Best PHP Hosting

PHP, in some form, is used by 79% of the internet we see, in some way, as a server-side programming language. Back in the year 1995, Rasmus Lerdorf came up with the concept for PHP. 

Today people are shifting to PHP 7, though PHP 5 still leads the popularity at this stage. PHP over the years has picked up in its diversity. 

This is because of the open-source community of programmers. Applications like Facebook, Wikipedia, and Word press are powered by PHP. There are plenty of hosting options to choose from. 

What is PHP hosting used for? 

PHP is a scripting language used with the help of an interpreter. It aids in the development of dynamic web applications. Using the interpreter suggests that changes to the code can be seen in effect in almost real-time. 

Most companies extensively use web-applications which involve data manipulation and storage, and dynamic content display. The server side of the code needs execution on a host which would act as the server of the application. 

There are lots of companies that offer an array of services for hosting PHP applications; however, there is no single answer. A PHP application can even be hosted on a regular desktop computer. It might be the best idea if someone wants an application a few people on an intranet network may use that, or maybe for a demo. 

The server is essentially a computer or a virtual one. The amount of computation power, memory, and network bandwidth available along with the request load at any point of time and the load of the data the application handles adds up to the list of factors to consider when comparing hosting options. 

Often in modern web applications, there is a need to use specific tools or programming languages along with PHP. In such cases, PHP would continue to act as the server-side language. For example, a company has a PHP based web application. They implement feedback forms, where their customers can put in regular feedback, which would then be sorted and scored with the help of some mechanism. These scores would need to be kept track of since the variation of these scores over time give the trend. 

To implement such functionalities, it may be required to use R along with some unstructured databases like MongoDB and maybe even Python to help analyse data models. In such cases, it becomes crucial to consider the entire configuration of your server to suit the needs of not just PHP but of all the accessory applications running with it. 

How did we pick the best PHP hosting? 

The requirements of the PHP application can not vary from application to application but also from time to time, depending on usage. One could use the following pointers to form a basis for comparison among hosting options. 

• Performance: As a server is either a computer or acts as a virtual computer, it has specific hardware dedicated to it, either on a physical level or on a logical. Factors affect performance such as CPU power available and memory. The performance of an application is also affected by the operating system used on the server. Options can vary between Windows Server operating systems and Linux based servers. Many professionals prefer a Linux based server, because of its robustness and better memory management than Windows, which seems to boost the performance considerably. Other factors enjoy rendering time of the application, the number of requests the server is optimised to serve in unit time, and performing add-ons like firewall, all contribute to performance of the application.

• Accessibility: PHPmyAdmin offers an easy way to manage multiple PHP applications hosted on a server. It is a free option which developers and companies can conveniently use for medium to small-scale projects. Many hosts offer access panels do deal with not just the project settings but also the entire server configuration, which includes SSL certificates, security logs, and a dashboard to handle the general settings, at the least. Some hosting service providers might enable users to configure any third-party API being used for the application from the access panel.

• Reliability: The best way to check for reliability is to check the consumer reviews for that hosting provider. Some factors to consider might be the downtime the server might expect to experience, protection against DDOS attacks, and data backup facilities.

• Service: There are primarily three types of hosting services provided – Shared Hosting, Virtual Private Server Hosting, and Private Hosting. Shared Hosting is cheapest, giving users the least control over their server settings while a private hosting gives complete control over server configuration. 

• Support: Hosting service providers usually over 24X7 support over chat or call. The providers must have technicians who can walk a user through technical difficulties. 

Why do I need PHP hosting? 

PHP as a language is still prevalent. Most small businesses rely on PHP hosting to gather an online audience. Most basic level users rely on sites like Word press to build their website. Hence PHP hosting is mandatory to host websites built on WordPress. 

The concept of shared hosting is straightforward with any PHP hosting services. This promises a quick uptime for websites and does not need very intensive infrastructure management. 

Building deployment pipelines such as CICD is unnecessary for PHP hosting. Most of these PHP hosts have a powerful in-built security system. The vendors themselves manage these security systems. 

