wordpress + django on same account - advisable or not?

I know this guy who asked the question. We've been members of a small pinax-based users group -- discussing spawning an e-commerce project. He is a serious guy and I know his situation. So, when he asks a question and gets an answer, I look very closely and learn from THE QUESTION.

bobhaugen Member Registered: 2008-02-25 Posts: 34
wordpress + django on same account - advisable or not? I have a client that wants to host a wordpress blog and a django app on the same account.

I understand from a bunch of forum posts that this is doable, for example: http://forum.webfaction.com/viewtopic.php?id=4656

But I have a few questions about the best way to do it, and if it is a good idea.

1. The examples say to put them on the same domain with django at the root, and wordpress on e.g. /blog. The client would prefer to have wordpress at a root, and django maybe at a subdomain. Is this possible? (The two apps will only be connected by hyperlinks.)

2. The two apps do not need to be on the same website, and the django app could remain at something.webfactional.com while the wordpress site is at a registered domain, e.g. somethingelse.com. So would it be cleaner to create two websites under the same WebFaction account?

3. Is this a good idea (running wordpress and django apps on the same account), or would be better to get 2 different accounts? The django app will be more mission-critical than the wordpress app, and go through more software changes. I assume they will both be running on the same apache server. Will the 2 apps interfere with each other? Is there a clean way to restart django without stopping wordpress?

4. Another complication might be that the people administering the wordpress and django apps will be different. By that I mean, the people logging onto webfactional via ssh and tinkering with the software and configuration. What should we watch out for there?

5. Assuming it is at least an ok idea, what size plan would be advisable? Neither app will have large number of users or hits, but the django app will be fairly complex and process a large amount of data. Moreover, the django app will use postgresql while wordpress will use mysql.

#2 2010-09-20 12:05:13 David L Administrator Registered: 2009-04-13 Posts: 578 Re: wordpress + django on same account - advisable or not?

1. The examples say to put them on the same domain with django at the root, and wordpress on e.g. /blog. The client would prefer to have wordpress at a root, and django maybe at a subdomain. Is this possible? (The two apps will only be connected by hyperlinks.)

This *is* possible, but Django really doesn't enjoy being anywhere but the root of a site. With some finagling, you can usually make it run with minimal issues. It's possible that this has been fixed in one of the more recent releases, though.

2. The two apps do not need to be on the same website, and the django app could remain at something.webfactional.com while the wordpress site is at a registered domain, e.g. somethingelse.com. So would it be cleaner to create two websites under the same WebFaction account?

That solves the above problem quite nicely

This is really up to you. We don't count PHP-based applications against your memory limit so if your Django application happens to chew through some memory your WordPress site won't be affected.

3. Is this a good idea (running wordpress and django apps on the same account), or would be better to get 2 different accounts? The django app will be more mission-critical than the wordpress app, and go through more software changes. I assume they will both be running on the same apache server. Will the 2 apps interfere with each other?

As I said above, they shouldn't interfere with each other.

Is there a clean way to restart django without stopping wordpress?

These run as entirely separate processes, so restarting Django has absolutely no impact on Wordpress.

4. Another complication might be that the people administering the wordpress and django apps will be different. By that I mean, the people logging onto webfactional via ssh and tinkering with the software and configuration. What should we watch out for there?

Naturally, if you're giving someone SSH access to your account it's possible that they can do damage. Other than malicious users, there really shouldn't be anything else to worry about.

5. Assuming it is at least an ok idea, what size plan would be advisable? Neither app will have large number of users or hits, but the django app will be fairly complex and process a large amount of data. Moreover, the django app will use postgresql while wordpress will use mysql.

We always recommend starting with our lowest plan and upgrading if/when necessary.

From what you've described, it's like you won't need much more than a Shared 1.

[Editorial: this post came from the webfaction forum so they are answering how much resources would be necessary.]