp-admin for example kofnet.co.za/wp-admin
On username put “user” and on password paste the password you copied. Then click on login
