I'm considering moving a single WordPress site from a shared host to OpenShift.
The entire OpenShift platform seems to revolve around development and deployment using git and special OpenShift command-line tools, which would probably mean running a local server as well (LAMP/WAMP). I know how to do all that, but we're not doing any development. Plugins, WordPress upgrades, etc. are all managed on the host. The one or two custom files were simply uploaded. I don't see why I need all that local overhead just to host a WordPress site in the cloud.
I have successfully tested installing standard WordPress in an empty OpenShift PHP gear, then restoring our current site into the /repo folder from a gzip file, plus restoring the SQL database. I set up normal SQL and site backups in cron. It all works great (and faster than the shared host).
However I can't find anyone else documenting this approach. Am I asking for trouble here? Will I regret not using git plus the OpenShift tools?
This is only a partial answer to the question. It does seem possible to set up WordPress on OpenShift without the dev tools. I've documented the process, including creating automated backups, in a two-part blog post:
Configure WordPress on OpenShift without Git: Part 1
Configure WordPress on OpenShift without Git: Part 2
I also got some explanation of the OpenShift philosophy and file structure in the comments to their post here:
12 Tips for Hosting WordPress on OpenShift
I've successfully migrated a more complex site (two domains, multiple subdomains). It's very fast but so far I haven't been able to get past this Redirect issue:
Redirect to absolute URL in .htaccess returns wrong host name on OpenShift
It remains to be seen if OpenShift is a viable long-term alternative for hosting WordPress without setting up a development environment.