---
title: Launch an EC2 Instance for WordPress
description: "This guide walks through launching a small Ubuntu server on Amazon EC2 that is ready for a WordPress stack. It focuses on the choices that are hard to change later. ## Which EC2 instance type suits a small WordPress site?…"
url: "https://apatecreative.com/knowledge-base/aws/launch-an-ec2-instance-for-wordpress/"
updated: "2026-10-11"
category: AWS
---

# Launch an EC2 Instance for WordPress

This guide walks through launching a small Ubuntu server on Amazon EC2 that is ready for a WordPress stack. It focuses on the choices that are hard to change later.

## Which EC2 instance type suits a small WordPress site?

A 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM instance such as a t4g.medium handles most small to mid-size WordPress sites with a page cache and Redis. Graviton (arm64) instances usually cost less for the same performance, as long as your software has arm64 builds.

## Step 1: Create the security group

- **SSH (22):** your own IP address only, never 0.0.0.0/0.
- **HTTP (80) and HTTPS (443):** open to the internet.
- Leave all other inbound ports closed.

## Step 2: Launch the instance

```
aws ec2 run-instances --image-id ami-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx --instance-type t4g.medium --key-name my-key --security-group-ids sg-xxxxxxxx --block-device-mappings 'DeviceName=/dev/sda1,Ebs={VolumeSize=40,VolumeType=gp3}'
```

## Step 3: Attach an Elastic IP

Allocate an Elastic IP and associate it with the instance so your public address survives stops and restarts. Point your DNS A record at that address.

## Step 4: Connect

```
ssh -i ~/.ssh/my-key.pem ubuntu@YOUR_ELASTIC_IP
```