Choosing Hosting for Laravel, Symfony and Custom PHP Apps

When you move beyond WordPress into Laravel, Symfony or a fully custom enterprise PHP application, hosting suddenly becomes much more than “how many sites fit on this plan”. You have queues, schedulers, APIs, background workers, multiple environments, maybe even a mobile app and SPA frontend talking to your backend. All of that has to run reliably on real servers, with real limits. In project planning meetings we regularly see the same questions: is shared hosting enough for our MVP, when do we need a VPS, how do we size CPU/RAM, and what happens when we add workers or a separate database?

In this guide we walk through how we at dchost.com think about hosting for non‑WordPress PHP apps. We will focus on Laravel and Symfony, but everything here also applies to custom frameworks and in‑house enterprise codebases. You will see where shared hosting still makes sense, when a VPS is the natural next step, and when dedicated or even colocation becomes the right call. The goal: make your hosting choice a calm architectural decision, not a last‑minute fire drill.

1. Understand Your PHP Application Before You Pick a Server

Before comparing hosting plans, you need a clear picture of what you are actually running. The same Laravel codebase can be a simple brochure site today and a multi‑tenant SaaS tomorrow. Hosting that fits one scenario will be painful for the other.

Monolith, API or Microservices?

Most Laravel and Symfony projects start as a monolith: web frontend, API and business logic all in one codebase. That is fine and often ideal early on. From a hosting perspective, one PHP‑FPM pool, one web server (Nginx/Apache) and one database server cover everything.

Over time, you might split things into:

• Backend API (Laravel/Symfony) serving a React/Vue/Angular SPA or mobile app
• Worker services processing queues, sending emails, generating reports
• Microservices for billing, search, notifications, etc.

Each of these pieces can end up on different servers, so thinking about this early helps you avoid a painful re‑architecture later.

Traffic Pattern and Business Criticality

Two Laravel apps with the same codebase can require completely different hosting just because of traffic and risk profile:

• Internal tools (intranets, dashboards) with a few dozen users: low traffic, but usually higher security and VPN/SSO needs.
• B2C apps (e‑commerce, booking, public portals): unpredictable peaks, higher availability expectations, performance sensitivity.
• SaaS platforms: steady load that grows over time, data isolation requirements, strict uptime and backup SLAs.

Write down for your app: expected concurrent users, peak hours, planned growth over 12–24 months, and what one hour of downtime would cost. That simple exercise will clarify whether a small shared hosting plan is a good experiment or a risky shortcut.

Technical Features That Influence Hosting

Several framework features directly affect your hosting choice:

• Queues (Laravel Queues, Symfony Messenger): need long‑running workers and process supervision.
• Scheduled tasks (Laravel Scheduler, cron commands): need reliable cron or systemd timers.
• Real‑time features (WebSockets, broadcasting, notifications): may require separate gateway processes or Node.js.
• File storage (user uploads, exports, reports): affects disk performance and backup strategy.
• Multi‑tenant design (SaaS with many clients): may need database sharding, extra isolation or regional hosting.

If you are not sure how to translate these needs into concrete server specs, our article on choosing VPS resources for Laravel and other frameworks gives step‑by‑step capacity planning examples.

2. Core Hosting Requirements for Laravel, Symfony and Custom PHP Apps

Once you understand your application type, you can list non‑negotiable technical requirements. For modern PHP frameworks these are surprisingly consistent.

Modern PHP Version and Extensions

Laravel and Symfony versions released today expect PHP 8.x. Running on older versions quickly becomes a security and performance problem. Your hosting environment should provide:

• PHP 8.1+ (or whatever your framework version recommends)
• PHP‑FPM (FastCGI Process Manager) instead of mod_php for performance and isolation
• Common extensions: pdo_mysql or pdo_pgsql, mbstring, intl, json, zip, openssl, curl, gd or imagick

Keeping PHP up to date is a big part of long‑term stability. We go into more detail in our PHP 8.x upgrade checklist for Laravel and WordPress, including OPcache tuning and backward‑compatibility tips.

