ProcessWire
Hosting
Install ProcessWire in one click on our fast, reliable UK web hosting. Fully managed with free SSL, daily backups, and dedicated expert support.
What is ProcessWire?
ProcessWire is an open-source PHP content management system and framework first released in 2010 by Ryan Cramer. It is licensed under the MPL 2.0 (Mozilla Public Licence). ProcessWire takes an API-first approach: every piece of content (pages, fields, templates, users) is accessible through a fluent PHP API that developers use directly in templates rather than going through a templating engine layer.
The platform runs on PHP 8.0 or later (current releases support PHP 8.3) and MySQL 5.6+ or MariaDB. Core features include flexible page-tree content modelling, custom fieldtypes with a powerful repeater field, granular role-based permissions, multi-language out of the box, integrated image handling and processing, and a module marketplace covering forms, e-commerce, and similar editorial features. ProcessWire's templates are plain PHP files that use the ProcessWire API directly, which appeals to developers who prefer code over template syntax.
ProcessWire has a small but devoted community, and is included in the 365i one-click installer for developers and designers who want a flexible CMS with a clean API and no templating-engine layer.
365i’s editorial review of ProcessWire
ProcessWire is the CMS that won't let you forget you're a developer. Templates are PHP files, content is accessed through a fluent API, and the platform's defining attitude is "we'll give you good primitives, you build what you need." For the right developer, that's exactly the right pitch. For someone who wants a block editor and a plug-in marketplace, it's the wrong platform entirely.
I host a small number of ProcessWire sites, mostly for individual developers building portfolios and brochure sites for design-conscious clients, plus one quietly impressive editorial site for a regional cultural publication. The pattern is consistent: the developer values code-first work, the content model is bespoke (not generic posts and pages), and the front-end is hand-built with no off-the-shelf theme.
What works well: the API. Genuinely well-designed, fluent, easy to read, easy to learn. Page-tree content modelling, where the URL structure mirrors the content tree, is intuitive and editor-friendly. Custom fields including repeaters work well and don't feel bolted on. The admin UI is clean and respectful of editor time. Performance is good without much tuning, ProcessWire is conservative about its own database usage.
"ProcessWire is the CMS for developers who want to write PHP, not template syntax. If your front-end starter is a blank index.php with a header include, ProcessWire is going to feel like coming home."
Mark McNeece, Founder, 365i Hosting
What's annoying: the community is small. The module marketplace is small. Documentation is good but spread across the official site, the forum, and individual developer blogs, and finding the canonical answer takes practice. The "templates are PHP" philosophy means you can absolutely write yourself into a security mess if you skip input escaping, the platform won't catch you the way Twig would. Onboarding a junior developer needs more code-review discipline than a more opinionated CMS.
Hosting-wise, ProcessWire is genuinely lightweight. Our shared hosting from £5.99/mo handles ProcessWire comfortably for editorial and brochure sites under 30,000 monthly visits. PHP memory at 256MB is plenty. MySQL 8 handles the schema fine. ProcessWire has its own cache layer, and combined with OPcache (enabled on our hosting platform) it gives fast page renders without needing Redis or Memcached for typical site sizes.
For higher-traffic ProcessWire sites or for clients who want guaranteed dedicated resources, our managed cloud servers from £9.99/mo are the right tier. ProcessWire scales well horizontally on a properly configured cloud setup, and the API design means you can comfortably build headless front-ends consuming ProcessWire as a JSON content API.
If you're a developer who's tried Craft CMS and found it too commercial, or tried WordPress and found it too opinionated, ProcessWire is genuinely worth a weekend of evaluation. Build a small portfolio with a custom content type, see how the API feels in your hands. If it clicks, it tends to be a long-term relationship. If not, the lessons translate well to other API-driven CMSs.
Why Host ProcessWire with 365i?
Our web hosting is built for PHP applications like ProcessWire. Every plan includes everything you need to launch and grow.
One-Click Installation
Install ProcessWire with a single click from your control panel. No manual configuration, no FTP uploads, no database setup.
Free SSL Certificate
Every site gets a free SSL certificate, automatically configured and renewed. Keep your ProcessWire installation secure from day one.
99.9%+ Uptime Track Record
Enterprise-grade data centres in the UK, US & Asia with redundant power, cooling, and network connectivity. Shared hosting runs on autoscaling cloud infrastructure with a 99.9%+ historical uptime record; Managed Cloud Servers target 99.99% uptime; our VPS products carry a contractual 99.99% network availability SLA with service credits.
Daily Backups
Automatic daily backups with easy one-click restore. Your ProcessWire data is always safe and recoverable.
7-Day Expert Support
UK-based hosting specialists available 7 days a week including evenings, weekends, and bank holidays. Real people, real help.
SSD Storage
All plans run on fast SSD storage for snappy page loads and responsive admin panels. ProcessWire performs at its best.
Where ProcessWire Fits
Best for
Individual developers and small design-led teams who want an API-first CMS where templates are PHP files. Custom-content brochure and editorial sites with bespoke content models, where front-end markup is hand-built. Developer-built portfolio sites and design-led brand sites.
Watch for
Small community and module marketplace. Documentation is good but spread across multiple sources. The "templates are PHP" approach means input escaping is your responsibility, not the platform's, so junior-developer code needs review. Not the right fit for content teams who want a block editor and a large plug-in marketplace.
Web Hosting for ProcessWire
Get ProcessWire up and running in minutes with our fast, reliable web hosting. Every plan includes one-click installation, free SSL, UK, US & Asia data centres, and dedicated expert support.
