How to choose the best PHP web hosting?

Our team work with PHP programming from 2004 with a lot of experience on server side configuration and set up. In this article we will show you how, why and what is the best PHP web hosting what make your php website work fast , security and best support.

Top 3 PHP Web Hosting Companies

If you don’t have much time to read to understand all of features and reasons then we have here top #3 candidate PHP web hosting for you, you can choose one of them and I believe you will be happy with their result and service.

SiteGround PHP Hosting package: $3.95/month (60% OFF now), Server SuperCacher  unique features (memcached, proxy cache, apache google speed, Varnish cache …), PHP Security, PHP Multi versions (7 different PHP versions), CDN + Multi server location, Free domain, Free transfer…

A2 Hosting package: $4.97/month,  SSDs support, unique SwiftServer platform,  PHP Security, PHP Multi versions, Free domain, Free transfer …

Hosting24 package: $4.84/month, Free domain, Unlimited disk and bandwidth, PHP Security, CDN, Free domain, Free transfer …

Many people will ask me why SiteGround is the first choice?! It ‘s just because all of our customers who they host for us get 100% happy with their services. They know exactly what to do when the problem happen and it ‘s just what customers want. You always have peace in mind when using them.

In the case you want more information about the best PHP web hosting , I will show you all of features needed here:

1. PHP compatible and Multi version support

A good PHP web hosting provider must support newest PHP version and as many as possible other PHP versions. For this time, at least they support PHP 5.x

PHP Multi version will help us a lot when we deploy PHP application because some applications only work with a specific PHP version and configuration, so that sometimes you will need to switch between PHP versions.

As the first option we listed above, SiteGround support 7 PHP version for user to choose when running their websites. That ‘s nice enough for us and enough to make them different.

2. PHP opcode support for PHP web Hosting

A best PHP Web Hosting can’t miss opcode support in their server set up because it will speed up the performance very much. And who don’t want the fast website?

Opcode what PHP hosting server can use is XCache, APC, eAccelerator

If you has ever worked with PHP you will see PHP coding what usually have too many files included in one process call. Let ‘s say we have to include 10 php files in just one process what do a simple work, in this case, the PHP compiler have to parse text and do many complicated steps to get a final binary code what can run directly in PHP interpreter. Opcode was born to save all of steps from PHP code text to binary code, it will compile just one time and then if it detect there are no change in all of files included it will use the last compiled binary code and run it right away. This way it can make site faster 10 times, it ‘s really impressive.

3. Strong and Friendly control panel

Are you working with cPanel before? If yes, then let ‘s require your hosting company support it because it will save you a lot of time if you manage your hosting support what you like to work. And in anyway, you can require the user interface what they are using must friendly enough for you to start a new website in 10 minutes.

4. PHP security,  Anti-Spam & Backup

complete-security-php1

The security is the most important for any online business so that the best PHP web hosting must cover the risk and cover everything when any problem happen. At least in the bad situation, they must support daily backup what make sure we can recover the old version.

Many problems can happen in live online business and we have to choose the PHP hosting company who can give us peace in mind to have time to focus to main business instead of spending a lot of time for hosting.

So in the bottom line, the PHP web hosting company must support auto backup or you should say no with them.

5. Quick support and PHP Expert support

The support quality can be a top of requirements for the most users to choose the best PHP web hosting. It ‘s very crazy if a website down and we can’t do anything to get it up again, so that the quick support will help us a lot to calm down the problem.

Other than that, we can’t allow the support from stupid guys (the guys from hosting company don’t know anything about techniques, they just stay there, wait and answer a general question), we need a PHP expert, the server and hosting expert who will solve the real problem for us. So that the best PHP web hosting must provide the PHP expert support in quick response time.

You know, the support response time average from SiteGround ticket is only 7 minutes, it ‘s really nice response time. And it will be no waiting with phone support. That ‘s what we really like their service.

6. Multi server location & Global and Famous brand name

5 years ago we had chance to work for a customers in UK who already got  his local hosting company to handle their hosting stuffs. I will not say their name here but their name is not famous, and they don’t have too many customers. My customers always think that if they don’t have too many customers they will have much time to take care us. But he ‘s wrong! You know, the big brand name and famous brand name will know how to take care you because they already take care a lot of customers on the world. The big brand name will have a lot of useful tools what need to build and invest for a long time. That ‘s why I highly recommend you choose a global and big brand name in hosting company instead of local hosting provider.

