Deploying WordPress on Kubernetes (Without Losing Your Sanity)

WordPress and Kubernetes — sounds like an odd couple at first, doesn’t it?

One’s a legendary blogging platform with a love for PHP and plugins. The other is a cloud-native orchestrator that schedules containers like a micromanaging boss. But together, they can give you a scalable, self-healing website that runs like a dream… once you get past the YAML.

In this guide, we’ll walk through deploying WordPress on Kubernetes using hostPath volumes — the “keep it simple, we’re just testing” approach. If you’re looking for a highly available, production-ready, replicated, auto-scaling beast… this ain’t it. But if you want to get started without waking up in cold sweats, read on.

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What You’ll Need

• A running Kubernetes cluster (Minikube works great for this)
• kubectl access
• The ability to copy-paste YAML or use kubekanvas.io
• 10 minutes and a bit of faith

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Step 1: Deploy MySQL

WordPress needs a database. We’ll use MySQL and keep its data in a hostPath so it sticks around (kind of like that one friend who never leaves your couch).

Here’s a simple YAML:

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: mysql
  labels:
    app: mysql
spec:
  containers:
    - name: mysql
      image: mysql:5.7
      env:
        - name: MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD
          value: password
        - name: MYSQL_DATABASE
          value: wordpress
      ports:
        - containerPort: 3306
      volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /var/lib/mysql
          name: mysql-storage
  volumes:
    - name: mysql-storage
      hostPath:
        path: /data/mysql
        type: DirectoryOrCreate
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: mysql
spec:
  selector:
    app: mysql
  ports:
    - port: 3306

🧠 Heads up: This is great for demos, but don’t use hostPath in production unless you like living dangerously.

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Step 2: Deploy WordPress

Now the fun part — launching WordPress itself. We’ll give it a PVC… just kidding, it’s another hostPath.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: wordpress
  labels:
    app: wordpress
spec:
  containers:
    - name: wordpress
      image: wordpress:latest
      env:
        - name: WORDPRESS_DB_HOST
          value: mysql:3306
        - name: WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD
          value: password
      ports:
        - containerPort: 80
      volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /var/www/html
          name: wp-content
  volumes:
    - name: wp-content
      hostPath:
        path: /data/wordpress
        type: DirectoryOrCreate
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: wordpress
spec:
  type: NodePort
  selector:
    app: wordpress
  ports:
    - port: 80
      nodePort: 30080

With this, WordPress will be available at http://<your-node-ip>:30080. That’s your cue to open a browser and start picking a theme.

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Step 3: Access WordPress

Once both Pods are running, get your Node IP:

kubectl get nodes -o wide

Then visit: http://<Node-IP>:30080

You should see the WordPress setup screen. Fill in the details and boom — you’re in!

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A Few Words of Wisdom

• Use hostPath only for local demos. It ties your workload to the node like a clingy ex. If the Pod moves, your data doesn’t.
• No Ingress here — just good old NodePort. You can spice it up later with Traefik or NGINX.
• Security? Not today. But we can talk about that once you’re done playing around.

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Conclusion

Deploying WordPress on Kubernetes doesn’t have to feel like deciphering ancient scrolls. With a few carefully chosen YAMLs and some light humor, you can get a working blog or demo site up and running in no time.

Next step? Try doing this visually with Kubekanvas. It’s faster, cleaner, and it makes you feel like a Kubernetes artist.