What's New✨

Newly provisioned servers will now use Redis 7.0. Existing servers will not be updated to Redis 7.0 by SpinupWP. If you want to upgrade Redis on an existing server, you will need to do it manually.

SpinupWP has always installed and configured MySQL or MariaDB when spinning up a new server. Starting today, you have the option to provide connection information for an external database server instead.

Choosing this option will skip the installation of MySQL or MariaDB and use that external database server for all your sites on the web server.

When a web server is struggling to handle traffic to a site, most folks reach for the “upgrade server” lever first. Increasing CPU and memory (scaling vertically) is the quickest and easiest thing to do. However, at some point you’ll max out the CPU and memory limits. Then what?

Load balancing is often the next lever folks reach for, but the first step in scaling horizontally is to move MySQL/MariaDB onto a separate database server. Having a separate database server also makes moving sites between servers a lot easier because you don’t have to move the database. This benefit is a good reason to move MySQL/MariaDB to a separate database server well before maxing out CPU and memory limits on a single server.

In fact, we ran deliciousbrains.com (WordPress + WooCommerce) with an external database (DigitalOcean Managed Database – MySQL 8) since August 2020 and it worked great.

For more details and our recommendations, see the External Databases doc.

We’re also working on two more docs with step-by-step instructions for creating a managed database on DigitalOcean and Amazon Lightsail, and then adding it to SpinupWP as an external database. Stay tuned for those.

A command line interface is one of SpinupWP’s most frequently requested features. The wait is finally over!

Visit the SpinupWP CLI project on GitHub for complete installation and usage instructions. The first step is to require the package globally via Composer:

composer global require spinupwp/spinupwp-cli

Make sure the /vendor/bin directory in your global Composer home directory is in your system’s PATH. This could be ~/.composer/ or ~/.config/composer/, depending on your operating system. You can use the composer config --global home command to check this location.

Once you’ve finished installation, you’ll have access to the spinupwp command:

spinupwp <subcommand>

Read more…

WARNING: WordPress core is not yet compatible with PHP 8.1. Many themes and plugins are currently incompatible as well. We strongly recommend testing thoroughly on staging before switching any of your production sites to PHP 8.1.

SpinupWP now supports PHP 8.1. WP-CLI has been updated on all customer servers to version 2.6.0, which introduces PHP 8.1 compatibility.

You can now select PHP 8.1 when creating a new site and update existing sites to use PHP 8.1 via the SpinupWP dashboard. From a site’s dashboard, select “Settings” on the left menu, then select the version you want from the PHP dropdown menu.

We’ve added the ability to run a post-provision script every time you set up a new server. All post-provision scripts run as the root user once your server has been successfully provisioned.

Post-provision scripts can be added when spinning up a new server. Clicking in the text box provided will allow you to enter the desired scripts.

Installing custom software on your server is the most typical use-case for post-provision scripts, such as installing Node.js and npm so you can compile frontend assets on the server. To do that, you would run these scripts:

apt-get install -q -y nodejs;
apt-get install -q -y npm;

We’ve implemented a new design for the desktop navigation dropdown menu, simplifying the view for most users. You’ll now only see teams displayed if you already have a team set up. Having teams visible by default led to some confusion among the users who only had personal accounts.

The old “Teams” dropdown menu has been removed, with those links and functionality now in the main navigation. Your avatar at the top right of the screen indicates the team you’re currently using. Clicking on your avatar opens a dropdown menu from which you can select another team.

We’ve also added an account switcher function to the Settings, Team Settings, and Billing pages. This new dropdown menu clearly shows the account you’re viewing, whether that’s your personal account or the account of one of the teams you’re managing. This makes it easier to manage team settings, and ensures you can always tell which is which.

Dark mode has arrived in SpinupWP! This has been one of our most requested features to date.

SpinupWP will automatically detect if your browser is running dark mode, and switch accordingly. You can also change this manually in your account settings.

The first step is to log into your SpinupWP dashboard. Next, click your avatar in the top-right corner and click “Account Settings” from the drop-down menu to access your account settings.

The setting defaults to “Auto,” where SpinupWP matches the light/dark mode of your browser. You can force SpinupWP to use a different mode by clicking on Light or Dark and then clicking Save.

Newly provisioned servers will now use Redis 6.2. Existing servers will not be updated to Redis 6.2 by SpinupWP.

We’ve rolled out new, responsive improvements to SpinupWP’s user interface. This update gives SpinupWP users an improved user experience on mobile devices, making it easier to manage your servers and sites on the go.

While the majority of SpinupWP users continue to access the app from a desktop or laptop, a small but growing contingent has been asking for these improvements to smaller screens. The improvements allow you to access your SpinupWP dashboard from a phone or tablet, with all the same functionality found in the desktop version. You can spin up new servers and reboot existing ones, create new sites, make changes to your account, and contact support when needed.

You can now select MariaDB 10.6 when provisioning a new server. SpinupWP will not update MariaDB to 10.6 on existing servers.

The ability to create path redirects is the latest improvement to SpinupWP. Path redirects let you redirect from a specific URL path to a different path. This is typically a path on the same domain, but it’s easily possible to redirect the user to a URL on a different domain.

This new functionality means it’s now ludicrously simple to create redirects and link old pages to updated versions.

We’ve added support for DigitalOcean OAuth, making it easier than ever to connect SpinupWP to your DigitalOcean account. It also makes the connection process more secure.

You no longer need to visit the DigitalOcean dashboard, generate a personal access token, copy it, and paste it in SpinupWP. The OAuth flow takes you from SpinupWP to DigitalOcean, asks you to authorize SpinupWP to use your DigitalOcean account, and then takes you back to SpinupWP. Much smoother and no messing with tokens.

To authorize SpinupWP with your DigitalOcean account, you only need to provision a new DigitalOcean server, and SpinupWP will handle the rest. Click Authorize on DigitalOcean during the server provisioning process, and you’ll be redirected to DigitalOcean, to authorize your account. It’s that easy!

If you’ve previously set up DigitalOcean as a server provider using the API Token method, you can visit the “Server Providers” screen in SpinupWP, and upgrade the existing token to use OAuth.