PHP Web Hosting

Is PHP web hosting the best option to safely deploy a new website?

25 years ago programmer Rasmus Lerdorf released version one of the PHP programming language. Initially, PHP was nothing but a software library Lerdorf had written for PERL for his own personal use. Despite its humble beginnings, this new language was immediately met with a lot of excitement. Its popularity couldn’t be more obvious today, as PHP is one of the most commonly used open-source languages in web development and PHP hosting is one of the most common types of hosting. But why opt for PHP web hosting when you deploy a new website? What advantages are there to choosing PHP web hosting?

Select your PHP web hosting plan

New hosting customer? Get 50% off your first web hosting for a yearly subscription!

2 months free

Starter

Welcome Offer New Hosting Client

Pay by the year and get 50% off your first web hosting.

$19.80 /month
  • Domain name included
  • 1 website maximum
  • Up to 1 CPU/ 512 MB
  • 20GB storage
Most popular

Advanced

Welcome Offer New Hosting Client

Pay by the year and get 50% off your first web hosting.

$26.40 /month
  • Domain name included
  • 5 websites max recommended
  • Up to 2 CPU/up to 1 GB
  • 50GB storage

Pro

Welcome Offer New Hosting Client

Pay by the year and get 50% off your first web hosting.

$33.00 /month
  • Domain name included
  • 10 websites max recommended
  • Up to 3 CPU/up to 2 GB
  • 100GB storage

Business

Welcome Offer New Hosting Client

Pay by the year and get 50% off your first web hosting.

$39.60 /month
  • Domain name included
  • 15 websites or more
  • Up to 4 CPU/up to 4 GB
  • 200GB storage (upgradable to 1 TB)
Pricing Options Prices for Canada, taxes excluded, in $ (CAD)

INCLUDED in each PHP web hosting plan:

  • Free domain name registration included
  • Free PHP hosting TLS/SSL certificates.
  • Unlimited bandwidth.
  • Automatic linking to your domains.
  • Varnish web accelerator.
  • Technical support by email.

PHP web hosting at Gandi

What is PHP hosting?

PHP, a recursive acronym for “PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor,” is the name of a programming language. This open-source scripting language can be used to develop dynamic applications and webpages. Coupled with hosting infrastructure, PHP web hosting options make it even easier to get started with this language. Today, many content management systems (CMSes) such as WordPress and PrestaShop are written in PHP and run on top of its frameworks (Symfony, Laravel, Zend…). These CMSes require PHP hosting to run, so even if you're not a developer, PHP web hosting can help you easily create your WordPress blog. The ubiquity of PHP in the online world has lead to the existence of a wide selection of PHP hosting solutions.

While many versions of PHP have been released since 1994, the language only really took shape in 1997. Two students, Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski, created what was at the time the most refined version of the code (PHP 3) and founded Zend Technologies. Today, 25 years later, the seventh iteration of PHP is available on most hosting platforms. Not only does PHP 7 have significant improvements and optimizations over its predecessors, it has also considerably improved loading times for web pages hosted with PHP hosting.

Free PHP hosting is generally not available since hosting by definition requires the use of server resources, but you can find many quality low-cost options.

What advantages are there to choosing PHP web hosting?

PHP hosting services are usually compatible with all the lastest versions of PHP. Currently, the versions supported for PHP hosting are typically PHP 5.6 as well as each declination of PHP 7. The version of PHP you'll need for your PHP web hosting will depend on how you'll use it. If you're planning to use a particular CMS, check the PHP version requirements and be sure to choose the right version of PHP when creating your PHP hosting.

More control of your PHP hosting

To web developers, PHP is something of a comfort language that allows for a great degree of control. With these features, developers do not need to type thousands of lines code to generate a new webpage. Instead, they’re able to automate a large part of the process to save significant amounts of time when deploying a new website. PHP hosting simplifies the process even more by pre-installing PHP on your hosting instance for free. PHP hosting where the language comes pre-installed makes your life easy. Once your hosting instance ready you can link it very easily to your domain name too.

Better PHP web hosting performance

As mentioned above, the loading time for web pages has decreased with each version of the PHP language. PHP performs better for web applications than languages such as Java. And, as has been proven countless times, faster loading websites increase user retention. With PHP hosting, this high performance comes built in. Free PHP hosting is generally not available since hosting by definition requires the use of server resources, but this type of free PHP hosting, where PHP is provided pre-installed is standard.

Free PHP hosting security

Lastly, every PHP hosting solution at Gandi also includes free SSL certificates that encrypt all interactions between the user and the PHP web hosting server, increasing the confidentiality and security of applications hosted on your PHP hosting.

PHP hosting is now more than just an essential part of the web ecosystem; it has also become the way to go for web developers wanting simple and intuitive access to both the PHP programming language and databases such as MySQL. Developers prefer to have PHP installed automatically on specific PHP hosting, rather than having to install it on their own. PHP is a relatively simple language to learn, even for inexperienced developers, broadening the appeal of PHP web hosting to less technical users. PHP is also entirely free, just like the other software components the LAMP stack is comprised of (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). Today, most websites use PHP because of its many advantages and exceptional performance. With PHP hosting, you can also benefit from these advantages.

FAQ / frequently asked questions

Carefully choose a PHP hosting pack that's large enough to support the traffic your site will be receiving. Here's how to get a PaaS server for PHP hosting online with us in just a few minutes.

WordPress requires PHP and mySQL, which you can select when you set up your standard hosting with Gandi. The size to choose for your PHP web hosting depends on the size of your site and the amount of traffic it will get. You can also set up WordPress in one click, which is the same underlying platform as our standard web hosting option and uses PHP hosting. This installation is automatic and only takes a few minutes.

Choose your web hosting option for PHP hosting from the following packages:

  • Starter: perfect for personal blog and site
  • Advanced: ideal for CMSes and blogs with a low amount of traffic
  • Pro: great for dynamic sites or e-commerce sites with a moderate amount of traffic
  • Business: for high-traffic e-commerce sites and blogs

Not sure which to try? If you don't know how many visitors will go to your site, no worries. From Gandi's administrative interface, you can easily upgrade your website hosting. We suggest starting with an Advanced pack and upgrade to a higher plan if you see that you need more power to handle the number of visitors to your websites.

Generally, a web hosting plan is the simplest way to host a site. Web hosting doesn't give a lot of control of the hosting infrastructure to the owner of the website, but gives you the option to choose if you want PHP hosting where PHP comes pre-installed, which is great if you're not a technical expert. Those looking to more finely tune their use of resources, and control their hosting environment should consider using cloud hosting, a VPS, or dedicated hosting.

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