7 Best: Hosting With Composer (Feb. 2024)

When you’re shopping for the best hosting with Composer, finding a host that offers it pre-installed on your server is a big time saver. Otherwise, developers on your project will need to install Composer using command line tools over an SSH connection.

If you can use Git with your hosting plan, you can also install Composer for PHP. It’s a mystery why it’s not required to install WordPress, as some leading PHP programmers claim that using the two together makes WordPress more stable and secure.

Although WordPress currently doesn’t require Composer for PHP, it is required for Drupal sites. But don’t let this intimidate you. This review shows you how to install Composer and some of the best hosting plans to help you get your Drupal site up and running.

SiteGround’s hosting plans lean toward the pricier side after the introductory discount, but you get what you pay for. This host backs its customers with superior power and speed. It uses upgraded SSD storage, which provides faster speeds and greater reliability than traditional HDD drives.

SiteGround pre-installs the latest version of Composer to keep its platform updated for the requirements of custom PHP development. If you need to run another version of Composer than the one available by default, follow this SiteGround tutorial.

To run it, you’ll need to create an alias for the new Composer version. You can use Composer to install Drush for easier Drupal site management using free, open-source command line tools from the international community.

InMotion Hosting offers upgraded NVMe SSD server infrastructure to give your Drupal site an extra power boost.

The shared hosting platform at InMotion Hosting comes with Composer pre-installed and allows users to connect via SSH directly or through cPanel. The PHP version used for domains is guaranteed to be compatible with Composer.

In our review of WordPress hosting at InMotion, you will find many more tools for developers, including Visual Composer. The InMotion Hosting plans also include WP-CLI and other DevOps tools.

Bluehost is best known for WordPress hosting, but it’s also popular among developers for its support of various coding languages, including PHP and Laravel.

In a Bluehost shared hosting environment, you can install Composer with SSH using the provided platform tools. Developers need to use the version compatible with the PHP version running on the server instance.

In the Bluehost tutorial, you can install Composer in the web server’s root folder or in public.html folders. You just need to sync the php.ini settings. The Bluehost Composer tutorial is primarily directed at PHP and Laravel developers.

Hostinger is an affordable, user-friendly hosting company with monthly shared hosting plans starting at $2.49. You can install Composer on your Hostinger server with an SSH connection from the developer’s desktop machine to the shared web hosting environment. You need to install Composer globally rather than in the public.html file archive.

This Hostinger tutorial includes directions on generating the composer.json file and autoloading PHP package dependencies on a server.

IONOS is one of the cheapest shared hosting plans we’ve reviewed, with packages starting at just $1.00 per month. But don’t let its low price fool you. This host packs a punch with performance and features, including a free domain name for your first year of hosting. This freebie saves you roughly $10 to $20 in domain registration fees alone.

To install Composer on IONOS servers, you must set the PHP version for the domain or subdomain in the administration panel. Create an SSH connection to download the Composer installer script.

A checksum script is run to validate the download. Then, run the package to install Composer on the server. You can test and remove any unneeded files.

HostArmada has many features suitable for both newbie site owners and experienced developers.

It’s one of the few cPanel companies you can find with Drush and Composer pre-installed on hardware for Drupal development. The Managed Development platform at HostArmada has all the required tools for PHP, Python, and Node.js already installed on its shared servers with cPanel administration.

You can avoid a manual installation of Composer and begin working on your projects more quickly with HostArmada support.

HostGator is a smart choice for teams that want unlimited websites in a single hosting plan. The company also tosses in some perks, including a free domain name for your first year.

At HostGator, developers must enable Shell access with SSH and sync Composer with the PHP version used on websites individually. The platform allows Composer to be installed globally or in the public.html folder.

After adjusting the php.ini settings, programmers can download and install any PHP packages required for building custom-coded web applications.

Composer is a dependency manager for PHP. You can view it as a command line tool for automatically managing the installation of things like plugins, modules, and themes.

Composer uses Packagist as a PHP package repository that allows vendor dependencies to be declared in a composer.json file on the server so that the correct libraries are auto-installed.

Composer aims to function similarly to npm in the Node.js ecosystem for PHP. Whether this is enticing or not depends on the type of web developer you are. If you have previously used Ruby’s Bundler software, npm, or configured a web server over SSH, then working with Composer in PHP development should be easy. If not, there is a lot to learn.

Check the vendor directory for professional third-party PHP service providers and verify code security.

