Choosing a PHP hosting provider needs careful consideration, as it can directly impact how well your PHP site or app will perform.
After all, it provides a technical environment for PHP scripts to work optimally.
Even though you can create a PHP server yourself, you must know about the benefits of specialized PHP hosting providers, which include the following.
- Full compatibility with PHP scripts
- Ability to easily scale when needed
- Get support for the latest PHP version
- Server-specific performance and security optimizations
- Access to a vibrant community and support for easy resolutions
This helps overcome compatibility, scalability, security, and uptime issues.
In this post, I’ll discuss the best PHP hosting providers that fit the requirements of businesses, web developers, and hobbyists as I help them choose between shared, VPS, dedicated, and cloud hosting options.
I’ve researched and chosen the best PHP hosting providers by comparing the available options with criteria like ease of use, multiple PHP specifications support, customizability, affordability, uptime, updates, and PHP-based application support (such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.)
Note: I also considered PHP-focused features such as cache plugins, support for PHP frameworks such as Laravel, Symfony, etc., and content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress and Drupal.
- 1. DigitalOcean – Best for Developers
- 2. A2 Hosting – Best for Budget-Friendly
- 3. Kinsta – Best for High-traffic Sites
- 4. Cloudways – Best for Multi-Cloud
- 5. Runcloud – Best for Streamlining Server Management
- 6. Platform.sh – Best for Enterprise-level Projects
- 7. SiteGround – Best for Balanced Performance and Support
- 8. Hostinger – Best for Basic Projects and Testing
- 9. FastComet – Best for Advanced Features at Higher Tiers
- 10. IONOS – Best for Scalability
- 11. Bluehost – Best for Beginner-Friendly Shared Hosting
- 12. Forge – Best for Laravel Applications
- Show less
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Comparison Table of Best PHP Hosting Providers
The table below compares the best PHP hosting providers based on their starting price, supported PHP versions, backup frequency, and server locations.
Product | Starting Price (Monthly) | Supported PHP Versions | Backup Frequency | Server Locations |
---|---|---|---|---|
DigitalOcean | $4 | PHP 7.x (default) and 8.x | Daily (30% of the droplet cost) and weekly (20% of the droplet cost) | 9 regions across globe, including New York, Toronto, Bangalore |
A2 Hosting | $1.75 | PHP 4.4 to PHP 8.3, easily change via cPanel | Customizable, can be set to daily, weekly, or at certain intervals | Michigan (USA), Arizona (USA), Singapore (Asia), and Amsterdam (Europe) |
Kinsta | $18 | All PHP versions supported | Customizable, can be set to daily, weekly, or at certain intervals | 25 data centers worldwide including London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc. |
Cloudways | $6.60 | All PHP version supported, including latest PHP 8.x | Customizable, can be set as per need | Depends on the choice of cloud provider. |
Runcloud | $9 | Run any PHP version | Choice any interval between 12 hours to 7 days, up to 1-month backup retention | Depends on the choice of cloud provider |
Platform.sh | Contact sales | Run any PHP version | Varied backup for each plan. For example, basic backup plan comes with 2 manual and automated daily backups | Choose servers from GCP, AWS, or Azure. |
Siteground | $2.99 (yearly plan) | PHP 7.4 to 8.3xx per site | Supports daily backup and keeps 30 copies of your site | 11 data centers including Dallas, Los Angeles, Singapore, etc. |
Hostinger | $1.95 | PHP 5.2 to latest 8.x | Offers daily (stored for 7 days) and weekly backup (stored for 7 weeks) | 10 data center locations, including servers in the USA, India, France, etc. |
FastComet | $1.79 | PHP 5.6 to PHP 8.3 | Offers 30 daily offsite backups with incremental or full restores | 12+ data centers, including London, Frankfurt, Chennai, Dallas, etc. |
IONOS | $4 | Extended support for PHP v4.0 to 7.4 (paid) and free support for newer PHP v8.x | Daily website backup and recovery (up to 6 days) | 8 data centers, including Berlin, Las Vegas, Logrono, etc. |
Bluehost | $1.99 | PHP v8.1 or above for shared hosting, no PHP version limitation for cloud/VPS hosting | Paid backup service with option to choose daily, weekly, or monthly backups | 5 servers across the globe, including Utah, London, Shanghai, and Mumbai. |
Forge | $12 | No PHP version limitation | Set backup based on your requirement | Depends on your choice of cloud provider |
1. DigitalOcean
Best for Developers
DigitalOcean is an excellent PHP hosting option for developers working on custom PHP projects, as it is production-ready. It offers complete control over server resources and settings.
