WordPress development workflow with version controlling

Question

I am currently managing a handful of freelance projects, mostly using WordPress (the clients preference). I develop the websites locally, running Apache/PHP/MySQL on my Mac. I version control these projects with Git.

Ideally, I want to be able to commit changes to a repository and then pull changes from there onto the server when they are ready to go live. This would be great, enabling me to have two versions of a website at any one time - development and live. For this I am guessing the server would need Git installed. However, I don't want to have to buy a VPS. Ideally, each client should have their own web space which they pay for on a monthly basis (or however they choose to pay).

So my question is, are there any small web hosting packages out there that offer this kind of thing? I need Git, and of course I'll need SSH to access Git. Taking into account that most of the time, the sites I make only get a few hits per day.

Also, is there any way to synchronise the MySQL databases here? If I am making changes to a website, I want to see them locally exactly how they will appear when they go live. Therefore it would be good to have all data in sync.

Answer 1

Use http://openshift.com They are a PaaS and have a PHP stack available. If you check their web site there is also a link to their github which has some examples available. One of them should be a Wordpress install. BTW, the Express version is free and usually good enough for low traffic sites.