TextPattern
Hosting
Install TextPattern in one click on our fast, reliable UK web hosting. Fully managed with free SSL, daily backups, and dedicated expert support.
What is TextPattern?
Textpattern is an open-source PHP content management system first released in 2003. It is licensed under the GPL and maintained by a small but dedicated community. The platform is deliberately lightweight and is positioned as a publishing system rather than a general-purpose CMS, with a focus on writers, designers, and editorial sites that value clean output and minimal footprint.
The platform runs on PHP 7.3 or later (PHP 8.1+ supported in current releases) and MySQL or MariaDB. Core features include flexible templating using Textpattern\'s tag-based template language, structured articles with custom fields, file management, link cataloguing, and an extensible plug-in architecture. The platform produces clean HTML output and has historically been popular with designers and writers who value typography and simplicity.
Textpattern continues to ship point releases through 2024 and 2025. The community is small but knowledgeable, with a long-running forum and a curated plug-in directory. The 365i one-click installer includes Textpattern for designers and writers who want a calm, focused publishing platform without the WordPress feature surface.
365i’s editorial review of TextPattern
Textpattern is the CMS that feels like it was built by people who actually wanted to write things. The admin is calm, the templating is logical, the output is clean, and the platform doesn't try to be everything to everyone. For a writer-led blog, a designer's portfolio, or a small editorial site, it's a quietly excellent choice that almost no one talks about.
I've hosted Textpattern sites for a small handful of clients over the years: a couple of design portfolios, a writer's personal blog, a small literary magazine. The pattern is consistent: the owner values writing or design over feature count, hates plug-in maintenance, and wants their site to look the same in five years as it does today. Textpattern delivers that.
What works well: the templating system using Textpattern Tags is genuinely clever, you mix HTML with declarative tags that pull content, and the result is readable. The admin is uncluttered and respects writer time, the article editor is designed for actual long-form writing rather than for inserting blocks. The default theme is sensible. Performance is excellent, the application is lightweight and most pages cache trivially.
"Textpattern is the calmest publishing platform I host. It looks the same in 2026 as it did in 2014, and that's a feature, not a bug. For writers and designers who want their work to be the headline rather than the CMS chrome, it's the right answer."
Mark McNeece, Founder, 365i Hosting
What's annoying: the community is small, and the plug-in directory has many entries that haven't been updated in years. Theme choice is limited; most Textpattern users build their own. Onboarding a non-technical writer who hasn't used Textpattern before takes a bit of time because the model (sections, categories, articles, with their own template hierarchy) needs explaining. The platform doesn't have native modern features like a block editor or built-in commerce, by design.
Hosting-wise, Textpattern is wonderfully light on resources. Our shared hosting from £5.99/mo handles Textpattern comfortably for typical use. PHP memory at 128MB is more than the application needs. MySQL 8 handles the small schema with no thought. We've never seen a Textpattern site come anywhere near our unlimited LVE limits. The application caches well; with OPcache enabled (default on our platform) page renders are fast on minimal infrastructure.
For typical Textpattern users, the shared hosting tier is the right answer. The application doesn't need cloud-server-grade infrastructure unless you're running a high-traffic editorial site (in which case you've probably picked the wrong CMS for your scale). Our daily backups protect article data, and we'd suggest periodically downloading the database dump locally as well, since Textpattern installs tend to be precious to their owners.
If you're a writer or designer thinking about a personal site or a small editorial project, Textpattern is worth a look alongside WordPress and a static site generator. The trade-off versus WordPress is feature count for calm, the trade-off versus a static site generator is dynamic admin convenience for build-step simplicity. Textpattern lands in the middle and does that middle very well.
Why Host TextPattern with 365i?
Our web hosting is built for PHP applications like TextPattern. Every plan includes everything you need to launch and grow.
One-Click Installation
Install TextPattern 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 TextPattern 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 TextPattern 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. TextPattern performs at its best.
Where TextPattern Fits
Best for
Writers, designers, and small editorial sites that value typography, clean output, and a calm admin over feature count. Personal blogs, design portfolios, small literary or arts magazines, and writer-led sites where the writing is the point and the CMS should stay out of the way.