I recommend DigitalOcean as it offers customizability via droplets (virtual machines). These offer scalability and 99.99% SLA, ensuring top-notch uptime for mission-critical apps.
Additionally, droplets provide support for SSH keys, firewalls, and SSL/TLS.
As for PHP version support, you get PHP 7.x (default) and 8.x. This also means you can easily install PHP-based applications, such as WordPress and Joomla.
DigitalOcean has data centers across 9 regions, including servers in Frankfurt, Bangalore, Toronto, New York City, and San Francisco.
DigitalOcean Features
- Supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Apache.
- Offers security features such as firewall, SSH, and SSL/TLS.
- Fully managed scalable PaaS solution that helps quickly launch PHP apps
- 99.99% uptime SLA for droplets and volumes block storage
- Excellent knowledge base
DigitalOcean Pros
Extensive OS and resource customization options
Offers robust PaaS infrastructure for easy scalability
Pay-as-you-go pricing model
DigitalOcean Cons
Only offers managed services via third-party hosting such as Cloudways
Steep learning curve due to custom control panel
Not beginner friendly
DigitalOcean Pricing
DigitalOcean general-purpose droplet pricing starts at $4/month, which includes 1 vCPU, 512 MiB memory, 500 GB transfer, and 1 GB SSD space. Backups cost 30% of the droplet cost (20% if you choose weekly backups).
2. A2 Hosting
Best for Budget-Friendly
A2 Hosting is a budget-friendly PHP hosting provider that supports a wide range of PHP versions, including PHP 4.4 to PHP 8.3—making it ideal for projects that need access to different PHP versions.
Additionally, A2 Hosting easily handles PHP projects with support for tools like MariaDB, phpMyAdmin, and MySQL. Its server fleet includes Michigan and Arizona in the USA, Singapore in Asia, and Amsterdam in Europe.
A2 Hosting Features
- 99.99% uptime guarantee
- Reliable servers with unlimited bandwidth
- Provides free account migration.
- 24/7/365 customer service via email, live chat, and phone.
- Easy-to-use cPanel control panel.
A2 Hosting Pros
Free SSL, SSH access, and free account migration
Supports PHP from v4.4 to 8.3
Supports WordPress and Drupal
A2 Hosting Cons
Doesn’t support custom PHP applications
Small server fleet limiting location selection options
A2 Hosting Pricing
A2 Hosting offers shared, managed WordPress, managed VPS hosting, and managed dedicated hosting server plans. All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Subscription | Pricing (Monthly) | Offerings |
---|---|---|
Shared Web Hosting Plans | $1.75 | 1 website, 100 GB SSD storage, free migration |
Managed WordPress Plans | $9.95 | 1 WordPress site, 50 GB NVMe SSD, free SSL certificate, free migration, onsite backups, easy staging/cloning |
Managed VPS Hosting Plans | $26.95 | 4 GB RAM, 150 GB SSD storage, 2 TB Transfer, 2 cores, free SSL, free cPanel, free migration |
3. Kinsta
Best for High-traffic Sites
Kinsta is a premium managed PHP hosting provider capable of handling high-traffic sites.
I found Kinsta to offer PHP 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3 support in its managed WordPress hosting plans.
You can use any PHP version you want via its web application hosting for custom development.
Moreover, Kinsta is developer-friendly and supports Git, DevOps, staging areas, and more. It also supports custom dockerfiles and is DevOps-automated (Kinsta handles environment setup and deployments).
Under the hood, Kinsta uses Google Cloud infrastructure, comprising 37 Wordpress data centers and 25 hosting applications. These data centers include Hong Kong, Tokyo, Delhi, London, Frankfurt, and Zurich. These Kinsta servers are SOC2 compliant as well.
Kinsta Features
- DevOps automation handles machines’ initial setup, firewall setups, and more.
- Supports Git-based workflow with automatic deployments.
- Offers stateful applications with persistent storage.
- Easily troubleshoot issues using runtime logs.
