Choose WooCommerce hosting. How to avoid common mistakes.

Whether you get started with a new online store or manage a website that processes millions of orders, finding a reliable and fast WooCommerce hosting solution to suit your needs is a number one concern of each WooCommerce owner. In this article we’ll describe the basic server requirements and give a couple of tips on how to avoid common mistakes.

Basically, to choose an ideal hosting for your store you will need to:

• Read the official WooCommerce server requirements for hosting
• Decide on the type of hosting and location of the data center
• Choose the desired rate and type of hosting subscription
• Choose a hosting provider.
• Order a service

Like any content management system, WordPress has certain technical installation requirements. Hosting providers must comply with these requirements, otherwise there will be problems with the configuration and operation of the CMS. Some plugins or integrations (including possibly the core WooCommerce plugin) won’t function as expected.

The official WooCommerce documentation lists the general requirements that you should follow in order for the CMS to work well:

• PHP version 7.4 or greater
• MySQL version 5.6 or greater OR MariaDB version 10.1 or greater
• WordPress memory limit of 256 MB or greater
• HTTPS support

💡PHP versions under 7.3+ and MySQL versions under 5.6 no longer receive active support. Please be aware that using outdated and unsupported versions of MySQL and PHP may expose your site to security vulnerabilities. If you are using WordPress and WooCommerce to run an e-commerce site that has money and a lot of personal information on it, the last thing you need to do is expose it to security vulnerabilities.

However, this is not all. There are additional requirements for the best work of the shop script. For some users, they may not be required. Other optional things may include:

• CURL or fsockopen support used by WooCommerce and some integrations, e.g., PayPal IPN
• Some WooCommerce.com extensions require SOAP support
• Multibyte String support if you’re running a non-English store

Frankly, the listed additional requirements may not be checked when choosing a hosting. Servers preconfigured to work with WooCommerce usually have these settings by default.

After installing WooCommerce you will have a tab in the console called "Site Health". Here you will find the shortcomings of your server if any.

This is the next important step when choosing a WordPress hosting. Its key difference is that you need to look not at what is offered, but at what you need. Formulate your goals and objectives for the project. After that, you can start choosing the right type of hosting. There are 3 main types in total:

Virtual hosting
The most popular option for cheap WooCommerce hosting. This is your choice if you are looking for a budget option for a site that requires a small amount of server resources. Ideal for beginner bloggers or business card sites.

VPS/VDS hosting
An ideal option for those who lack the capacity of shared hosting, but it's too early to think about buying a tariff for a dedicated server. You are allocated space on the server, so the problems of other users will not affect you.

Dedicated server
Here the client is assigned a separate server that works only for your site. The main type of hosting for large projects with huge traffic. With dedicated severs you get the fastest WooCommerce hosting. We haven't broken it down to the main types, but this hosting service has been gaining popularity lately - managed hosting for WordPress.

What is Managed WooCommerce hosting?
Most hosting companies give you a server with PHP and MySQL and let you do the rest. In the managed hosting solutions the providers themselves monitor the underlying infrastructure, manage WooCommerce, optimize WooCommerce, and provide support for everything related to your online store.

The closer the better. This rule should be followed when choosing the location of server hardware. If your project and target audience are from the same country, then you should choose the same country as the location. The proximity of data centers will allow you to instantly receive a response to any problem. It also ensures a high loading speed of the site.

From the very beginning, it is important that your website is accessible over secure HTTPS. It is important for both SEO and store security. That's why you should choose a hosting option with an SSL certificate and immediately launch it on the entire site. And here is the main hitch in choosing a hosting:

✔️ You can find hosting that gives a free and auto renewable SSL certificates, no headache and missed deadlines.

I would like to call this point the key one. If the hosting provider does not have a 24/7 support service with convenient communication methods, then it is better to pass by. Always choose a resource where there are several main ways of communication. We would recommend the following set: online chat and ticket system in the control panel. We also recommend testing the support service. This way you will understand the true level of customer service. This method will allow you to check the integrity of the hosting providers themselves, who like to embellish the efficiency of their employees.

And if you're wondering what are the best managed hosting providers for a new WordPress site, the answer is simple: choose a provider that not only handles the technical setup, updates, monitoring, and security hardening, but is also transparent about performance guarantees and support readiness. At Scalesta, we offer fully managed, secure hosting optimized specifically for WooCommerce and high-growth WordPress stores - ideal for those who want to skip the technical burden and focus entirely on their business.