What Do You Think About Database Sharing in WordPress Multisite Environments?

  • ioclaudio

    (@ioclaudio)


    2 months, 4 weeks ago

    Hi everyone,

    I’m posting this to gather your thoughts on the current behavior of WordPress Multisite.

    I’ve experimented with it, but there’s one thing I really don’t like: the fact that all instances share the same database. In my opinion, this approach makes the system less scalable and not as secure as it could be.

    It would be great to share the core code, plugin code, and theme code across different instances in a Multisite setup to simplify updates for similar systems. However, the configuration and data of each instance should remain separate. This would allow for:

    • Easier removal of unused instances.
    • Better data isolation between different sites, institutions, groups, or customers.
    • Separate access permissions for each database.
    • Simplified backup processes for individual instance databases.
    • Easier migration of an instance between Multisite and standalone installations.

    What are your thoughts on this?
    Why doesn’t WordPress work this way?

    Thank you very much for your input!

    Claudio B.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • ravindra107

    (@ravindra107)

    2 months, 4 weeks ago

    Hey @ioclaudio,
    I understand you query and in that case you can create separate folder and install WordPress each folder with diff database.
    For example :
    https://example.com/test1/
    https://example.com/test2/
    https://example.com/test3/
    test1, test2, test3 are separate folder and similar way create databse1, databse2, databse3

    Best Regards
    Ravindra Singh Meyda

    nancy54

    (@nancy54)

    2 months, 3 weeks ago

    Thank you for sharing this…

    Thread Starter ioclaudio

    (@ioclaudio)

    2 months, 3 weeks ago

    @ravindra107 yes I could, but in this way they would be separate installations, I’d like to share the code but not the database. For example Drupal multisite allows this configuration.

    catacaustic

    (@catacaustic)

    2 months, 3 weeks ago

    The best explanation for it working this was is that anyone here could give is… “Because it was set up that way originally”. Those sort of decisions were made many years ago so may or may not still be relevant to what’s needed today.

    The biggest reason for using a single database for everything is actually ease of use for non-technical users. A “normal” user doesn’t know how to set up a new database on their hosting account, yet alone how to connect new database users, set permissions, etc. I know that asking anyone else in the office here to do anything even slightly related to that would only get me blank faces and “But that’s your job, I don’t know what you’re talking about”.

    Also remember that in the not-that-distant past a lot of web hosting companies provided one database per account, so you had to work with a single database anyway. While that’s not quite so common now, there’s still a lot of places that have this same restriction.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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