- 99.99% SLA
- Enterprise-grade Cloudflare DDoS protection
Kinsta Pros
Comes with unlimited domain and SSL certificate
$20 free trial
Powered by Google Cloud Infrastructure
Kinsta Cons
Not easy to operate for new users
Costly compared to peers
Kinsta Pricing
Kinsta offers PHP memory pricing with standard monthly plans that start at $18/site per month.
4. Cloudways
Best for Multi-Cloud
Cloudways is a great pick for managed PHP hosting as it offers cloud providers a choice between DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, and Google Cloud, but at an additional cost.
As it offers managed hosting, you don’t have to worry about updates, initial server setup, or maintenance.
It handles them and provides features such as auto-healing (automatically restarting compromised apps), automated backups, and regular security patches.
However, I found its workflow development features more appealing. It comes with:
- Git integration
- 1-click cloning
- SSH/SFTP access
- Staging URLs
- Team collaboration
For scalability, you can use block storage to increase storage capabilities or vertically scale server resources (RAM and CPU) per your needs. They offer support for PHP version 5.6 to the latest PHP version 8.2. It offers a high-performance optimized stack of Apache, NGINX, MySQL/MariaDB, and PHP-FPM.
Cloudways server choice depends on the cloud provider’s choice. It can include servers from New York, London, San Francisco, Bangalore, and Tel Aviv.
Cloudways Features
- Supports major PHP CMSs, such as WordPress and Drupal
- Supports frameworks like Laravel and Symfony.
- Top-notch security with a dedicated firewall and SSL certificate
- Resourceful knowledge base
- 24/7 expert live chat support and ticketing system.
- Excellent performance with Cloudflare Enterprise and built-in breeze plugin
- Comes with an optimized stack and SSD hosting.
Cloudways Pros
Unlimited PHP workers and applications
Easy one-click PHP app installations
Supports all PHP versions, including the latest PHP 8.x
Cloudway Cons
Only a 3-day trial period
No unmetered bandwidth plans
Cloudways Pricing
As Cloudways offers multi-cloud hosting options, the pricing differs depending on your choice of cloud provider. They have categorized pricing into two categories including:
- Standard: For general-purpose workloads and applications.
- Premium: For demanding workload powered by scalable and AI Intel Xeon chips.
Subscription | Pricing (Monthly) | Offerings |
---|---|---|
DigitalOcean | $6.60 (Standard), $8.40 (Premium) | 1 – 192GB RAM, 1 – 32 core processor, 25GB – 3840GB storage, 1 TB – 12 TB bandwidth |
Vultr | $8.40 (standard), $9.60 (High-Frequency) | 1 – 64GB RAM, 1 – 16 core processor, 25GB – 1280GB storage, 1TB – 10TB bandwidth |
Linode | $8.40 (Standard) | 1 – 192GB RAM, 1 – 24 core processor, 25GB – 3840GB storage, 1TB – 20TB bandwidth |
AWS | $23.14 (Standard) | 2 – 384GB RAM, 2 – 96 core processor, 20GB storage, 2GB bandwidth |
Google Cloud | $22.47 (Standard) | 1.75 – 240GB RAM, 1 – 96 core processor, 20GB storage, 2GB bandwidth |
They offer a 3-day free trial with no credit card.
5. Runcloud
Best for Streamlining Server Management
Runcloud provides an easy-to-use and powerful control panel for managing your next PHP project.
It streamlines server management via a graphical interface. Like Cloudways, Runcloud is a multi-cloud solution provider where you can choose Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers such as AWS, Google Cloud, Hetzner, Upload, Linode, and DigitalOcean.
In my research, I found one-click installers useful. It helps set up servers instantly and automatically. Once done, you can take over and create virtual PHP machines as needed. Furthermore, Runcloud provides a monitoring system that will notify you if something needs urgent attention.
Runcloud’s data center offerings depend on your cloud choice. For example, you can choose from Toronto, Mexico City, Bangalore, or Singapore.
Runcloud Features
- Offers atomic deployment using Git with zero downtime.
- Eases server management with automated server configuration.
- Supports major PHP frameworks and tools, like Laravel, Yii Framework, Code Igniter, etc.
- Supports multiple PHP versions.
- Offers a staging area
Runcloud Pros
Provides an easy-to-use interface
Provides initial setup and configuration
Unlimited PHP web application
Runcloud Cons
The basic plan lacks a firewall and custom NGINX configuration
Backup storage add-ons can be costly
Runcloud Pricing
Runcloud comes with 3 plans: Basic, Pro, and Business.