This is becoming more common on shared hosting plans but was previously limited by hosting companies. A professional PHP project relies on source control in the deployment process, and you need to install Composer command line packages. Otherwise, use a VPS plan.

Visual Composer is a WordPress site builder completely different from the Composer dependency of Drupal versions 7.x through 10.x. You can view Composer for PHP as a DevOps tool or PHP programming utility for managing web server configurations.

If you are a professional PHP programmer, using Composer should be as common as npm in JavaScript teams. WordPress is easier to manage because users can upgrade plugins, themes, and core elements in one click without using Composer, unlike Drupal.

The main benefits of Composer are code versioning for custom PHP programming teams and the distribution of the libraries required for PHP apps to run.

Composer functions by automatically downloading dependencies for modules and themes to vendor files on a server. The libraries required to support PHP code runtimes are declared and stored in a .json file created by the Composer install process.

In Drupal development, Composer and Drush are vital command line tools for complete website management but are generally too complex unless you have experience in systems administration.

With Composer, PHP programmers can declare their module, plugin, or theme dependencies and have the versioning of new releases auto-updated by running Composer commands. This keeps the CMS more secure over time in production.

In reality, the only benefits of Composer are for professional PHP programmers. You need to install Composer on your server since it’s required for running Drupal sites. But, because WordPress does not require it, most hosting companies do not include Composer on web servers by default. Using Composer is similar to npm for JavaScript programming or version control on Google Cloud. Composer for PHP is part of full-stack systems administration.

Composer for PHP makes website administration more difficult for non-programmers. Drupal developers can consider the dependency as beneficial to their salaries. More than 90% of web hosting users have likely never heard of the script before. Acquia adopted Composer to make Drupal more stable and secure in PHP dependency management, but it is not easy to use.

Managed WordPress hosting, like the A2 Hosting platform, allows developers to avoid this extra layer of hassle. A2 Hosting has an excellent reputation with professional PHP programming teams.

To run Composer for PHP package management on a shared hosting plan, you need root access to the server over an SSH connection. Most Windows users have PuTTY as the main option for this. You must generate an encryption key for the SSH connection to work with your local machine. See this Linux tutorial for more information.

The installation process is the same on a dedicated server, VPS plan, or shared hosting platform.

Three Ways to Install Composer on a Web Server with SSH

1. To use SSH with PuTTY to install Composer using PHP on the web server, run the code:

php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
php -r "if (hash_file('sha384', 'composer-setup.php') === 'e21205b207c3ff031906575712edab6f13eb0b361f2085f1f1237b7126d785e826a450292b6cfd1d64d92e6563bbde02') { echo 'Installer verified'; } else { echo 'Installer corrupt'; unlink('composer-setup.php'); } echo PHP_EOL;"
php composer-setup.php
php -r "unlink('composer-setup.php');"

2. Alternatively, you can use Curl to download the Composer installer package:

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

Use this code to run the Composer installer with PHP on the web server:

php composer.phar install

3. It is also possible to install Composer for PHP on Ubuntu servers with sudo:

sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

PHP programmers will also need to declare fine-grained version dependencies for included libraries in the composer.json file hosted by their scripts on the web server. For example:

{
    "require": {
        "vendor/package": "1.3.2",
        "vendor/package2": "1.*",
        "vendor/package3": "^2.0.3"
    }
}

Follow the development guides on the Composer and Packagist websites for more information.

Most of the WordPress user base will look bewilderingly at the requirements for installing Composer for PHP package management. It certainly makes the Drupal CMS more difficult to use for citizen developers. Specialist hosts, including Pantheon and Acquia Cloud for Drupal, may have Composer installed by default on their web servers, but very few other hosts include it.

You can install Composer for PHP on web servers using an SSH connection and a command line tool like PuTTY for Windows. Apple users can use the Terminal app on iOS. Arguably, Composer was largely introduced as a requirement for Drupal hosting when the PHPTemplate engine of version 6.x was changed to support Twig as the theme engine for PHP.

Whether you see Composer for PHP as a blessing or a curse, the fact remains that it is difficult to use and required for professional PHP programming of Drupal modules. With 4 million PHP libraries under package management, Composer is one of the main reasons PHP has such a bad reputation, and enterprise companies avoid it.

Composer makes Drupal more challenging to use. Most of the same functionality is managed by WordPress with backend automation that does not require advanced systems administration or Composer. We recommend using Composer with professional PHP programming teams if it’s helpful to your project. If you choose to use it, one of the hosts we mentioned will set you up for success.