Watch for
Small community and patchy plug-in directory; many plug-ins haven't been updated in years. Theme choice is limited, most users build their own. Onboarding a non-technical writer takes some time because the sections/categories/articles model is its own thing. No native commerce or block editor, by design.
Web Hosting for TextPattern
Get TextPattern 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 TextPattern?
For high-traffic sites, large catalogues, or mission-critical deployments, our fully managed cloud servers give TextPattern 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 TextPattern case from our books
A small literary magazine in the South West joined us in 2025 with a Textpattern site that had been running since around 2011. The magazine publishes short stories and poetry monthly, holds an archive of approximately 480 pieces, and runs around 9,000 visits a month. They were on a creaking shared host with poor UK latency and intermittent admin slowness.
We migrated the install to our shared hosting at £5.99/mo, set PHP to 8.1, configured OPcache, set up free SSL, and cleaned up a couple of file permission issues that had crept in over the years. We also set up a separate weekly database export to the editor\'s cloud storage, because the database held the only digital copy of pieces submitted before 2015.
End-to-end migration took us around three working hours. UK page-load times improved by roughly 38%, mostly latency. Admin response time on the article editor felt noticeably more responsive (probably OPcache being properly enabled, the previous host had not). The magazine saved around £8/mo on hosting.
What we would tell anyone in the same spot: small editorial sites benefit hugely from a host that bothers to enable OPcache. It\'s a five-minute config change that the cheapest hosts often skip.
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:
TextPattern Hosting FAQ
Common questions we hear from people running TextPattern on our hosting.
Textpattern runs on PHP 7.3+ (PHP 8.1+ supported in current releases) and MySQL 5.6+ or MariaDB. Our shared hosting includes PHP 8.5 default, MySQL 8, 256MB PHP memory, and OPcache enabled by default, all of which exceed Textpattern's requirements comfortably. The application is genuinely lightweight, so even our entry-level shared plan has plenty of headroom for typical Textpattern use.
Yes. Textpattern is in our application installer. The installer creates the database, drops in the files, and walks you through a simple wizard that sets your site name, admin login, and basic configuration. Total install time is around 5 minutes. After install, the default theme is functional and you can start publishing immediately, or hand it to a designer to build a custom theme using Textpattern Tags.
Textpattern is genuinely capable up to small to medium editorial sites with thousands of articles and tens of thousands of monthly visits, on our shared hosting. The application is light enough that hosting tier is rarely the bottleneck. For genuinely high-traffic editorial work (100,000+ monthly visits), you'd typically be looking at a different CMS choice anyway, since Textpattern's editorial workflow tools are deliberately simple. If you do scale up, our managed cloud servers from £9.99/mo handle Textpattern with massive headroom.
Hosting-layer support 7 days a week including evenings, weekends, and bank holidays. PHP, MySQL, file permissions, SSL, email, DNS, backups, migrations, and CDN. We don't build Textpattern themes, write Textpattern Tags templates, or develop custom plug-ins as part of standard hosting support, those are development tasks. The Textpattern community forum is the right place for application-specific questions and is genuinely helpful and friendly. Datacentre infrastructure is monitored 24/7.
Yes, free with our migration service. Send us your existing host's FTP and database export. We'll move the install, run the Textpattern upgrade if your version is older, set up SSL, and test the front-end and admin before DNS cutover. Most Textpattern migrations take us 1 to 3 working hours, the application is light enough that there's rarely much to it. Older Textpattern installs (versions 4.5 or earlier) sometimes need a careful staged upgrade, which we handle.
Textpattern has a clean security record relative to its size, partly because the codebase is small and the feature surface is deliberately narrow. Keep core and any plug-ins updated. Our hosting adds free SSL, daily backups, file permission hardening, and platform-level WAF rules. For editorial sites holding unpublished writer submissions, we'd suggest IP-restricting the admin URL where practical, and using strong passwords plus the bundled Textpattern admin protections. Textpattern is conservative about new features, which means new attack surfaces are introduced slowly.
Ready to Host TextPattern?
Get started with TextPattern on our fast UK web hosting. One-click installation, free SSL, and dedicated expert support included.