Subscription | Pricing (Monthly) | Offerings |
---|---|---|
Essentials | $9 | 1 server, unlimited web app, one-click SSL, 2GB backup storage, Git deployment, 1 WordPress staging, Runcloud Hub plugin |
Professional | $19 | Everything in Basic, plus unlimited servers, 10GB backup storage, 10 WordPress staging, custom NGINX and configuration, clone web application, 6G and 7G firewall |
Business | $49 | Everything in Pro, plus atomic deployment, 30GB backup storage, unlimited WordPress staging, Cloudflare DNS, and much more. |
All plans come with a 14-day money-back guarantee (no questions asked).
6. Platform.sh
Best for Enterprise-level Projects
Platform.sh is a PHP hosting solution for enterprise-level projects. It offers a complete Platform as a Service (PaaS) delivery solution that helps you handle complexity with standardization.
I like the platform because it lets build DevOps standardization on top of a unified development workflow.
PHP developers can kickstart their development with templates that handle automatic infrastructure provisions.
The platform also supports Git-based workflow to help push changes faster. Additionally, teams get a DDEV local development environment and access to CLI and API.
Platform.sh also offers enterprise-grade WordPress with support for Git-powered workflow, integrated Composer support, and best-in-class PHP tooling.
It has a global presence with servers from AWS, GCP, and Azure. You can host your PHP sites in the US-West, Canada, Sweden, the UK, Ireland, and Australia.
Platform.sh Features
- Offers DDoS protection and multi-factor authentication
- Ability to monitor and optimize resource usage via Observability
- Auto-scaling architecture
- Offers multiple availability zones with 99.99% SLA
- Supports 15+ services including MariaDB and PostgreSQL
Platform.sh Pros
Generous 30-day free trial with no credit card requirement
Offers 70+ software templates for faster deployment
24/7 enterprise support across 14 time zones
Platform.sh Cons
Slow response time by customer support during peak hours
Steep learning curve for beginners
Slightly higher price point compared to other hosting providers
Platform.sh Pricing
Platform.sh offers three plans: Professional, Enterprise, and Elite. The Professional plan offers a 30-day trial with no credit card requirement.
Subscription | Pricing (Monthly) | Offerings |
---|---|---|
Professional | Custom | Offers managed services, supports CI/CD pipelines, supports data cloning on every branch, 70+ software templates, basic backup plan, etc. |
Enterprise | Custom | Everything in Professional, plus 99.9% to 99.99% uptime guarantee, dedicated account manager, 1-hour urgent support SLA, automated code updates, managed scaling, etc. |
Elite | Custom | Everything in Enterprise, plus 45-minute urgent support SLA, custom app template catalog, PCI/SOC2 compliance, premium backup plans, etc. |
7. SiteGround
Best for Balanced Performance and Support
SiteGround provides a perfect mix of performance and support for busy organizations. I found that SiteGround offers 30% faster load times.
Its ultra-fast PHP setup has low memory usage and the ability to easily handle larger volumes of queries. Additionally, they offer other performance-focused features, including the use of Google Cloud infrastructure, website caching, free 1-click CDN, and high-performing MySQL.
On the support side, they offer 24/7/365 customer service through live chat, ticketing, and phone.
SiteGround offers PHP support for versions 7.4 to 8.3xx per site.
So, if you are hosting multiple PHP projects, you can choose the PHP version accordingly. They also have excellent scalability options with both shared and cloud hosting plans.
The hosting solution has 11 global data centers including Dallas, London, Los Angeles, Paris, Sydney, and Singapore.
SiteGround Features
- Offers 1-click CDN with an optimized stack
- Uses Google Cloud infrastructure
- Comes with 1-click software installs
- Offers free collaborator access and easy domain management
- Provides email migration tool
- Free SSL, WAF, and Smart AI anti-bot system
SiteGround Pros
Beginner-friendly with easy website management
Value for money plans with unmetered traffic (fair-use policy)
Free SSL and Email
SiteGround Cons
High renewal prices
No free migration is provided
Database size is limited to 1 GB
SiteGround Pricing
SiteGround offers 3 web hosting shared plans. These include StartUp, GrowBig, and GoGeek. If you need dedicated resources, then check out their cloud hosting plans.
For PHP projects, we suggest getting GrowBig and GoGeek, as both come with 30% faster PHP performance.
