How to Build a Website with Pantheon and WordPress and Get It Live

Building a website with Pantheon and WordPress is a straightforward process that can be completed in a few steps. Pantheon is a cloud-based platform that provides a managed hosting environment for WordPress sites.

First, sign up for a Pantheon account and choose a plan that suits your needs. Pantheon offers a free trial, so you can test the waters before committing to a paid plan.

To get started with Pantheon, you'll need to create a new site by clicking the "Create a New Site" button in your Pantheon dashboard. This will prompt you to enter your site's name, URL, and other basic information.

Once you've created your site, you can download the Pantheon WordPress plugin, which will help you connect your site to the Pantheon platform. The plugin is available for download from the WordPress plugin directory.

A fresh viewpoint: Chat Bot Plugin for Wordpress

To get started with Pantheon and WordPress, you can sign up for a free account, which will give you two free Sandbox sites. You can spin up a working WordPress installation on one of your free dev environments and tinker with it in any way you like.

The Pantheon tutorial "Creating Sites" is a great resource for more detailed information on how to get started.

For a live site, you only need to pay for the one you're ready to launch. You can even invite and add your clients to join and let them pay for the project's monthly or annual subscription plan.

The pricing for each Pantheon Plan depends mainly on the amount of pageviews that your site is going to get, with the basic plan starting at $29 per month for up to 125,000 pageviews.

To set up WordPress on Pantheon, start by creating an account and logging in. You'll then select Create New Site. Name your site and choose its geographic location.

Next, you'll click Continue to select the CMS, and then choose the WordPress deploy button to create your WordPress site. This is a crucial step, as it will allow you to manage your site's content and functionality.

To test your site, click the Test tab in the Site Dashboard and create a test environment. You can then visit your test site by clicking Visit Test Site, which will open it in a new browser tab with the URL test-YOURSITE.pantheonsite.io.

Consider reading: Make Free Wordpress Website

You can develop in Git mode or SFTP mode, or even switch between both modes depending on your task and workflow.

To get started, select SFTP or Git as your Development Mode. This will give you the flexibility to choose the best approach for your project.

You'll need to review and follow the steps in the Using Git with SFTP & WordPress Guide to ensure you understand the best ways to use Git with SFTP.

Developing in Git mode or SFTP mode can be done simultaneously, allowing you to work on your project in different ways.

Here are the options for Development Mode:

By selecting the right Development Mode, you'll be able to work efficiently and effectively on your WordPress project.

Importing a WordPress Site is a relatively simple process. You can use WordPress Duplicator for archiving, which makes it easy to move your site to another server.

Pantheon makes this process even smoother by allowing you to import the archive with just a few clicks. You'll need to store the archive file somewhere that you can retrieve it via a URL.

Using mysqldump to export the database and zip everything up into a single archive is another option, but this requires some technical know-how and SSH access to your old WordPress server. This method can be a bit more complicated, but it gets the job done.

Once you have the archive file, you'll just need to copy and paste the URL to import everything to Pantheon.

You can get rid of caching plugins like Batcache, W3 Total Cache, or WP Super Cache. They're not needed on Pantheon, where pages are cached outside of WordPress using Varnish.

Pantheon's caching system just works, including invalidating URLs when you publish new content. This means you don't have to worry about manually clearing caches.

But if you want some control over caching, it's easy. Just issue standard HTTP cache control headers, and Varnish will obey.

Pantheon Environments provide a safe space for active development, allowing you to build new features or configure the theme and functionality before merging into the main site flow.

The Development Environment (Dev) is where active development occurs, connected to Git version control, allowing developers to push code changes, install plugins, and experiment safely. It serves as a sandbox for building new features or configuring the theme and functionality before merging into the main site flow.

Each Pantheon development environment includes a dashboard equipped with powerful tools, such as continuous integration workflow, Git and SFTP Mode, and one-click deployment.

The Test environment is an intermediary stage between Dev and Live, mirroring the Live environment as closely as possible, used for quality assurance, user acceptance testing, and pre-launch review. It allows teams to verify that new code or content changes work correctly in a production-like environment—before those changes go live.

Pantheon offers four types of environments for every WordPress site: Dev, Test, Live, and Multidev. Here's a breakdown of each environment:

The Live environment is the public-facing version of the site, hosted on Pantheon's highly available, container-based infrastructure, optimized for speed, security, and uptime. Segregating Live from development work prevents bugs, plugin conflicts, or accidental downtime.

To deploy a new WordPress site on Pantheon, you can follow these steps. Create an account on Pantheon, log in, and select Create New Site. Name your site and select the geographic location it's servicing.

To set up your WordPress site properly, you'll need to modify your wp-config.php file. This can be done by letting Pantheon fill in the home and siteurl values based on the HTTP Host header, rather than hardcoding them.

Here's a quick rundown of the process:

By following these steps, you can set up your WordPress site on Pantheon and get started with deploying and managing your site.

Deploying a WordPress site on Pantheon is a straightforward process. To get started, you'll need to create an account on Pantheon and log in.

Selecting the right geographic location for your site is crucial for performance and user experience. You can choose from various locations to service your site.

To create your WordPress site, click the WordPress deploy button after selecting the CMS list. This will initiate the deployment process.

Once your site is deployed, you can test it by clicking the Test tab in the Site Dashboard. From there, you can create a test environment by clicking Create Test Environment.

To access your test site, simply click Visit Test Site. Your test site will open in a new browser tab with the URL test-YOURSITE.pantheonsite.io.

After testing your site, you can create a live environment by clicking the Live tab in your Site Dashboard. Then, select Create Live Environment to deploy your site live.

Here's a quick rundown of the steps to deploy a WordPress site on Pantheon:

You can modify your wp-config.php to automatically fill in home and siteurl values based on the HTTP Host header, making it easier to manage multiple environments.

This trick is especially useful for avoiding yes-www and no-www issues that can break WordPress' redirection.

To take advantage of this, you don't need to hardcode home and siteurl values into your wp-config.php.

You might enjoy: Wp Admin Url