The Joomla! Project publish the minimum technical requirements for hosting a Joomla! CMS website on a server at the following link.
Read more: Joomla! Technical Requirements
Technical Requirements - PHP
Joomla! 6 Series
The Joomla! Project state the minimum requirement to run a Joomla! 6 Series website is PHP 8.3.0.
And recommend using PHP 8.4
with the following PHP Modules selected:
- dom,
- gd,
- json,
- mysqlnd or pdo_mysql or pdo_pgsql,
- simplexml,
- zlib.
Joomla! 5 Series
The Joomla! Project state the minimum requirement to run a Joomla! 5 Series website is PHP 8.1.0.
And recommend using PHP 8.3
with the following PHP Modules selected:
- dom,
- gd,
- json,
- mysqlnd or pdo_mysql or pdo_pgsql,
- simplexml,
- zlib.
Joomla! 4 Series
The Joomla! Project state the minimum requirement to run a Joomla! 4 Series website is PHP 7.2.5.
And recommend using PHP 8.2.
Joomla! 3 Series and earlier
The Joomla! Project no longer supports the Joomla! 3 Series and earlier.
Links to details of the PHP requirements of older versions of Joomla! CMS can be seen in the right margin at the following link.
Read more: Technical Requirements of the Joomla! 3 and earlier
Tip: check whether any 3rd party extensions used by your website are compatible with a version of PHP before changing.
Note: older versions of PHP no longer receive active support from the developer community.
See which versions of PHP are actively supported at the following link.
Technical Requirements - MySQL
Joomla! 6 series
The Joomla! Project state the minimum requirement to run a Joomla! 6 Series website is MySQL 8.0.13.
And recommend using MySQL 8.4
Joomla! 5 series
The Joomla! Project state the minimum requirement to run a Joomla! 5 Series website is MySQL 8.0.13.
And recommend using MySQL 8.1
Find out why the Joomla! 5 Series requires a jump from MySQL 5.6 (Joomla! 4 Series) to MySQL 8.0.13 at the following link.
Embracing Change: Why Joomla 5’s Requirement for MySQL 8 is a Leap Forward
Joomla! 4 series
The Joomla! Project state the minimum requirement to run a Joomla! 4 website is MySQL 5.6.
And recommend using MySQL 8.0 or later.
Joomla! 3 Series and earlier
The Joomla! Project no longer supports the Joomla! 3 Series and earlier.
Links to details of the MySQL requirements of older versions of Joomla! CMS can be seen in the right margin at the following link.
Read more: Technical Requirements of the Joomla! 3 and earlier
MySQL Derivatives and Joomla!
There are many derivatives of MySQL.
A popular derivative is MariaDB.
Another derivative listed by The Joomla Project is PostgreSQL.
MariaDB and Joomla! 6
The Joomla! Project state:
- the minimum requirement to run a Joomla! 6 website is MariaDB 10.6, and
- recommend using MariaDB 12.
MariaDB and Joomla! 5
The Joomla! Project state:
- the minimum requirement to run a Joomla! 5 website is MariaDB 10.4.0, and
- recommend using MariaDB 11.1.0.
MariaDB and Joomla! 4
Last time we checked, The Joomla! Project made no mention of which version of MariaDB is compatible with hosting a Joomla! 4 CMS website.
We can however confirm that Joomla! 4 CMS websites work well when MariaDB is running on a server.
Server Applications
Apache, Nginx and Windows - IIS are listed on the Joomla! Technical Requirements page, but there are others you can use with your Joomla! website.
Hosting providers which offer LiteSpeed Web Server hosting claim its use increases server performance, stability and security.
Read more: LiteSpeed Web Server
Useful articles in our Joomla! User Guide
What kind of hosting is right for your website?
Joomla! websites perform better on SSD drives.
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We help and support managers responsible for Joomla! CMS websites in UK business, academy school and third sector organisations across Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and North West England.