Subscription | Pricing (Monthly) | Offerings |
---|---|---|
Startup | $2.99 | 1 website, 10GB web space, 10,000 visits monthly, unmetered traffic |
GrowBig | $4.99 | Unlimited websites, 20GB web space, 100K visits monthly, unmetered traffic, plus exclusive features such as on-demand backup copies, 30% faster PHP, and staging. |
GoGeek | $7.99 | Unlimited websites, 40GB web space, 400K visits monthly, unmetered traffic, plus exclusive features such as 30% faster PHP, on-demand backup copies, staging + Git, white label clients, free private DNS, the highest tier of resources, and priority support. |
All plans include a 30-day money-back guarantee, a free domain, a free SSL, free email, unlimited databases, and a free CDN.
8. Hostinger
Best for Basic Projects and Testing
Hostinger is perfect for hosting and testing PHP developers’ projects. I suggest Hostinger because it is a cheap yet effective hosting service that supports different versions of PHP (PHP 7.3 and above). It also supports older PHP versions (via .htaccess file editing).
Hostinger supports popular PHP frameworks such as Laravel and MySQL database support.
As for data centers, Hostinger offers 10 data center locations, including France, India, the USA, Brazil, and the Netherlands.
Hostinger Features
- Offers free SSL, privacy protection, and malware scanners.
- Fast NVMe storage and in-house CDN.
- Provides LiteSpeed web server and ObjectCache.
- Handles traffic surges efficiently with a free 24-hour plan boost.
- It offers an automatic migration tool.
- Provides Hostinger website builder for faster development.
Hostinger Pros
24/7 customer support through live chat or email
Cheap plans with generous storage
Offers custom hPanel (similar to cPanel)
Hostinger Cons
Lacks plans to support larger PHP sites
Write speeds are heavily throttled affecting performancen in some cases
Hostinger Pricing
Hostinger offers 3 hosting packages: Premium, Business, and Cloud Startup.
Subscription | Pricing (Monthly) | Offerings |
---|---|---|
Premium | $1.95 | 100 websites, 25000 visits monthly, 100 GB SSD storage, 400K files and directories |
Business | $2.95 | 100 websites, 100K visits monthly, 200GB NVMe storage, 600K files and directories |
Cloud Startup | $7.59 | 300 websites, 200K visits monthly, 200GB NVMe storage, 2000K files and directories |
They offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on all plans.
9. FastComet
Best for Advanced Features at Higher Tiers
FastComet is an advanced PHP hosting provider. It offers access to malware scanners, restore managers, node.js support, performance boost, WordPress LSCWP Cache, and LiteSpeed Enterprise. However, most of the features are locked behind higher-tier plans.
I found FastComent’s performance top-notch as it utilizes a LiteSpeed Enterprise web server. It performs faster than Apache (84x faster) and NGINX (12x faster). Additionally, the server uses a fast AMD EYPC processor in addition to NVMe SSDs, offering 7x faster queries and file access.
FastComet offers 12+ high-performance data centers worldwide, including servers in Europe (London, Frankfurt, etc.), Australia, Asia (Chennai, Singapore, Sydney, etc.), and America (Dallas, Chicago, Miami, etc.)
FastComet supports PHP 5.6 to PHP 8.3 versions.
FastComet Features
- 100% network uptime, powered by 12K Mbps public network.
- Comes with WAF, IP Reputation Guard, Account Isolation, and Imunify360.
- 99.99% uptime commitment with downtime compensation
- Provides free migrations, free SSL certificate, and free Cloudflare CDN
- Up to 30 daily offsite backups with unlimited full or incremental restores.
FastComet Pros
Responsive customer support via live chat
Access to 3000+ tutorials
Drag-and-drop website builder
FastComet Cons
Confusing initial pricing period
Addon costs can impact monthly budgets
FastComet Pricing
FastComet offers 4 plans: Starter, Essential, Plus and Extra.
Subscription | Pricing (Monthly) | Offerings |
---|---|---|
Starter | $1.79 | 1 website, 10GB NVMe storage, 5 email accounts, 5 databases, 1 free website transfer, no advanced features |
Essential | $2.39 | 1 website, 20GB NVMe storage, 25 email accounts, 25 databases, 1 free website transfer, offer advanced features such as Malware Scanner, Restore Manager, Node.js Support |
Plus | $3.59 | Unlimited websites, 30GB NVMe storage, unlimited databases, unlimited email accounts, similar advanced feature as Essential, plus 2x performance boost |
You get a 45-day money-back guarantee with each plan.
