Quick outline
- What I run on Joomla and why I care
- Hosts I’ve used, what worked, what bit me
- My simple setup routine (the stuff I do every time)
- Fixes to common bumps
- Who I’d pick for different needs
- A tiny checklist to save your Sunday
Hi, I’m Kayla, and Joomla pays for my coffee
I build small sites for real people—bakeries, a kid’s soccer team, a PTA, and my own portfolio. All on Joomla. I like how Joomla lets me shape content cleanly. Not shiny for shiny’s sake. Just solid. But hosting? That can make or break your day.
Here’s the thing: I’ve tried a bunch. I’ll share what I used, how it felt, and where I messed up. Because I did mess up. And that’s fine. We learn. We move on.
For readers who want the longer saga, my no-filter write-up “Hosting Joomla Without Tears” goes blow-by-blow through every bump.
What I need from a Joomla host (in plain words)
- PHP 8.1 or 8.2 (that’s the engine)
- MariaDB or MySQL (that’s your data)
- HTTPS/SSL that renews itself
- One-click install or a clean ZIP upload
- Caching help (LiteSpeed, Redis, or a decent server cache)
- Backups you can restore without panic
- SFTP and, please, SSH for quick fixes
Need the full nitty-gritty before you pull the trigger on a plan? The official Joomla 5.4 technical requirements list spells out every server spec line by line.
If you’ve never toggled AutoSSL before, my story of “launching a site on Web Hosting Plus with AutoSSL” shows how the one-click cert works in real life.
I don’t ask for the moon. Just tools that work when it’s 10 p.m. and a form broke.
Real hosts I used, with real wins and pains
SiteGround: Staging that actually saved me
I hosted a cupcake shop site here. Helix template, SP Page Builder, JCE, and Akeeba Backup. Their staging tool is sweet. I tested a big Joomla update on staging, clicked around, then pushed live. No drama.
Speed felt snappy with their cache. Support replied fast when mod_security blocked my admin (I triggered a rule by pasting JS in a custom module—oops). They whitelisted it.
Downside? When the holiday cookie sale hit, CPU limits got tight. They didn’t crash me, but the site felt winded. I had to trim JCH Optimize settings and lazy load more images. It helped, but I watched the stats like a hawk.
A2 Hosting (Turbo): Fast, but watch your cache mix
My son’s soccer team lives here. Small site, tasty speed. Turbo + LiteSpeed Cache made pages feel instant. HTTP/3 out of the box was nice.
But I did something dumb. I stacked LiteSpeed Cache with JCH Optimize. Then SP Page Builder wouldn’t show fresh edits. Why? Cache layers fought each other. I fixed it by turning off “Combine CSS/JS” in JCH and letting LiteSpeed handle the heavy lifting. After that, smooth.
While I was poking at caching combos, I also put several dedicated upkeep platforms through their paces—my full notes live in “I tried web hosting and maintenance services so you don’t have to.”
Support was solid. Not chatty, but helpful.
Cloudways (DigitalOcean): Power with a manual
I moved a craft fair site here when it grew. Multilingual, heavy images, lots of forms with RSForm. Cloudways let me pick a small server, add Redis, and toggle Varnish. I used SSH, set a cron for Akeeba backups, and bumped upload_max_filesize to handle big flyers.
It flew. But it’s not a “grandma can fix it” panel. No cPanel. No email inbox either, so I used Google Workspace for mail. Worth it for control. Just know you’ll click more buttons and read more screens.
If you’re weighing Cloudways against a more classic cPanel-style outfit, my “hands-on review of Nexus Web Hosting” lays out the pros, the gritty cons, and the pleasant surprises.
DreamHost: Quiet and steady, with a soft heart
I put a PTA site here, and guess what? They offer free shared hosting for US nonprofits. I used their one-click Joomla install. Uptime was boring, which is good. SSL was automatic.
No cPanel though, and memcached wasn’t on the shared plan. For simple sites, zero stress. For speed nerds, maybe move up to a VPS later.
Another budget-friendly contender I kicked around is captured in my “straight-talk review of Asura Web Hosting,” in case you need one more data point before you decide.
Hostinger: Budget, but not flimsy
I tried Hostinger for a tiny portfolio. For a curated look at how their plans stack up specifically for Joomla sites, check out Hostinger’s own best Joomla hosting services roundup—it lines up with what I saw in the real world. Their hPanel is simple. One-click Joomla, quick SSL, done. I liked how clean the file manager felt.
Backup restore took a bit longer than I liked. And Redis wasn’t on the cheapest plan. But for a small site with fewer than, say, 20 pages? Totally fine.
If you’d like to see how another regional provider stacks up, my “real hands-on look at Pacific Online” breaks down uptime logs and support chats.
My go-to Joomla setup, every single time
- Install with Softaculous or the Joomla ZIP
- Change the table prefix (not “jos_”)
- Turn on Search Engine Friendly URLs and URL Rewriting
- Rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess
- Update Joomla and all extensions first
- Enable 2FA for the Super User
- Install Akeeba Backup and set a daily or weekly cron
- Pick one cache method (LiteSpeed Cache OR JCH Optimize—not both going wild)
- Set SMTP with a mail service (I’ve used SendGrid and Mailgun)
- Add Cloudflare for DNS and free CDN
- Set file permissions to 755/644 if I see weird 500 errors
- Create a staging copy before big updates
It looks like a lot. It’s not. It’s a habit.
Stuff that broke and how I fixed it
- White screen after a PHP bump
- One old plugin didn’t like PHP 8.2. I rolled back to 8.1, updated the plugin, then went forward again.
- Login blocked by mod_security
- Host support whitelisted the rule. I stopped pasting raw scripts in the editor. Lesson learned.
- Image uploads failing
- I raised upload_max_filesize and post_max_size. Also fixed memory_limit to something sane.
- Forms not sending mail
- Switched from PHP mail to SMTP. SPF and DKIM in DNS. Mail started landing, not vanishing.
- Cache weirdness
- Cleared server cache and Joomla cache after template changes. Simple, but easy to forget.
You know what? Most “big” issues were tiny settings.
Who should pick what
- New or small site: Hostinger or SiteGround
- Speed lovers on shared: A2 Hosting Turbo (and use LiteSpeed Cache)
- Tinker folks or growing sites: Cloudways with a small DO server
- Nonprofits or schools: DreamHost’s nonprofit plan is kind
Because Joomla’s access-level controls make it easy to create members-only areas, I once used it for a boutique adult-lifestyle community centered on candaulisme. If you’re curious about what that involves, this plain-language primer on candaulisme spells out the etiquette, consent checkpoints, and glossary you’ll want to understand before structuring private forums and privacy policies.
For projects that revolve around local adult classifieds—say you’re building a nightlife directory for the Rockwall, Texas crowd—you can study how the Backpage Rockwall listings lay out sections, posting rules, and user safety guidelines, giving you a live blueprint of how to structure similar content hierarchies inside Joomla.
Tiny note: If you plan heavy traffic, start simple but plan a path to a VPS or cloud. It’s easier than moving during a rush.
For an even deeper dive into current host benchmarks, the report at WebSpaceHost lines up real-world speed and pricing numbers side by side so you can pick with confidence.
Real examples from my week
- I scheduled Akeeba Backup at