PHP, as a language, has an extensive online community. Chances are if you are coding for a particular feature, someone has already done it before. This leads to the availability of guides and sample codes all over the internet, making coding in PHP very easily. PHP, as mentioned before, is an open-source. This allows easy scaling of the services. PHP hosts are usually capable of handling high volumes of traffic. 

What should I look for when buying PHP hosting? 

When buying PHP hosting, one should primarily look for a high server uptime along with a robust memory management system. Substantially servers running Linux as an operating system are preferred over Windows when it comes to the selection of a host. This is because Linux has a better memory management system over Windows. 

The server security levels, especially against DDoS attacks, should be factored in. The vendors themselves manage server security. So users need not worry about maintaining the security personally. 

Users should also account for data backup services while selecting a hosting service. Best hosting sites provide good data backup options for advanced data protection. 

The loading speed of the host is an essential factor. The slower the load speed, the more the money spent behind getting better load times. Users also need to see the number of third-party integrations that the host allows on the websites hosted on them. 

Does PHP hosting cost more? 

PHP hosting is relatively cheaper in comparison with other hosting services. Hosts support both Windows and Linux based operating systems. PHP hosts usually feature a reseller hosting, which is not as expensive as managed or dedicated hosting. 

PHP hosts typically provide hosting services for bloggers and ecommerce websites. Specific hosts provide VPS Hosting services. And a specific few PHP hosts offer unlimited storage with their hosting plans. 

Most PHP hosts also offer a 30-day money-back guarantee with most of their hosting plans. 

So technically, keeping in mind all the above points, PHP hosting is one of the cheapest hosting services available in the market today. 

PHP hosting Pro’s & Con’s 

Every service is bound to have a few pros and cons. Like two sides of a coin. One of the dominant plus sides of PHP is the fact that it is open-source and free to use. 

Another primary advantage of this service is that it can be easily connected to databases. The loading rate is quick over slow networks because it is very lightweight. 

Pro’s 

• The vast majority of websites still run on PHP. Though recent years have seen a decline in PHP usage, the technology is still not lost. 

• PHP hosting caters easily to small scale websites.

• Popular CMS frameworks such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and Magento are built on PHP, hence the need for PHP hosting. 

• The simplicity of PHP hosting allows many small-scale businesses to build their online presence quickly. 

• The concept of shared hosting is trendy in the PHP world, allowing the easy availability of dedicated hosts. 

Con’s 

• With better-performing technologies like Node.js, PHP, along with the hosting, is seeing a slow decline. 

• Not very well-performing when it comes to building a distributed, fault-tolerant, high throughput, low latency architecture. 

• PHP hosting is not suitable for cloud-native infrastructure. 

• Better availability of tools for the in trend, reactive, event-driven architectures. 

• Express/Node, Flask/Python, Springboot / Java are better than PHP for developing micro services. 

Conclusion 

To conclude, PHP hosting is still beneficial in today’s date. Although PHP makes running micro services complex, it remains a powerful language for developers. 

As inexpensive as it is, PHP hosting stands to offer many small-scale businesses an audience online. We all understand how significant the digital footprint is for any business to thrive on this date. PHP hosting aids in that very feature. 

PHP as a language is an excellent tool for individuals running on a shoestring budget. Developers can easily code for web pages using this service. If an individual is well versed in C programming, they can efficiently work on PHP.

PHP hosting helps bloggers host their blogs made on WordPress. The language is relatively easy to learn, and one need not be from a technical background to understand how this language works. 

However, it is to be noted that better tools become available with every passing day for the development of web services. The complicacy with PHP lies because not all hosts support all versions of PHP. Web applications work slowly if more features of the PHP framework and tools are used. 

Neither does this service let the developer change or change the core behaviour of web applications based on this service. Over the years, the language has remained very stable. The open-source nature of this language has caused users to provide continuous support and development for this language. The code can easily be reused for developing complex web applications as well. 

To sum it all up in a few words, PHP hosting should be your go-to host service if you’re on a tight budget, and you are looking for an easy language to develop a simple webpage.