Best Drupal Hosting UK – What is Important to Know?

Drupal is a powerful content management framework that is built with PHP and MySQL, it is open source and user friendly, highly customizable and it allows users to create powerful applications and websites. According to research, over 2% of all websites in the world use Drupal for their backend engine. Drupal is used mostly by developers; this is because normal user might find it a bit difficult to get started with it. It offers security and flexibility, but Drupal is not easy when it comes to building a high performing environment.

How to Choose it?

Choosing a Drupal hosting provider is not an easy task, this is simply because there are a lot of variables to consider such as budget, time and so on. If cost is your concern, you may consider making use of shared hosting. If you have enough time but limited budget, then you can go for a virtual private server (VPS).

The following points should be noted when choosing Drupal hosting:

• When choosing Drupal hosting service, it is very important to consider its compatibility, ensure that your provider support PHP and MySQL because both are needed to effectively run Drupal.
• Ensure that your host have a genuine and active technical support, make sure that they are not just customer service but they can also answer technical questions and provide real life solutions to problems.
• Make sure that the host you want to choose has the program version that is required to load and run your modules correctly and efficiently.
• Using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to upload files can be slow and uploading many files using this protocol will take a lot of time because FTP begins a fresh connection for each file you want to upload, but transfer of files are very fast when the files are compressed. So you need to ensure that your Drupal hosting company allows decompressing of files on their server.
• When it comes to hosting, the reliability of the host company must be considered, check the reviews of the previous customers to know if the company is reliable or not.
• Features are very important when it comes to choosing a UK hosting service provider, choose a hosting package that comprise database features, this is because Drupal is greatly supported by databases. Also, it is very important to ensure that the hosting package you choose has enough bandwidth and disk space that it will be able to accommodate along with other applications.
• A good Drupal hosting UK must also have control panel which the users will use to manage their account, websites and other vital features.

What about the Advantages?

• Easy to Use: Drupal is very easy to set up and use, it works automatically without the use of any programming language.
• Quick Building of Websites: Drupal hosting allows its users to build backend and frontend websites within few hours without the need of any programming language, it has predefined website configuration and many other functions.
• Clean Environment: Drupal provides a clean environment with high quality modules that make it very easy to create your website and manage your web contents.
• Security: Drupal is secure and have Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefits and management ability.
• Easy Customization: Content Management System website with Drupal hosting are generally organized, this is because Drupal has some smart tools that help users to customize, manage and control their websites efficiently.
• Effective Optimization: Drupal provides effective optimization option that helps users to build SEO websites.
• Better Compatibility: Drupal websites are highly compatible with any type of operating system.

What about the Disadvantages?

• Efficiency: when it comes to scalability and efficiency, Drupal is far behind, if your website is heavy, the script will produce big server load which will make your website to be slow when loading.
• Difficulty in Updates Installation: installation of updates and program modules are difficult in Drupal; this is because the installation of Drupal software updates is done through FTP.
• Complex Interface: Drupal has a complex interface and due to this, professional construction system makes Drupal to be difficult to learn.
• Too many Options: Drupal offers its users too many options to choose from, it has many options for customization and this give the users problem of choice.

How to Install?

Installation is a very important factor to take into consideration when choosing web hosting, without installation, you cannot enjoy all the benefits of Drupal. Drupal is a bit complex to install but if you can follow these simple steps, your website will be up and running in few minutes:

1. Download and Extract Drupal Files: Download the Drupal installation file from drupal.org, there are nice versions of Drupal out there, download and extract the one that you like but I will suggest you download the latest version.
2. Create a Database: After the extraction process, create a database. Drupal works with database so you need to create a database before you run the installation script.
3. Run the Installation File: go to the URL of your Drupal website and run the install.php file, choose default profile, then click on save and continue.
4. Select your language.
5. Input the details of the database you had created earlier then click on save and continue.
6. Enter the details of your website and the administrative login details on the next screen and click on save and continue.
7. The installation is complete; you can now visit your website to see how it looks.

Overall Conclusion

Drupal is an advanced Content Management System that offers a lot of in-built functions which in other scripts requires installing plugins. It has a very good technical support; it is a good choice for organizations with experienced web developers because of the complexity of Drupal hosting. Whether you want to create a simple or complex website, Drupal is your solution. When you combine Drupal content management system with VPS hosting, the combination will provide additional layer of safety to your website.