I&#8217;ve never been shy to show my love for <a href="https://pantheon.io/">Pantheon</a>, when I first met <a href="https://twitter.com/outlandishjosh" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Josh K</a>. at WordCamp San Francisco 2014 and we started talking about Headless CMS&#8217;s, I was open to hearing about his hosting company. I&#8217;ll admit, at first I didn&#8217;t see the need and thought it was way over my skills / need. Overkill for the random WordPress clients I had that were fine with their SFTP to production and git for backup.



<h2>Git Workflow</h2>



It was a little while later that I dipped my toe into full GIT controlled workflow and deployment using <a href="https://www.deployhq.com/">DeployHQ</a>, a way to turn git into SFTP, so I could still keep my dev workflow, but push to SFTP on deploy. 



I leveled up my git 1 more time when I forced myself to follow feature branches, even within my own personal blogs. I still try to keep up with this, but do admit its easy to let go when you are solo-dev&#8217;ing something.



Hosting wise I was using a mix of Dreamhost, WPEngine, and DigitalOcean with ServerPilot. This all worked well for me and I had no issues using these mixes and DeployHQ.



<h2>Environments</h2>



Fast forward to WordCamp Orange county 20 something something. I once again am finding myself having an interesting conversation with <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/outlandishjosh" target="_blank">Josh K.</a> about environments. We were chatting about the state of local, and how all these local setups (then VVV) were working so hard to give you the same environment, locally. 



This sounds great, right? 



Josh asked me a question I don&#8217;t remember, but it was something like: If you could spin up and have a stable environment that isn&#8217;t local, would you be as worried about having that matching environment? Is there a need?



Honestly, the answer is no. When I am on my computer writing code, the last thing I want to worry about is if my local environment matching the production which I am not working on. I want to be able to spin up and easily see what is happening and not even care about my local environment. I want to code, and be efficient as I can about it.



Josh&#8217;s answer was what Pantheon calls <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://pantheon.io/docs/multidev" target="_blank">Multi-dev</a>. To put it simply, create a git feature branch, have an environment that is identical to prod (or dev) and all you have to do is push code to it. So why do I need to have another copy of that locally if I already have a local setup I work well with?



<figure class="wp-block-image alignfull size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="287" src="https://arcctrl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Screen-Shot-2021-05-12-at-10.32.45-PM-1024x287.png" alt="Pantheon Multidev" class="wp-image-2814" srcset="https://roysivan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Screen-Shot-2021-05-12-at-10.32.45-PM-1024x287.png 1024w, https://roysivan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Screen-Shot-2021-05-12-at-10.32.45-PM-300x84.png 300w, https://roysivan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Screen-Shot-2021-05-12-at-10.32.45-PM-768x215.png 768w, https://roysivan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Screen-Shot-2021-05-12-at-10.32.45-PM-1536x431.png 1536w, https://roysivan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Screen-Shot-2021-05-12-at-10.32.45-PM-1568x440.png 1568w, https://roysivan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Screen-Shot-2021-05-12-at-10.32.45-PM.png 1772w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



Now in 2021, in the age of headless, like this one, can be SUPER impactful. I can spin up a new environment and create a new REST API endpoints or GraphQL query isolated to that environment. When working locally I point to that instance and can work on the feature I want to build. For those keeping track that is 2 feature branches talking to each other, completely isolated from production.



The best part of multidev? Once you are done and happy with your feature, or bug fix, just merge it in and it goes to develop. EASY!



<h2>Headless WordPress Support</h2>



Since headless WordPress (or any other CMS) has become so popular nowadays, and hosts even offering tailored <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://wpengine.com/atlas" target="_blank">headless solutions</a>, is Pantheon good for headless?



The answer is, yes, but not in a traditional way.



Right now you are reading a headless NextJS blog, powered by Pantheon. Besides someone at Pantheon reading this, there is no real way to know this is a headless site from the Pantheon dashboard. I have a few <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/headless-mode/" target="_blank">plugins</a> that make headless easier/better, but nothing else out of the ordinary.



That being said, if anything changes, I&#8217;ll make sure to update here 😃



<h2>Support and Community</h2>



The Pantheon circle is one that brings almost as much value as the hosting itself. Get into the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://pantheon.io/docs/pantheon-community" target="_blank">community</a> via Slack or in the forums and you will find people willing to help with you with Pantheon or other issues that may revolve around Pantheon. 



Always use the proper support channels for hosting support please.



The community is also unlike other WordPress focused hosts in that Pantheon wasn&#8217;t a WordPress host first. There are experts and users on there that use Drupal, and with that even more knowledge of PHP and other PHP frameworks. If you are use Pantheon, do not miss out on that community.



<h2>Best WordPress Hosting</h2>



You like that SEO fantastic title?



No, Pantheon isn&#8217;t the best WordPress host, but to me that doesn&#8217;t exist. There is the right tools for an application, and sometimes that means I don&#8217;t host on Pantheon. I still have WPEngine accounts, as well as other hosts via clients. LiquidWeb is proving itself to be a &#8220;better&#8221; host for WooCommerce support. So no, no best host.



But as a WordPress developer, there isn&#8217;t much to NOT like about Pantheon.

Hi.

Why I still love Pantheon

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