Composer, Git and Deployment Workflow

For non‑WordPress PHP apps, Composer is non‑optional. Your hosting must allow:

• Running composer install with enough memory and time limits
• Using Git (or another VCS) to pull code to the server
• Executing build steps (asset compilation, database migrations) in a safe way

On shared hosting, these steps can be constrained or slow. On a VPS or dedicated server you can implement proper deployment strategies (atomic releases, zero‑downtime symlink switches, etc.). We have a full walkthrough in our guide on deploying Laravel on a VPS with zero‑downtime releases.

Queues, Jobs and Scheduled Commands

Modern PHP frameworks rely heavily on background jobs:

• Sending emails and SMS asynchronously
• Generating PDFs, reports, exports
• Syncing with third‑party APIs
• Running heavy calculations off the main request cycle

Hosting has to support:

• Running queue workers under supervisord or systemd
• Reliable cron or systemd timers for php artisan schedule:run (or Symfony console equivalents)
• Reasonable background process limits – not killing your workers every few minutes

On managed shared hosting, you may only get basic cron. For serious queue usage, a VPS or dedicated server at dchost.com gives you full control over workers and process monitoring.

Database and Caching Layer

Most Laravel and Symfony apps use MySQL, MariaDB or PostgreSQL as their main data store, plus an in‑memory cache like Redis. Hosting choices here include:

• Single server running both PHP and database – fine for smaller apps.
• Separate database server when CPU or IO load grows or you need tighter security.
• Redis/Memcached for sessions, cache and queues.

Your hosting provider should offer low‑latency connections between app and database, backups that include both, and clear options to scale vertically or horizontally later. For performance tuning ideas on production environments, our article on Laravel production tune‑up on real servers is a useful checklist.

3. Shared Hosting vs VPS vs Dedicated vs Colocation

With requirements in hand, you can choose a hosting model. At dchost.com we usually walk customers through four main options: shared hosting, VPS, dedicated servers and colocation. Each has a sweet spot for non‑WordPress PHP apps.

When Shared Hosting Still Makes Sense

Shared hosting is attractive for small budgets and simple projects. It can work for:

• Tiny Laravel or Symfony brochure sites
• Internal tools with a handful of users and minimal background processing
• Proof‑of‑concepts or short‑lived campaigns

Limits you must keep in mind:

• Restricted control over PHP‑FPM and OPcache settings
• Limited or no access to process managers (for queue workers)
• Resource limits (CPU/RAM/IO) shared with other accounts

If you expect to add queues, APIs or higher traffic, it is wise to treat shared hosting as a temporary home. We compared these trade‑offs in detail in our article Shared Hosting vs VPS for Laravel and other PHP frameworks.

Why VPS Is the Default Choice for Serious PHP Apps

For most non‑WordPress PHP projects, a virtual private server (VPS) is the natural foundation:

• You get dedicated vCPU, RAM and disk slices, not shared with hundreds of sites.
• You can customize PHP‑FPM pools, OPcache, Nginx/Apache and system packages.
• Queues, schedulers and workers can run under your control with systemd or supervisord.
• You can add monitoring, firewalls, WAF and backups to your exact needs.

At dchost.com, our VPS plans range from small instances that can run a single Laravel app up to high‑CPU, NVMe‑backed servers suitable for multi‑tenant SaaS. Choosing the right size is more about concurrency and workload type than just pageviews; again, our VPS sizing guide has real‑world numbers.

Dedicated Servers for Heavy or Regulated Workloads

Once your PHP app needs:

• Very high CPU/RAM (e.g. dozens of workers, analytics, ETL jobs)
• Tight data isolation for compliance, or
• Heavy disk IO for logs, exports, media processing

a dedicated server at dchost.com becomes attractive. You are the only tenant on that hardware, so noisy neighbors are removed from the equation.

Typical use cases:

• Large e‑commerce or booking platforms running Laravel/Symfony
• Enterprise back‑office systems integrated with ERP/CRM
• Custom SaaS with thousands of tenants and big daytime peaks

Dedicated servers also pair well with colocation when you want to bring your own hardware but rely on our data center power, cooling and network.

