How to find best hosting company for Joomla! CMS ? Print

If you want the answer to the above question, you are in the right place! All necessary information about web hosting companies providing Joomla! hosting are here.

First the minimum requirements for Joomla! host:

  • PHP 4.2.x or above
  • MySQL 3.23.x or above
  • Apache 1.13.19 or above
  • MySQL, XML, and Zlib functionalities enabled in PHP

Even cheap hosting should fulfill such requirements. Most of large hosting companies provide two types of hosting: Windows or Linux hosting. For Joomla! you need the Linux hosting.

Web hosting can be divided into 3 categories:

  • shared server hosting
  • VPS (Virtual Private Server)
  • dedicated server

Shared hosting is the most popular and it should be enough for smaller sites.

VPS hosting is for more advanced users. It gives you almost the same access as dedicated server (ssh login, command line) just smaller resources. It can be used to host multiple account and domains.

Dedicated servers require the most knowledge for administration, but are the most powerful (and most expensive, too).

Choose a host which:

  • is up-to-date with updates of oparating system and appliations
  • provides security information, either through their knowledge base or forum
  • has PHP directive Register Globals set to OFF, or let you set it to OFF via .htaccess or php.ini
  • do not use PHP Safe Mode (it must be OFF)
  • do not overloads their servers by putting too many users on one machine

Optionally, also:

  • provides daily backup (although backup copy is really your responsibility)
  • provides PhpMyAdmin (for advanced users)

There is unfortunately no easy way of selecting the best hosting company: you can browse their website, check hosting packages descriptions, compare features, then check their forum for other users opinions (it they provide one), then eventually sign up for trial hosting account and try it by yourself. You can also check the internet and other forums for opinions, but with multiple hosting options finding a good solution for Joomla! can take a lot of valuable time.

We would like to provide one central place for discussions and recommendations about all aspects of Joomla! hosting.