How to choose a hosting provider for Magento 2 online store

Internet business is as popular as no other time it has been seen, and this spike in popularity may be attributed to a scope of things. Nevertheless, a great number of vendors have decided to begin their online stores and choose a Magento platform as their software backbone.

Magento provides many benefits for stores, which give this platform a feeling of one of a kind and raise it above the competitors. Notwithstanding, this software platform can't deal with every last bit of tasks alone. A store manager needs to arrange a suitable execution environment by selecting a respective hosting supplier.

Opting into the hosting service proposition gives web clients a quick and solid site and guarantees a safe stockpiling climate for your site information. Choosing the one that suits your need best is indispensable.

Hosting allows any web store to provide reliable service and a fast frontend website to its visitors. It also ensures that a store has a secure storage environment for the data it generates. Choosing the one that suits store needs best is vital.

Why a Magento-based store requires hosting

Hosting is a crucial element for any web site to be able to work normally. Some hosting service providers offer specific subscription plans aimed at stores based on Magento. These plans help simplify the task of choosing the viable plan with Magento requirements. The main reason for having a strict list of requirements is providing security and speed.

Some hosting service providers also offer a concept of Managed hosting. It represents a service that utilizes hardware and software management executed by the hoster.

A Magento store owner can declare that he has found the best hosting provider if such a hosting dealer fulfills all needs of this platform.

Server type

The store can aim for a specific server type depending on the money invested. Typically three main server types are distinguished: - Shared. A single server serves several websites simultaneously. - Dedicated. This server type serves just one website. It has limited capacities that can lead to costly expansion. - Cloud. Today cloud is perhaps the most well-known choice. Its key advantage is simple expansion. A store can begin having a server with 2GB RAM, and easily increase the capacity when required. This server type likewise has better execution markers and typically works quicker.

Check if hosting meet Magento 2 system requirement

Magento 2 has many more features and optimizations than its previous release, which means it also consumes more hardware resources. The latest version Magento 2.4.X has the following requirements:

Software: - Linux OS (Windows is no longer supported) - Apache 2.4 / Nginx 1.x - Mysql 8.0, MariaDB 10.4 - PHP 7.4, PHP OPcache - Elasticsearch (this search engine hardware-hungry)

Hardware: - Minimum of 2G RAM memory - 2 core CPU at least Having read the list of requirements, a store owner can conclude that typical shared hosting is not suitable.

Test server performance

Several tests may be conducted when choosing a hosting server for an online store. Best results may be obtained with a default software installation allowing them to be compared among different hosting plans. Here are such tests:

• Loading time. The Pingdom tool indicates how long a default storefront page was loading.
• Stress test. Allows seeing the server behavior during the peak time when many concurrent users visit the store. Loadimpact tool can be used as a stress test. The performance should be consistent regardless of the number of visitors.
• Ping. Locaping can be used to monitor the ping globally. This test allows checking the ping from Europe, Asia and America. The ping should be as low as possible for every location.
• Uptime. Uptimerobot can be used to gather the data on how long the server can be accessible without interruption, which leads to revenue decrease.

Optimizations

Server-side optimizations

Besides hardware requirements, a store also requires many software enhancements that can only be executed on the server’s side to have a smooth running website. A store manager should carefully look at what optimizations hosting providers offer.

Software optimization

After having Magento installed, a store can utilize useful extensions to optimize the performance. Here are some of such extensions: - Google PageSpeed Optimizer - Full Page Cache Warmer - Improved Asynchronous Reindexing