Colocation for Enterprises Owning Their Hardware

If your company already has servers or strict hardware standards, colocation at dchost.com lets you place that equipment in our data centers while keeping full control. This is common when:

• You need specific CPUs, GPUs or storage controllers not available off‑the‑shelf
• There is an existing on‑prem stack being partially moved to a data center
• Compliance or procurement rules prefer capex hardware over opex services

Your Laravel, Symfony or custom PHP apps can then run on machines you own, while we provide power, network, redundant connectivity and physical security.

4. Performance and Scalability Planning for Framework‑Based PHP Apps

After choosing a hosting model, the next step is tuning for speed and growth. Non‑WordPress PHP apps are often API‑heavy and latency‑sensitive, so small bottlenecks hurt fast.

CPU, RAM and NVMe: What Actually Matters

For Laravel and Symfony, the key server resources are:

• CPU: each PHP‑FPM worker can use one CPU core while processing a request. Concurrency depends heavily on available vCPU.
• RAM: holds PHP processes, database buffers and caches. Low RAM leads to swapping and terrible performance.
• Disk speed (preferably NVMe): affects database IO, logs, temporary files and Composer deployments.

Our NVMe‑backed VPS and dedicated servers at dchost.com are designed with this in mind; in many real projects, moving a Laravel app from classic SSD to NVMe storage alone cuts response times significantly even before code optimizations.

PHP‑FPM, OPcache and Application Tuning

On a VPS or dedicated server you can fine‑tune:

• PHP‑FPM pool settings (process manager mode, pm.max_children, etc.) to match your vCPU and concurrency.
• OPcache so code is kept in memory and not re‑parsed on every request.
• Octane or RoadRunner in Laravel for long‑running workers in certain workloads.

We share the exact FPM and OPcache adjustments we use in our own environments in the Laravel production optimization guide. It is written from the perspective of tuning real servers, not just changing a few config lines and hoping for the best.

Scaling Up: Vertical vs Horizontal

Most projects go through three simple stages:

1. Single VPS running app + database (MVP, early production).
2. Bigger VPS or dedicated server when CPU/RAM start to saturate.
3. Split roles into app servers, database servers, cache servers and load balancers.

Vertical scaling (bigger VPS) is usually fastest and simplest. Horizontal scaling (multiple smaller nodes) takes more planning but gives redundancy and smoother growth.

For small SaaS products we often mix approaches: one strong NVMe VPS for database and Redis, and two medium app VPS instances behind a load balancer. Our separate article on hosting architectures for small SaaS apps walks through these patterns with diagrams and real examples.

Caching, HTTP Layers and Edge Considerations

Good caching can make a mid‑range VPS feel like a cluster. For non‑WordPress PHP apps you should think on multiple layers:

• Application cache (Redis): config, query results, expensive computations.
• Session storage: Redis or database, depending on your scale requirements.
• HTTP caching: browser cache headers, microcaching with Nginx, and possibly a CDN for static assets.

With Laravel and Symfony you have fine‑grained cache control inside the framework; hosting should simply provide fast Redis and a configurable web server stack. At dchost.com we help customers pair their VPS or dedicated servers with CDN and microcaching strategies when global traffic or very high read loads appear.

5. Security, Backups and Compliance for Enterprise PHP Projects

Once your PHP app is important enough that downtime or data loss hurts, you need to treat hosting as part of your security and compliance posture. This is especially true for B2B SaaS, finance, healthcare or any user‑data‑heavy application.

Baseline Server and Application Security

Your hosting environment should support:

• Strong SSH access (keys, limited users, optional 2FA/JIT access)
• Regular OS updates and security patches
• Hardened web server config with TLS 1.2/1.3, HTTP security headers and sane timeouts
• Firewalls limiting access to database and admin ports
• Web Application Firewall (WAF) rules to catch common attacks

On a VPS or dedicated server at dchost.com you can either implement these yourself (we have a detailed guide on securing a VPS calmly and methodically) or rely on our team to assist with a hardened baseline.

Backup Strategy: RPO, RTO and Practical Setups

For Laravel and Symfony apps, a reliable backup plan must include:

• Application code (Git is helpful, but not a full backup)
• Databases (MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL) with regular dumps or snapshots
• User uploads and generated files

We always recommend thinking in terms of RPO (how much data you can afford to lose) and RTO (how long you can be down). Our article on designing a backup strategy with RPO/RTO breaks this down in detail and shows concrete schedules for SaaS and e‑commerce workloads.

