Bitpoke

Bitpoke builds cloud-native WordPress infrastructure, with a focus on Kubernetes operators and self-hosted deployments. Founded by CTO Calin Don and CEO Mile Rosu, the company is based in Timisoara, Romania, and operates from a coworking space called DevPlant. The team is small and focused: Don is a developer with two decades of WordPress experience dating back to 2005, while Rosu brings background in Java, WordPress, and Kubernetes. Bitpoke's core mission is to democratize WordPress hosting by making Kubernetes infrastructure accessible to the WordPress ecosystem—moving away from traditional managed hosting toward infrastructure that runs under your own terms, usually on Google Cloud.

The company distributes its work across two main tracks: open-source building blocks (the Bitpoke Stack, released under Apache 2.0) and a commercial Kubernetes application available on the Google Cloud Marketplace. The open-source offering is a set of command-line tools for running WordPress on Kubernetes clusters, whether on-premise or in the cloud. The commercial product is a Software as a Service solution that runs under your Google Cloud account, marketed toward demanding e-commerce, enterprise setups, and backend-heavy applications.

Services and capabilities

Bitpoke's service portfolio spans WordPress development, Kubernetes modernization, and database infrastructure.

On the WordPress side, the company offers custom development (building sites from scratch or adding backend functionality to existing installations), technical reviews of existing infrastructure and code quality, performance optimization drawing on "more than 18 years of monitoring and performance optimization," and migrations from other CMSs like Drupal, Magento, or Typo3 to WordPress. They also advise on cloud migration strategy, helping teams adopt modern CI/CD workflows and migrate applications and data to the cloud while preserving SEO scores and minimizing downtime.

For Kubernetes work, Bitpoke develops custom operators—specialized controllers or extensions that integrate business requirements into Kubernetes, particularly for managing multi-tenant systems or adding platform features. They also handle application modernization, moving legacy infrastructure (bare metal, older hosting platforms) to container-based, cloud-native architectures deployable across major cloud providers. Cloud migration services help teams move Kubernetes clusters from bare-metal setups to public cloud providers like Google Cloud, handling the detailed planning, incremental migration, and post-migration monitoring.

A third pillar is their MySQL Operator—an open-source Kubernetes operator for MySQL that Bitpoke maintains and supports. Services around this include sponsored feature development, implementation consulting to help teams set up the operator in their environment, and dedicated support via Slack and email with prioritized troubleshooting.

All WordPress development work includes data encryption at rest and in transit. The company emphasizes collaboration with existing teams and development practices aligned with SEO, performance, and scalability.

How they work

Bitpoke's engagement model starts with a free introductory call to discuss your project. From there, they structure work around specific outcomes: in planning, they help define strategy, timeline, and budget alongside technical architecture advice; during implementation, they deliver code and infrastructure; and post-launch, they offer monitoring and optimization tooling. No specific pricing or retainer models are mentioned in their public materials. The team operates from Timisoara and appears to work directly with clients on a project basis rather than through a dedicated team or staff augmentation model.

Team and credentials

Bitpoke is a small operation: two co-founders (Calin Don as CTO, Mile Rosu as CEO) based in Timisoara, Romania. No broader team size is disclosed. Don has actively developed WordPress since 2005 and is described as a language-agnostic developer. Rosu has experience across Java, WordPress, and Kubernetes, having co-founded two other ventures. The company presented at major industry conferences including KubeCon Barcelona and Seattle, WordCamp London and Bucharest, and Percona Live Frankfurt. No formal certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2, etc.) are mentioned. The Bitpoke MySQL Operator is noted as "the most appreciated open-sourced MySQL operator on Github."