You will need a very good hosting package to run a busy social networking and blogging site. In most cases, a shared hosting package will not be able to handle the load, even if, on paper, the package meets the requirements listed on the WordPress MU site.
You can run small WordPress MU sites on a shared host. In fact, if you know that your site will have only a small number of users (for example, if your site is aimed at members of a club or society or is used by your company's employees), then shared hosting may be all that you need.
If you're unsure how popular your site will be, look for a host that offers easy upgrades from shared hosting to a VPS or dedicated hosting so that you can upgrade if you need to. If you are creating a site for use by members of the public, don't rush out to buy a server and pay a fortune on collocation straightaway. Start small and upgrade when you need to.
Tip
Choose your host carefully
A shared hosting account may be sufficient to install and test your web site, but it is likely that you will quickly reach the limits of a shared host once your site opens to the public. WordPress MU uses more server resources than a standalone WordPress blog, and you should make sure that your host will be able to cope with the demand. For a small or medium sized community, a low-end VPS account will probably be the best choice. The good news is that VPS accounts are only slightly more expensive than a good shared hosting account and, for your money, you will get a server that can grow with you as your traffic increases.
The range of hosting options out there can be quite intimidating, especially if you aren't used to managing your own sites. The kind of hosting you choose will depend on the amount of traffic your site gets, your budget, and the features you need access to.
A V PS is a Virtual Private Server. This is the next step up from standard shared hosting. With a VPS, you have a shell account and total control over your server. You can install whatever you want and configure it the way you want. VPSes aren't actually real physical boxes; they are virtual machines, and your VPS is likely to be running on the same computer as several other VPSes.
The good thing about VPSes is that they are inexpensive, and you have almost total control over the configuration of the machine. However, VPS packages tend to be less powerful than dedicated hosting packages, so you may find that if your site takes off, you outgrow your VPS very quickly.
If you aren't already familiar with running a server, then you may want to consider buying a "Managed VPS" package. These are more expensive than standard packages, but your hosting company will look after the technical side of things, including applying security patches when they are released and managing the configuration of the server.
Dedicated servers are much more expensive than VPSes. But instead of just getting a small virtual machine and limited bandwidth and storage space, you get a real, physical server. If you need the freedom to do whatever you want and expect to have very high traffic, then leasing a dedicated server is a good option. You could also consider buying a server and then using a collocation agreement.
Grid hosting is a relatively new form of hosting. Instead of all your scripts and data being handled in one central place, it is handled "in the cloud". Cloud-based hosting solutions can be economical if you are expecting small amounts of traffic most of the time but want to make sure that a sudden traffic spike won't bring your server to its knees. Usually, you pay for only the amount of bandwidth/processor cycles you use, and the servers respond elastically to your needs.
The downside of grid hosting is that many grid hosts don't support wildcard subdomains, and you can't tweak your server's configuration the way you can with a dedicated server. Also, if you're running under high load all the time, your bills could work out to be more expensive than with a dedicated server.
For most people, a dedicated server or a VPS is the best option. You could always farm out specific parts of your site to the cloud. We will discuss how to do this later in the book.
You can run WordPress MU on most web servers. The developers recommend Apache or LiteSpeed, but it is possible to run WordPress MU on other servers such as Lighttpd or Nginx, although alternative web servers may require some tweaks that are beyond the scope of this book. The main requirements are:
If you want to take advantage of the subdomains feature of WordPress MU, then you will need access to the WHM control panel (or have some other way of setting up wildcard subdomains). If you are using a VPS or dedicated server, you can set up the subdomains yourself using Bind 9. If you're on a shared host, you may need to contact support to get them to set up wildcard subdomains for you.
Other things to check with your host:
The PHP memory limit: You should ensure it can be increased to at least 32MB (preferably 64MB)
Register_globals
should be turned off inphp.ini
.
If you don't have a web host yet or have found that your existing web host can't quite handle WordPress MU, you can find recommendations for a good host on the WordPress MU forums.
Here are some suggestions to get you started:
http://www.dreamhost.com: It offers shared hosting. It is inexpensive and good if you expect to host only a small number of blogs.
http://www.futurehost.biz: More expensive, but better support. Offers a good range of package choices for busier blog networks.
I use a UK-based web hosting company called 34SP (http://www.34sp.com). Their prices are in GBP and their packages aren't quite as generous on data transfer/storage as some of the deals offered by other hosts, but I have been with them for almost four years and have found their servers to be rock-solid stable and their tech support team is very knowledgeable and quick to respond.