Modern PHP (2015)

Chapter 6. Hosting

So you have a PHP application. Congratulations! However, it doesn’t do anyone any good unless your users can, you know, use it. You need to host your application on a server and make it accessible to its intended audience. Generally speaking, there are four ways to host PHP applications: shared servers, virtual private servers, dedicated servers, and platforms as a service. Each has its unique benefits and is suitable for different types of applications and budgets.

There are also many web hosting companies, and it can be overwhelming if you are brand new to the web hosting landscape. Some hosting companies provide only shared servers. Other companies provide a mix of shared servers, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers. This chapter will focus less on the companies themselves and more on hosting options.

Shared Server

A shared server is the most affordable hosting option and costs $1–10/month. You should avoid shared hosting plans. This is not a commentary on shared hosting companies’ quality of service or customer support. There are many good shared hosting companies. Simply put, shared hosting options are not developer-friendly.

A shared server, as its name implies, means that you share server resources with other people. If you purchase a shared hosting plan, your hosting account lives on the same physical machine as many other customers’. If your particular machine has 2 Gb of memory, your PHP application might receive only a fraction of that memory, depending on how many other customer accounts live on the same machine. If another account on the same machine runs a poorly coded script, it can negatively affect your own application. Some shared hosting companies oversell shared servers, and your PHP application constantly battles for system resources on a crowded machine.

Shared servers are also very difficult to customize. For example, your application may need Memcached or Redis for a fast, in-memory cache. You may want to install Elasticsearch to add search functionality to your application. Unfortunately, shared server software is difficult—if not impossible—to customize. Your applications suffer as a result.

Shared servers rarely provide remote SSH access. Instead, you’re often handicapped with (S)FTP access only. This limitation severely restricts your ability to automate PHP application deployment.

If your budget is super-small or your needs extremely modest, a shared server may be sufficient. However, if you’re building a business website or a moderately popular PHP application, you’re better off using a virtual private server, a dedicated server, or a PaaS.

Virtual Private Server

A virtual private server (VPS) looks, feels, and acts like a bare-metal server. But it’s not a bare-metal server. A VPS is a collection of system resources that are distributed across one or many physical machines. A VPS still has its own filesystem, root user, system processes, and IP address. A VPS is allocated a specific amount of memory, CPU, and bandwidth—and they’re all yours.

VPSs provide more system resources than a shared server. A VPS provides root SSH access. And a VPS does not limit what software you can install. Great power, though, comes with great responsibility. VPSs give you root access to a virgin operating system. It is your responsibility to configure and secure the operating system for your PHP application. VPSs are ideal for most PHP applications. They provide sufficient system resources (e.g., CPU, memory, and disk space) that scale up or down on demand. A VPS costs $10–100/month based on the amount of system resources needed by your PHP application. If your PHP application becomes super-popular (hundreds of thousands of visitors a month) and a VPS becomes too costly, you might consider upgrading to a dedicated server.

TIP

I almost always prefer VPSs for their balance of cost, features, and flexibility. Linode, my favorite hosting company, provides VPS and dedicated hosting plans. Linode isn’t the cheapest option, but my personal experience shows Linode is fast and stable, and it comes with a vast treasure of helpful tutorials.

Dedicated Server

A dedicated server is a rack-mounted machine that your hosting company installs, runs, and maintains on your behalf. You configure dedicated servers to your exact specifications. Dedicated servers are real machines that must be transported, installed, and monitored. They cannot be set up and configured as quickly as VPSs. That being said, dedicated servers provide the ultimate performance for demanding PHP applications.

Dedicated servers act much like VPSs. You get root SSH access to a virgin operating system, and you must secure and configure the operating system for your PHP application. The benefit of a dedicated server is cost-effectiveness. Eventually a VPS becomes too costly as you consume more system resources. You save money by investing in your own infrastructure.

A dedicated server costs hundreds of dollars per month depending on the server specifications. It can be unmanaged (i.e., you manage the server yourself) or managed (i.e., you pay extra for your hosting company to manage the server).

PaaS

Platforms as a service (PaaS) are a quick way to launch your PHP application, and—unlike with a virtual private or dedicated server—you don’t have to manage a PaaS. All you have to do is log into your PaaS provider’s control panel and click a few buttons. Some PaaS providers have a command-line or HTTP API with which you can deploy and manage your hosted PHP applications. Popular PHP PaaS providers include:

§ AppFog

§ AWS Elastic Beanstalk

§ Engine Yard

§ Fortrabbit

§ Google App Engine

§ Heroku

§ Microsoft Azure

§ Pagoda Box

§ Red Hat OpenShift

§ Zend Developer Cloud

PaaS pricing varies by provider but is similar to virtual private servers: $10–100/month. You pay for the system resources allocated to your PHP application. System resources can be scaled up or down on demand. I recommend PaaS hosting plans for developers who do not want to manage their own servers.

Choose a Hosting Plan

Choose only what you need when you need it. You can always scale your hosting infrastructure up or down when necessary. For small PHP applications or prototypes, a PaaS provider like Engine Yard or Heroku is the best and quickest solution. If you prefer more control over your server configuration, get a VPS. If your application becomes super-popular and your VPS is buckling beneath the weight of millions of visitors (congratulations, by the way!), get a dedicated server. Whichever hosting option you choose, make sure it provides the latest stable PHP version and extensions required by your PHP application.