10. IONOS
Best for Scalability
IONOS web hosting plans are ideal for fast-growing PHP projects. The platform offers instant resource scalability, such as memory, RAM or parallel processing, handling increased traffic with ease. I found them to offer cheap pricing to improve performance ($2/month per level).
Users can choose from multiple IONOS data center locations, including Berlin, Paris, Frankfurt, London, Las Vegas, Lenexa, Newark, and Logrono. All servers (ISO 270001 certified) are optimized for lightning-fast loading time using HTTP/2 network protocol, multiplexing, and header compression, resulting in a 1.23-second average page load speed.
IONOS also offers paid PHP extended support. Through this, old PHP versions get security checks and updates to ensure that existing apps and scripts are stable. Currently, they offer extended support for PHP v4.0 to 7.4. They also support newer PHP 8.x versions (free).
IONOS Features
- Offers free wildcard certificate to ensure traffic exchange is safe.
- Provides daily website backup and recovery on all plans (for up to 6 days).
- Minimal downtime with geo-redundant infrastructure, ensuring 99.99% uptime.
- Supports all PHP-powered CMS and web apps, including Wordpress, Drupal, phpMyAdmin, etc.
- Offers free email, free domain and free SSL on all plans.
IONOS Pros
Free 24/7 customer support via phone, email, and chat
Offers PHP Extended Support for old PHP version
Personal consultant for each customer
IONOS Cons
Not ideal for highly customized and high-traffic websites
Doesn’t offer free website migration
Each plan gets 1 free email only
IONOS Pricing
IONOS offers 4 plans: Essential, Starter, Plus, and Ultimate. All plans include a free domain, free SSL, professional email, unmetered bandwidth, daily backup, and recovery. You also get a no-question-asked 30-day money-back guarantee with each plan.
Subscription | Pricing (Monthly) | Offerings |
---|---|---|
Essential | $4 | 1 website, 1GB redundant storage, 10 databases, |
Starter | $6 | 10 websites, 100 GB redundant storage, 50 databases |
Plus | $1 | Unlimited websites, unlimited redundant storage, unlimited databases, enhanced CPU and MEM resources |
Ultimate | $10 | Maximum CPU and MEM resources optimized for eCommerce and high-traffic sites, includes everything in Plus plan. |
11. Bluehost
Best for Beginner-Friendly Shared Hosting
Bluehost is a beginner-friendly shared hosting platform with features such as an easy-to-use interface, AI site creation tools, a free migration tool, managed PHP updates, and WordPress staging.
I like its affordability, which enables beginners to explore the potential of their PHP projects.
For shared hosting, Bluehost supports only the latest PHP version, 8.1 and above, for maximum website security. However, if you aim to use their cloud/VPS hosting, the PHP version is not limited.
Bluehost provides plenty of server options, including 2 servers in Utah (USA) and 1 each in London (UK), Shanghai (China), and Mumbai (India).
Bluehost Features
- Optimizes website delivery with free Cloudflare CDN and Agro routing.
- It comes with AI tools that let you kick-start site development.
- Offers updated PHP and MySQL for improved TTFB scores.
- 24/7 customer support via chat and phone.
- Provides robust security with free SSL, WAF, and backups.
Bluehost Pros
Officially recommended by WordPress.org
Relatively inexpensive plans with free domain
100% network uptime for cloud plans
Bluehost Cons
Customer support is slow and less knowledgeable
Lots of upselling
Limited concurrent visitors
Bluehost Pricing
Bluehost offers 4 shared web hosting packages. These include Basic, Choice Plus, Online Store, and Pro.
Subscription | Pricing (Monthly) | Offerings |
---|---|---|
Basic | $1.99 | Ideal for simple websites or blogs, 10 websites, 10 GB SSD, 100 concurrent visitors, 40K visits/month |
Choice Plus | $2.65 | Ideal for multiple sites, 50 websites, 50 GB SSD, 500 concurrent visitors, 200K visits/month |
Online Store | $6.25 | Ideal for ecommerce sites, 50 websites, 50 GB SSD, 500 concurrent visitors, 200K visits/month |
Pro | $9.99 | Ideal for high-traffic sites, 100 websites, 100 GB SSD, 1000 concurrent visitors, 400K visits/month |
12. Forge
Best for Laravel Applications
Forge provides Laravel-focused PHP hosting with a multi-cloud setup option. The hosting service is built by Laravel framework creators, hence ensuring top-notch performance, optimization, and support for Laravel projects.
