CakePHP Hosting Recommendations

Performance
1

I’m current developing a new and improved version of my blog site (cycling-jersey-collection.com) as part of my open uni final year project using CakePhP 3. I need to have (which are all on my MacBook as my Dev environment)

    Apache 2.4.x
    mySQL 5.7.11
    php 7.0.3
    an SSL cert

I’ve looked at Rackspace and it’s cost prohibitive. I’m looking at AWS and there are are ALOT of options!

The site has about 4-5,000 unique web visitors/month - so could possibly just use a t2.small, eventually going the t2.medium / m4.large routes if traffic requires it.

Or, can anybody recommend any other cloud platforms?

andy

2

Personally I use Digital Ocean, and I’m very very happy with it. At work we use AWS, just be careful with the T2 instances, they are CPU throttled, which means that if you hit a sudden traffic spike you might not be able to handle it. The CakePHP sites are all hosted on Rackspace.

3 Likes
3

I’m using Hetzner for hosting my projects for about 2 years now. Never had a downtime, good prices and close to my audience. And you can have a look at https://letsencrypt.org/ for SSL Certs.

4

I’ve had luck with Pagodabox as a PaaS. Easy deploy, easy to add extensions, change PHP versions, etc. SSL certs are a breeze with them as well.

Here’s an example of a Boxfile for a Cake app, their version of a build + deploy recipe. As you can see, it uses PHP 5.6, however upgrading to 7.0 is as simple as changing those version requirements and pushing. It uses a network storage component for file and image caching, a redis instance for other caching, and a mysql database. It also installs a few different extensions for image manipulation and such.

Adding deploy hooks is really easy as well, and you’ll see I run migrations and clear cache, though you can do much more. I suggest checking out their docs, they’re very nice. They also have excellent support and you can even jump in IRC for quick issues.

build:
  type: php
  version: 5.6
  stability: production
  exec:
    - "composer install --no-interaction --prefer-source"
  lib_dir:
    - vendor
  reuse_libs: true

web1:
  type: php
  version: 5.6
  stability: production
  document_root: webroot
  network_dirs:
    storage1:
      - tmp/
      - tmp/cache/
      - tmp/cache/image_cache/
      - tmp/cache/models/
      - tmp/cache/persistent/
      - logs/
      - uploads/
  php_extensions:
    - mcrypt
    - pdo_mysql
    - redis
    - mbstring
    - curl
    - intl
    - zip
    - fileinfo
    - gd
    - exif
    - imagick
  log_watch:
    cakephp[error]: "logs/error.log"
    cakephp[debug]: "logs/debug.log"
  before_deploy:
    - "bin/cake migrations migrate"
  after_deploy:
    - "bin/cake orm_cache clear"

cache1:
  type: redis
  version: 2.8
  stability: production

database1:
  type: mysql
  version: 5.6
  stability: production
5

WOW - thanks all.

I use Rackspace for my commerical sites but their cloud hosting is quite costly for a “hobby site”.

I have had a look at all of the suggestions and Digital Ocean seems the way to go!

Thanks All

7

Look up Linode or DigitalOcean. They are more affordable than AWS. Both are equally good in performance and up time. If you are going to host your cakephp app (https://www.cloudways.com/en/php-cloud-hosting.php ) on them, then use PaaS solutions, like Cloudways, to do it. This platform lets you launch server instantly, without manually installing OS or stack.

9

I use this https://hostinghouse.pl/hosting if something is more demanding they also have VPS
It’s a polish (EU) firm, and 25PLN (polish zloty) is about 7,07$ per year (for a lets say your folder in htdocs directadmin,phpMyAdmin, mails and some more)

If you want to know more, check “Oferta” on their site. Or write https://panel.hostinghouse.pl/contact.php