Ok, this article is for those who run their own server, whether it’s a Virtual Private Server or a dedicated server.

There’s lots of articles available on how to set up each of these, but I thought for now I’ll just make a statement on what the best server setup is, then I’ll expand on my own setup in later articles.

Webserver: Nginx – incredibly fast, simply blows Apache out of the water.

PHP: v5.3.6 in PHP-FPM mode, with APC.

Front-End Cache: Varnish – will speed up serving your website incredibly, which will help the visitor experience and help boost your search engine ranking.

CMS: WordPress – yes, that old favourite. Make sure you use the plugin W3 Total Cache which can also refresh  Varnish for you.

Ok, that was just a quick list. Later there will be a short tutorial explaining the setup of these.