OptimizePress runs on the self hosted version of WordPress from WordPress.org which you must be running on a professional hosting/server service (such as SiteGround, rocket.net, or kinsta.com). You will also need a domain linked to your hosting in order to license your site.
We recommend hosting your site with Rocket hosting, but if you are using another web host, please check they have met the below minimum requirements.
You may choose any web host you want that will meet our recommendations. Here are also a few other web hosts that we have tested, although some may require PHP settings to be tweaked in order to meet the minimum requirements.
Rocket.net
Kinsta.com
KnownHost.com
Liquidweb.com
A2hosting.com
Note that A2hosting sometimes sets caching to be too aggressive, but the settings can be changed.
If you are planning to use hosting not listed above, that is okay as long as they meet our requirements. Our support team will look into the hosting setup if you report any problems with using OptimizePress and will advise if switching web hosts would be in your best interest.
The following lists the minimum requirements to be able to use OptimizePress:
The latest version of WordPress is recommended
You must meet all of WordPress's minimum requirements (some of our requirements are higher)
Memory limit set to at least 512M, usually in the php.ini file (like this: memory_limit = 512M)
WordPress memory limit set to 256MB or 512MB - define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M') - minimum 256M, but if you have a lot of plugins the higher you set this the better.
The mod_rewriteApache module (or similar nginx server setting)
PHP 7.4 or higher (PHP 8 or higher suggested if other plugins/themes are also compatible) NOTE: OptimizePress is compatible with the latest PHP up to PHP 8.4
PHP upload limit 32MB or higher
WP Cron must not be blocked as we have some features that do rely on WP Cron. This means for those features, your hosting would not be compatible if there is no possibility to run cron jobs either through WP Cron or a replacement Cron such as through your web hosting provider's control panel.
We recommend that Post Revisions in WordPress not be blocked by your web hosting provider in order to use our page builder's revision history to retrieve previous versions of your pages in case you make an error or need to rollback to the previous version of your pages content.
PHP mbstring extension turned on
PHP Shortcodes must be enabled
The minimum max_input_vars setting in the php.ini file should be 3000 or higher (like this: max_input_vars = 3000). This allows creating pages with long content such as sales pages.
The max_execution_time should be set to 60 to avoid issues with server timeouts during installation.
No firewalls blocking access from our licensing server (this is used to validate your license)
No firewalls blocking our WP JSON path /wp-json/op3/v1
The server must be online - we are not compatible with localhost installations
WordPress Rest API must not be limited
For editing pages in the OptimizePress Page Builder we do also recommend a minimum screen size of 15 inches and resolution of 1280x800.
Your browser zoom setting should always be at 100%. Higher or lower zoom settings may cause distortions in the mobile editor for your pages.
PHP variables that would normally be editable within a php.ini file may also be modified by creating a ".user.ini" file (without quotes) within the main WordPress directory. Normally the same directory where you would find your wp-config.php file.
To ensure you set PHP variables correctly, here is what the contents of the .user.ini file should look like (note if your server already meets some of these, you may omit the lines for those variables):
max_execution_time = 60
max_input_time = 60
upload_max_filesize = 64M
post_max_size = 64M
max_input_vars = 3000
memory_limit = 512M
This method works well in most hosting environments. You may need to reboot the server in some cases or wait some time and clear your browser and site cache in order to see the changes.
We have seen some instances where pages won't save in the editor for longer pages or pages with lots of elements. This can be caused by too low of a max_allowed_packet as we describe in our troubleshooting guide.
There is not a minimum we require for OptimizePress to run, however we have seen some issues when this is very low. We would suggest that a minimum of 128MB be set for this value, which most web hosts would already meet. Value hosting (which we do not recommend) such as NameCheap EasyWP, typically is where we see this issue. Settings less than 128MB are not recommended, but we wouldn't recommend changing this value unless you are having issues.
While WordPress.com hosted sites may allow for installing external plugins such as OptimizePress, we can not guarantee full functionality there as it is not coded exactly the same as the self hosted version of WordPress. There are a lot of technical differences between the two platforms even though they are similar in many ways.
There are many alternative hosting solutions such as Kinsta.com, Rocket.net, and many others that offer a high end WordPress experience which will offer you better performance and the ability to scale the server resources as your site becomes more popular and gets more traffic.
If you have any questions about this guide please reach out to our support team and we'll be happy to guide you further.
