WordPress is one of the most flexible and highly customizable free CMS platform for bloggers. It is the reason why 55% of the worldwide individuals and entrepreneurs love to their website on WordPress. There are thousands of free themes and plugins are available for WordPress that can make your blog look cooler. Not only this, WordPress is very easy to work with. It has very plain and simple options that are very easy to digest in one glance. Also, there are different types of WordPress web hosting available due to its huge popularity.
With all these facilities, you may wonder how much server resources does WordPress requires? Honestly, not too much. WordPress is indeed built with very complex coding but it actually very lightweight in general. So the web hosting power required by WordPress is not that high end (for low traffic blog). Keeping that in mind, we should pick the best WordPress hosting which fulfills the requirements listed below.
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WordPress Web Hosting Requirement
The latest version of WordPress officially requires following web hosting facilities such as
- A webserver
- PHP language
- A Database storage
- Gzip (optional)
- SSL certificate (optional)
1. Apache, Nginx or LiteSpeed Server
A web server is responsible for managing PHP and Database for WordPress. WordPress is fully compatible with the world’s favorite web servers like Apache, Nginx, and Litespeed. As a matter of fact, all the web hosting plans that come with “cPanel” have Apache web server installed. However, WordPress loads faster with Nginx and fastest with LiteSpeed for the same website. Considering the web server wide support and speed in mind, the most compatible and fastest WordPress server is “Nginx“.
2. PHP 7.2 Version or Greater
Your web hosting package should come with PHP 7.2 version or higher for the smooth dynamic compilation. Although, WordPress is also compatible with the minimum PHP 5.2.4 release. However, I would recommend you to choose the latest PHP version 7.1.22 in the first place.
Choosing an older PHP version like 5.24 is not a good choice because they have reached “End of Life” officially. Therefore they are more vulnerable to get through. So ask your web hosting service for what version of PHP they are using.
3. MySQL version 5.6 or greater
WordPress stores sensitive data in the database, so it either requires MySQL or MariaDB database. WordPress recommends minimum MySQL 5.6 version or MariaDB 10.0 version for stable operation and security.
4. Gzip Compression (optional)
Gzip compression is responsible for fast WordPress page loading, but it also saves your hosting power and bandwidth. Gzip compress should be enabled in any unmanaged hosting plan. Gzip compression is optional, and many web hosting companies do offer this feature even with some cheap WordPress hosting plan.
5. SSL Certificate (optional)
It will be awesome if a WordPress hosting company gives you a free SSL certificate because it makes your website encrypted. In other words, SSL creates a secure connection between your WordPress blog and readers through the HTTPS protocol. It also kicks out hackers who try to steal emails and phone numbers of your blog readers or clients. SSL certificate is surely not compulsory, but it is a demand of the modern web browsers and search engines for better SEO.