- 1 website
- 10 GB SSD storage
- Free SSL certificate
- 80+ 1-click installs
- Unlimited LVE resources
- Autoscaling cloud platform
- UK, US & Asia data centres
- 5 websites
- Unlimited SSD storage
- Free SSL certificate
- 80+ 1-click installs
- CDN included
-
Timeline Backup/Restore
Timeline Backup
- Website files and databases
- Daily snapshots, 30-day retention
- One-click file and database restore
- Everything above, plus email mailbox backups
- 60-day database retention
- Mailbox restore (to a temporary mailbox first, then sync back)
- Unlimited LVE resources
- Autoscaling cloud platform
- UK, US & Asia data centres
- 10 websites
- Unlimited SSD storage
- Free SSL certificate
- 80+ 1-click installs
- CDN included
-
Timeline Backup/Restore (Pro)
Timeline Backup
- Website files and databases
- Daily snapshots, 30-day retention
- One-click file and database restore
- Everything above, plus email mailbox backups
- 60-day database retention
- Mailbox restore (to a temporary mailbox first, then sync back)
- Unlimited LVE resources
- Autoscaling cloud platform
- UK, US & Asia data centres
All prices exclude VAT. No contract, cancel any time.
Need More Power for ProcessWire?
For high-traffic sites, large catalogues, or mission-critical deployments, our fully managed cloud servers give ProcessWire dedicated resources and enterprise-grade performance.
- Dedicated CPU, RAM & SSD storage
- 99.99% uptime
- Fully managed by our team
- Choose 365i, AWS, or Google Cloud
Servers
Servers
Servers
A ProcessWire case from our books
A regional cultural publication in the East of England joined us in 2025 with a ProcessWire-built editorial site previously hosted on a generic budget host with patchy support. The site held around 1,400 articles across reviews, features, and listings, did roughly 24,000 visits a month, and the editor was a non-technical journalist working with a freelance developer.
We migrated the site to our shared hosting at £5.99/mo, set PHP to 8.2, configured the ProcessWire cache directory, set up cron for scheduled publishes, set up free SSL, and configured CDN with pre-caching on the public front-end. The freelance developer asked us to enable a couple of less-common PHP extensions for an image-processing module, which we set up as part of the migration.
End-to-end migration including testing took us around five working hours. UK page-load times improved by roughly 43%, mostly latency. The publication saved around £14/mo on hosting, and the editor reported the admin felt noticeably more responsive (probably because of OPcache being properly enabled, which the previous host hadn\'t bothered to configure).
What we would tell anyone in the same spot: ProcessWire genuinely sits well on shared hosting if the host actually supports it. The cache directory and OPcache configuration are the two things that make the difference.
Anonymised at the client's request. Industry, scale, and timeline preserved.
What we look for in cms hosting
A content management system is a long-term tenant on your hosting, not a quick install. We tune for what CMSs actually do day to day: an opcache configured to survive plugin and theme upgrades, PHP memory at 256MB or higher because page builders chew through it, daily backups that include the uploads directory and not just the database, and free SSL enforced from day one. We also keep an honest opinion about which CMS suits which site and will tell you when something would run better elsewhere.
More applications you can install on 365i hosting
Beyond CMS, our one-click installer covers 79 open-source PHP applications across 27 categories. A small selection from across the catalogue:
ProcessWire Hosting FAQ
Common questions we hear from people running ProcessWire on our hosting.
ProcessWire runs on PHP 8.0+ (current releases support PHP 8.3) and MySQL 5.6+ or MariaDB. Our shared hosting includes PHP 8.5 default, MySQL 8, 256MB PHP memory, and cron access, all of which exceed ProcessWire's requirements. The application benefits significantly from OPcache (enabled by default on our platform). For module-specific PHP extensions (such as Imagick for advanced image handling), we can enable them on request as part of 7-day support.
Yes. ProcessWire is in our application installer. The installer creates the database, drops the files in your chosen directory, configures the cache directory, and walks you through the install wizard which sets your site name, admin account, and timezone. Total install time is around 7 minutes. The wizard offers a starter site or a blank install. The blank install is what most ProcessWire developers want; the starter is fine for evaluation.
For sites under 30,000 monthly visits, our shared hosting at £5.99/mo handles ProcessWire comfortably with the built-in cache and OPcache. Past that, our managed cloud servers from £9.99/mo with dedicated database resources give noticeably better headroom. ProcessWire scales well horizontally on cloud servers and works as a clean headless content API for JSON consumers. We've hosted ProcessWire editorial sites doing 80,000+ monthly visits on a single mid-tier cloud server.
Hosting-layer support 7 days a week including evenings, weekends, and bank holidays. PHP, MySQL, cron, file permissions, SSL, email, DNS, backups, migrations, and CDN configuration. We don't write ProcessWire templates, build custom modules, or audit application code as part of standard hosting support, those are development tasks. The ProcessWire community forum is the right place for application-specific questions and is genuinely helpful. Datacentre infrastructure is monitored 24/7.
Yes, free with our migration service. Send us your existing host's FTP, database export, and the assets folder (uploaded media). We'll move the codebase, database, and assets, set the cache directory permissions correctly, configure cron, set up SSL, and test the front-end plus admin before DNS cutover. Most ProcessWire migrations take us 2 to 5 working hours. We'll run the ProcessWire upgrade if your version is older, with the developer's sign-off.
ProcessWire core has a strong security record. The "templates are PHP" approach does mean that template-level security (input escaping in particular) is the developer's responsibility. For editorial sites, audit the templates for proper escaping when accepting any user input. Our hosting adds free SSL, daily backups, file permission hardening, OPcache, and platform-level WAF rules. We'd also suggest two-factor authentication on admin accounts via a ProcessWire module, and IP-restricting the admin URL where practical.
Ready to Host ProcessWire?
Get started with ProcessWire on our fast UK web hosting. One-click installation, free SSL, and dedicated expert support included.