7. Dynamic cache support

Cache

Memcached, Redis, XCache …. Or whatever but they should support one of them to make sure we have something faster than FileSystem cache. Maybe you will not focus much in beginning but in the product live website, you will think about it, and it can be late to support later what cost more money. Why don’t we choose it from the first step?

8. PHP Application & PHP Extensions support: WordPress, Joomla, Magento …

By supporting many useful and popular PHP extensions what are required by popular applications like wordpress, Joomla, Magento … the PHP web hosting can handle all of them in very smooth working. Other than that, they need to support RAM and CPU resource enough for resource consume. If you want to use PHP for specific application then please ask them support them or not before buying the hosting package.

9. Linux OS

PHP must be built and run on Linux OS like CentOS, Ubuntu, Red Hat … or any Unix base OS because PHP are designed and work best on Linux. If you get a PHP hosting provider but the OS is Window then you should look at their profile about hosting before choosing them.

Thank you and welcome your comment!!!

28 comments

  1. I receive many questions via contact form about how does it cost for a PHP hosting what we can realize it ‘s good enough. So if you have any question like this please tell me here.

    I believe the good hosting must require the human resource to manage, the technical investment and many many more things what they need money, so that they must require us a little money when using their service. But it ‘s strange if a hosting service was born with a too cheap price. So let ‘s stay away from cheap service because they have no way to get the good quality.

    But the question is how much ‘s the niche price for a good php hosting service? Base on my experience, it should from $3.5/month to $10/month

  2. I need PHP 5.4 to get my site work, do you have any good provider what you can make sure they provide this version

  3. Actually, you should choose the web hosting where they support default PHP 5.3 or above. It ‘s long term PHP version support, it can work well with almost popular PHP extension.

    • You are right, jacky. As I know 99.9% web hosting currently supported PHP 5.3.x so we don’t have to worry about that. The main feature we need to focus to is the compatible source app. So the hosting company can make sure they provide enough PHP extension what can help your source work stable.

  4. Hosting24 is very small brand name, not sure why you add to this list

    • Brew, did you try their service? What do you think about their service? We only base on the true quality from our hosting package we are using for our customers.

  5. After choosing the good hosting package, should I install cache plugin for my wordpress to make it work fast or it is already supported?

    • You need to install the wordpress supercache plugin or W3 total cache, but it ‘s quite easy. If you don’t know how to do, please feel free to contact us.

  6. PHP always come with Linux, that ‘s very basic thing 🙂

  7. For now, which PHP version is the best when I choose a web hosting for PHP? Is it PHP 5.x or others?

    • 5.x is highly recommended to use now. But you will see almost hosting support multi-version of PHP. So that you don’t have to worry about that. The most thing you need to look at is the up time and the page load with cache solution. It may effect on your website speed directly.

  8. There is no best wordpress hosting for anyone. We only have the best one for only you. And you share your feeling but yes, many chances it will be right for me too :). I mean, I has not tried SiteGround yet, but I believe hosting24 can’t be a good one since it meet too much downtime

    • But you know, SiteGround is really good to start wordpress with supercacher and a lot of tools what they build to save time and improve the performance. They have many tools what you can’t see from anywhere else. Anyway, try and figure out yourself 🙂

      • That ‘s great, thanks Giner. It ‘s really a nice option for any fast wordpress site, it make me feel everything about wordpress become very easy since they almost take care everything.

  9. It look like SiteGround is a very good choice for us. I do buy hosting from them and everything come very quick and easy. Nice choice.

  10. It ‘s really good tutorial. Thanks admin. You did a great job

  11. For now, I think we should use PHP 5.6 cgi for the best security

  12. Nice Sharing. It is very difficult to select best web hosting services.

  13. Good to know, but if you choose hosting for wordpress then just ask for wordpress hosting with one-click install, wordpress security plugin, wordpress auto update … it ‘s much better

    • Thanks CloudMaker. One-click install is quite popular now on hosting industry so you can make sure about that if your hosting provider is using cPanel.

  14. I think one of the most important feature from hosting provider is support team. If they got a very good wordpress support team then they must invest a lot to server hosting features

  15. Wow, it is more than enough for me to handle the website with 10k visits/day. So nice to see a good solution for that with cheap price. Cool

  16. So nice to know this post for PHP hosting. Very detail about everything PHP hosting need. Thanks ad

  17. They are really nice hosting services. At least for my hosting plan what they upgraded to PHP 7 work really good. Thanks for your information.

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