What Hosting Does CARL Require
CARL is built for standard cPanel shared hosting. You don't need a VPS, a dedicated server, a managed cloud platform, or any specialist infrastructure. If your host provides cPanel with PHP 8.1 or higher and a MySQL or MariaDB database, CARL will run on it. Most shared hosting accounts available today meet these requirements without any special configuration.
The Core Requirements
CARL requires PHP 8.1 or higher. The installer checks your PHP version automatically during the pre-flight stage and will tell you if your server falls short. Most cPanel hosts running modern infrastructure default to PHP 8.1 or 8.2, and many offer 8.3. If your host is still running PHP 7.x, it's time to either upgrade the PHP version in cPanel's MultiPHP Manager or switch hosts.
CARL also requires six PHP extensions to be enabled: curl, mbstring, pdo, pdo_mysql, json, and zip. These are standard extensions that come enabled by default on virtually every cPanel shared hosting account. The installer checks for all of them and flags any that are missing. If one is missing, contact your hosting provider and ask them to enable it.
Database Requirements
CARL stores all your content, settings, and module data in a MySQL or MariaDB database. Any cPanel host with MySQL Databases in the control panel supports this. Create the database and user in cPanel before running the installer; the setup wizard creates all tables automatically. You don't need a managed database service or a separate database server.
MariaDB 11.4 is what CARL is developed and tested against, but MySQL 5.7 and above work without issues. The specific database engine your host provides is generally not something you need to research: if your cPanel account has MySQL Databases, it's compatible.
Server and Directory Requirements
Your document root directory needs to be writable with standard 755 permissions. This is the default on cPanel shared hosting and shouldn't require any manual configuration. The installer checks this during the pre-flight stage. If the directory isn't writable, the installer will tell you before attempting anything.
During installation, your server needs to be able to make outbound HTTPS connections to the CARL licensing server to verify your license and download the CARL package. Most shared hosting accounts allow this by default. If the installer fails at the download stage, contact your host and ask them to allow outbound HTTPS connections to external servers.
What You Don't Need
CARL doesn't require root server access, SSH, a command line, or any server administration beyond what's available in cPanel. You don't need to configure PHP-FPM, adjust server memory limits, install server-side software, or touch anything outside File Manager, MySQL Databases, and the Cron Jobs section of cPanel. Everything CARL needs is available through the standard cPanel interface.
You also don't need a fast or expensive hosting plan. Because CARL pages are static PHP files written to disk at publish time, the server does almost no work on each page request. A basic shared hosting account that would struggle to serve a WordPress site at any meaningful traffic volume handles a CARL site without breaking a sweat.
Recommended Hosts
Any reputable cPanel shared hosting provider works. The things worth checking when choosing a host are: PHP 8.1 or higher available in MultiPHP Manager, MySQL Databases in the control panel, outbound HTTPS allowed, and reasonably fast SSD storage. Beyond those basics, CARL isn't demanding. The host that serves your files quickly is the right host, and for static PHP files, the bar is not high.
