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Comment by IgorPartola | Hacker News Reader

Why can't you export the static site and let me host it myself?

There are already some plugins that "staticize" your website, but

1) you still need to have and maintain secure the WordPress Installation somewhere. With HardyPress WP can be paused and restored when needed with a click.

2) you have to download the static version and upload it somewhere else manually (your client certainly can't do it on their own). HardyPress does it with a click.

3) contact forms and search will stop working. With HardyPress, if you use CF7, everything will work seemlessy.

To solve the problems above HaryPress needs to hosts your WP installation.

Honestly think your business model would be improved by ditching the hosting, and have the static output just get git-synced, and working to incorporate the forms and such with something like Netlify which should support that, and Netlify has great workflows and integrations that you should be able to work with; or at least add the option of just pushing the static to Git/Netlify. Most of the value in what you are offering here is just in the headless (or WP front-end as a service shall we say) Wordpress component. I think a significant potential user base would much rather plunk down $5/mo to use the nice WP FE you've created, in conjunction with some type of Git/Netlify (or similar) integration, vs being locked in to having to host with you. Just my two cents. Believe others have weighed in similarly as well.

I see your point, but I also think that most of the value in what we are offering here is the ability to turn WordPress on/off on demand, so you can forget about it after the changes.

How could this be achieve without hosting files and DB?

Sure, that's the front-end and the service you are providing, just the ability to use WP. Sure it's great that it's not "on" unless I'm editing or using it, but why not add an option to build/output the static to a user's Git account? I understand that may not be the market you are going after, however I don't think it will lose you any of the customers who just want an WP/hosting easy-button; it will just add the customer who know's what they are doing a little bit, can work with Git, and wants to host it where they want. I think you can only win by adding this as an option/feature..

Ok, about this we will release soon a new feature where users will be able to deploy their static site on a custom ftp/sftp server. Adding a git repo as destination won't be a problem :-)

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