Hosting Guide

Magento Hosting: What Your Store Needs and How to Choose a Server

Short answer: Magento 2 needs more than ordinary web hosting: a supported PHP version, MySQL or MariaDB, OpenSearch for search, Redis or Valkey for caching, and ideally Varnish, all with enough memory. In practice that means a Cloud VPS for small and medium stores and a dedicated server for large catalogues or heavy traffic. Choose the server by catalogue size, traffic and how much of the administration you want to do yourself.

Why Magento needs specialised hosting

Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce are powerful, but they run several services at once. Each page combines PHP, database queries, search requests and cache lookups. On shared hosting, without root access or the required services, a Magento store is slow at best and often cannot be installed at all.

The software stack

Component	Role
PHP (current supported version)	Runs Magento itself, through PHP-FPM
MySQL or MariaDB	Stores products, orders and customers
OpenSearch	Catalogue search and layered navigation (required)
Redis or Valkey	Default cache and customer sessions
Varnish	Full-page cache in front of the web server
RabbitMQ	Message queues for background tasks (optional for small stores)
Nginx or Apache	Web server and HTTPS
Composer	Installs and updates Magento and its extensions

Adobe publishes the exact supported versions for each Magento release. Check them before you build the server or upgrade Magento.

How big should the server be?

Store	Suggested starting point
Small catalogue, modest traffic	Cloud VPS with 4 CPU cores and 8 GB RAM, NVMe storage
Growing store, regular campaigns	Cloud VPS with 8 cores and 16 GB RAM
Large catalogue or high traffic	Dedicated server, or separate servers for the database and search

These are starting points. Watch CPU, memory and response times after launch, and upgrade before a big sales event, not during it.

Managed or self-managed?

	Self-managed server	Managed server
Who installs and updates the stack	You	The hosting team
Who applies operating system security fixes	You	The hosting team
Who handles Magento code and extensions	You or your developer	Usually you or your developer
Best for	Teams with a Linux administrator	Store owners who want to focus on selling

Server management covers the operating system and services. Magento upgrades and extension updates usually remain the job of your developer, so agree who does what before launch.

Performance essentials

Production mode, with indexers set to update by schedule.
Varnish for full-page cache, and Redis for cache and sessions.
A CDN for images and static files, especially for visitors in other countries.
Images resized and served in modern formats.

The commands for each step are in our guide to configuring Magento for high traffic.

Security essentials

✓ Apply Magento security patches as soon as Adobe releases them.
✓ Two-factor authentication and a custom URL for the admin.
✓ A web application firewall and rate limits on login, checkout and search.
✓ Hosted payment fields from your payment provider, so card data never touches the server.
✓ Daily off-site backups of files and database, and a tested restore.
✓ Malware scanning of the store files.

Plan for growth

Stores rarely grow evenly: a campaign or a seasonal peak can multiply traffic for a few days. Keep spare capacity on the server, test a copy of the store under load before big events, and know in advance how you will add resources. On a Cloud VPS you can usually move to a larger plan quickly; on dedicated hardware, plan upgrades weeks ahead.

Before you move a Magento store

Build the new server with the versions your Magento release supports.
Copy the code, media and database, and update app/etc/env.php with the new database and cache settings.
Reindex, flush the cache, and test the store with the hosts file before changing DNS.
Switch DNS during a quiet period, and watch orders and payment notifications closely for the first day.

For platform alternatives, see our self-hosted e-commerce platforms guide.

Need help with this?

Planning a Magento store? Start on a Cloud VPS sized for your catalogue, and add server management if you want us to run it.

See Cloud VPS plans Contact @CustomerPanel

Frequently asked questions

Can Magento run on shared hosting?

Not reliably. It needs root-level services such as OpenSearch and Redis, and enough memory, which shared hosting cannot provide.

How much RAM does Magento need?

Plan for at least 8 GB for a store with all services on one server, and more for large catalogues or high traffic.

Is OpenSearch required for Magento?

Yes. Current Magento 2 releases require a search engine, and OpenSearch is the supported choice.

Should I choose managed hosting for Magento?

If you do not have a Linux administrator, yes. It keeps the server patched and monitored while your developer handles Magento itself.

Do I need a CDN for Magento?

It helps most stores, especially those with large images or visitors in many countries.