I recommend Forge because it utilizes cutting-edge technologies, including PHP, Nginx, Postgres, MySQL, Redis, etc.,
Additionally, you’re free to host on your own cloud choice, including Akamai, Amazon, Vultr, Hetzner, and others. This means you get plenty of server choices depending on your cloud choice. They also offer a per-site PHP version (with no limitation on the PHP code version).
Furthermore, Forge supports Laravel-based features, including Octane, which speeds up site delivery to Sentry and helps monitor and debug Laravel applications.
Forge Features
- Supports Git for an easy push-to-deploy option.
- Offers free SSL certificates, SSH key authentication,
- Provides database backups, user isolation, and a proper server monitoring tool.
- Excellent server capacity, including load balancers, cache servers, and worker servers.
- Comes with powerful API to automate Forge features.
- Sharable server’s management dashboard with co-workers (only available on the Business plan).
Forge Pros
Excellent collaboration tools
Offers Laravel-optimized tools
Supports automation workflows
Forge Cons
No instant live chat support
Steep learning curve
Server provider costs not included
Forge Pricing
Forge offers 3 pricing plans: Hobby, Growth, and Business. They offer a 5-day free trial on each plan.
Subscription | Pricing (Monthly) | Offerings |
---|---|---|
Hobby | $12 | 1 server, unlimited sites, unlimited deployments, push to deploy, basic support |
Growth | $19 | Unlimited servers, unlimited sites, unlimited deployments, push to deploy, basic support |
Business | $39 | Everything in Growth, plus priority support, collaboration with teammates, database backups, and server metric monitoring |
7 Benefits of Using Specialized PHP Hosting Provider
Compatibility, performance, cost-effectiveness, and security are some of the many benefits of using a specialized PHP hosting provider, as discussed below.
- Compatibility: A specialized PHP hosting server ensures that all PHP scripts (different versions) work, along with other integrations needed to run the PHP app/website.
- Top-notch Performance: Offers hosting environments aimed at high performance and speed. This makes web apps perform without lag or delay, ensuring fast loading speeds.
- Cost-effective: Offers a cost-effective solution compared to self-hosted solutions.
- Streamlined Updates: Get security and functionality patches faster and more efficiently. It also helps you get the latest PHP version support.
- Security: Specialized PHP hosting providers are also secure as they offer enterprise-grade firewalls, 2FA, SSL support, and malware detection tools, among other security features.
- Excellent Support: Get support from experts who can resolve issues faster. It helps provide 100% uptime with little to no troubleshooting.
- Helpful Community: Join a vibrant community powered by the hosting provider. The community helps resolve minor issues quickly.
How to Choose a PHP Hosting Provider
Below, I’ve highlighted the 6 main criteria to consider when choosing a PHP hosting provider.
- Type of Hosting: Narrow down which type of hosting you need. The types of hosting are listed below.
- Shared → for small blogs or informational sites.
- VPS → for custom PHP apps and websites.
- Cloud → for startups with dynamic requirements.
- Dedicated → for high-performance PHP apps.
- PHP Version Compatibility, Database Support, and Server Configurations: Ensure the hosting provider offers the PHP version required to run your application. Additionally, check that it supports databases such as MySQL and your preferred server configuration (Apache or NGINX).
- Security: The PHP Hosting provider must offer adequate security measures to protect your web app or website. It should provide a robust firewall, SSL certificate support, 2FA support, malware detection tools, and automated security audits. It must also include protection against common PHP threats such as cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and DDoS attacks.
- Performance and Speed: Consider the hosting platform’s performance features, including its infrastructure (SSD usage, network speed, load-balancing options) and access to performance features such as a content delivery network (CDN).
- Customer Support: The PHP hosting provider must have reliable customer support, either through live chat, email, phone, or a ticketing system.
- Budget: The hosting provider must have plans that suit your requirements and budget. This should include scalability and other associated costs with hosting your PHP app/website.
More PHP Resources
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EditorAnirban Choudhury is as an editor at Geekflare, bringing over 7 years of experience in content creation related to VPNs, Proxies, Hosting, Antivirus, Gaming, and B2B2C technologies.