CMS hosting

  • One-click installers for every major CMS
  • Free SSL and daily backups on every plan
  • Free migration from your current host

Hosting for WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and the rest

A content management system lets somebody who is not a developer change the website. This page explains what that means in practice, which CMS suits which kind of site, and what hosting one properly requires.

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What a content management system actually does

The difference between a site you can edit and one you cannot.

Four things a CMS gives you

Editing without a developer

Changing a price, adding a page or publishing a post happens in a browser. Without a CMS each of those is a code change and an invoice.

Separation of content and design

The words live in a database and the design is applied on top, so a redesign does not mean retyping the site.

Accounts and permissions

More than one person can work on the site, with an editor who can publish and a contributor who cannot.

A plugin ecosystem

Forms, bookings, stores, multilingual content and SEO tools already exist for every mainstream CMS. You are rarely building from nothing.

Which CMS suits which site

Honest guidance, including when the answer is none of them.

Four common choices

WordPress

The default for brochure sites, blogs and small stores. Largest plugin library, easiest to hire for, and the one most businesses should start with.

Joomla

Stronger built-in user management and multilingual support than WordPress out of the box. A reasonable choice for membership sites and portals.

Drupal

Built for complex content structures and strict permissions - large organisations, universities, government. More capable and more work.

No CMS at all

If the site is one page that never changes, a CMS is machinery you will maintain for no benefit. A static page or a builder is cheaper to run and faster.

What hosting a CMS properly needs

A CMS is database-driven, which makes it more sensitive to the server than a static site.

Four things to check before you buy hosting

A current PHP version

Every mainstream CMS drops support for old PHP, and running one on an unsupported version is a security problem rather than a performance one.

Backups you can restore yourself

A CMS breaks most often during an update. A daily backup you can roll back from the control panel turns that into five minutes rather than a day.

Caching in front of the database

Every page view is a database query unless something caches it. This is the single biggest difference between a CMS site that feels fast and one that does not.

Isolation from other accounts

On cheap shared hosting one compromised neighbour can affect you. Account isolation is what stops that, and it is worth asking about.

CMS hosting: common questions

A content management system is software that lets somebody who is not a developer change a website - adding pages, editing text, publishing posts and uploading images, all through a browser. The content lives in a database and the design is applied on top, which is why a redesign does not mean retyping the site. WordPress, Joomla and Drupal are the three most widely used.

WordPress for most business sites, blogs and small stores: it has the largest plugin library and is the easiest to find help for. Joomla if you need strong user management or multilingual content without extra plugins. Drupal for complex content structures and strict permissions, typically in large organisations. If your site is a single page that never changes, no CMS is the right answer.

Any hosting with a current PHP version and a MySQL database will run one, but a CMS is database-driven and therefore more sensitive to the server than a static site. What matters is caching in front of the database, backups you can restore yourself, and isolation from other accounts on the same machine. All ElySpace plans include those.

Yes. Every ElySpace plan includes a one-click installer covering WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and several hundred other applications, so installation is a form rather than a command line. If you would rather not, our support team will install and configure it for you at no charge.

Yes, and we do the migration free of charge. A CMS site is files plus a database, both of which transfer, and we map the old URLs so existing search rankings survive the move. There is no downtime: the new copy is tested before the domain is pointed at it.

The CMS itself is actively maintained and patched quickly. Nearly every compromise comes from an out-of-date plugin, a weak admin password or hosting with no isolation between accounts. Keep it updated, use two-factor authentication on the admin login, and host it somewhere that takes daily backups you can actually restore.

Where to go next

Plans for the CMS you have chosen.

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