At dchost.com we combine on‑server backups (fast restore) with off‑server or off‑site copies (disaster scenarios) for VPS, dedicated and colocation customers. For mission‑critical apps you should test restores regularly, not just trust that backups “probably work”.

Compliance and Data Localisation

If you handle personal data from users in Turkey, the EU or other regions with data protection laws, hosting location and logging policies directly affect compliance. While this guide focuses on Laravel/Symfony hosting, your legal team will eventually ask questions like:

• Where exactly is the data stored (country, data center)?
• How long are access logs and application logs retained?
• Can data be deleted fully when a user requests it?

One of the advantages of hosting with a provider like dchost.com is the ability to choose between data centers (e.g. Turkey, EU, US) and tailor log retention. For a deeper dive into this topic, see our guide on KVKK and GDPR‑compliant hosting with data localisation strategies.

6. Putting It Together: Example Hosting Blueprints

To make all of this more concrete, here are some common patterns we design for customers building non‑WordPress PHP apps.

Scenario A: Small B2B Tool Built with Laravel

Context: Internal dashboard, 20–50 users, moderate reporting, a few queues for emails and nightly sync tasks.

Recommended hosting at dchost.com:

• One mid‑range VPS (2–4 vCPU, 4–8 GB RAM, NVMe storage)
• Nginx + PHP‑FPM + MySQL/MariaDB on the same server
• Redis for cache/sessions if needed (on the same VPS initially)
• Queue workers managed by systemd, cron for scheduler

This setup is simple, fast and cost‑effective. When load grows, you can upgrade the VPS vertically or move the database to a second VPS without redesigning your whole stack.

Scenario B: Public‑Facing Laravel/Symfony App with Peaks

Context: Booking portal, marketplace or media site; several thousand daily users; larger peaks during campaigns.

Recommended hosting at dchost.com:

• One strong VPS or dedicated server with 4–8 vCPU, 8–16 GB RAM, NVMe
• Separate Redis instance for cache and queues
• HTTP caching (Nginx microcaching, CDN for static assets)
• Daily off‑server backups for database and storage

As traffic grows, you can add a second app VPS or server and put a load balancer in front, keeping the database on its own machine. Our production deployment guide for Laravel on a VPS (linked earlier) fits naturally into this architecture.

Scenario C: Multi‑Tenant SaaS on Laravel

Context: Multi‑tenant B2B SaaS, hundreds of customer accounts, growing user base, strong uptime expectations.

Recommended hosting at dchost.com:

• Two or more app VPS instances behind a load balancer
• One or more database VPS or dedicated servers (replication or primary/replica)
• Dedicated Redis or Redis cluster for caching and queues
• Separate storage/backups strategy for customer data, logs and media

This is where colocation or dedicated servers start to make sense if you want predictable capacity and total hardware control. Architecture patterns here are similar to those we discuss in our guide on multi‑tenant architectures for SaaS apps and the right hosting infrastructure.

Conclusion: A Clear Path to Hosting for Your Laravel, Symfony and Custom PHP Apps

Choosing hosting for non‑WordPress PHP applications feels complex only when you try to decide in one step. Once you break it into simple questions – what kind of app is this, how critical is it, what framework features does it use, how fast do we expect it to grow – the right options become much clearer. Small internal tools can live happily on a well‑sized VPS. Public‑facing apps with real traffic need room to tune PHP‑FPM, caching and databases. Large SaaS or enterprise projects benefit from dedicated servers or colocation where you fully control the hardware envelope.

At dchost.com we design and operate exactly these kinds of environments every day: from single‑VPS Laravel deployments to clustered, multi‑region setups with strict backup and compliance requirements. If you are planning your next Laravel, Symfony or custom PHP project, or you feel your existing stack is hitting invisible limits, our team can help you map your code and business needs to a concrete hosting architecture. Reach out with your current workload, traffic estimates and growth plans, and we will turn them into a calm, realistic hosting roadmap you can build on for years.