Media processing on shared hosting
Many modern web applications need to process images and videos. Whether it’s generating thumbnails, converting video formats, or resizing images on upload, these tasks require specialized tools that aren’t always available on shared hosting.
Our cloud web hosting includes both FFmpeg and ImageMagick, giving your applications the media processing capabilities they need.
FFmpeg support
FFmpeg is the industry-standard tool for video and audio processing. With FFmpeg available on our hosting, your applications can:
- Convert videos between formats (MP4, WebM, AVI, etc.)
- Generate video thumbnails and previews
- Extract audio from video files
- Transcode media for different devices and bandwidths
- Process uploaded video content automatically
ImageMagick support
ImageMagick handles image manipulation tasks that go beyond what PHP’s built-in GD library can do. With ImageMagick, your applications can:
- Resize and crop images while preserving quality
- Convert between image formats (PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, etc.)
- Generate thumbnails at multiple sizes
- Apply filters and effects
- Process RAW camera files
- Handle large images that would exhaust memory with GD
Latest PHP version
Our web hosting runs the latest stable PHP version, ensuring compatibility with modern applications and access to the newest features and security updates. Both FFmpeg and ImageMagick are accessible from PHP through their respective extensions.
Popular applications that use FFmpeg or ImageMagick
Many widely-used open source applications require FFmpeg or ImageMagick to function properly. Our hosting supports all of these out of the box:
Content management and blogging
- WordPress - Uses ImageMagick for image resizing and thumbnail generation
- Drupal - Image processing for media management
- Joomla - Media handling and image manipulation
- TYPO3 - Advanced image processing features
Photo and media galleries
- Piwigo - Photo gallery requiring ImageMagick for thumbnails and image processing
- Lychee - Photo management with extensive image manipulation
- PhotoPrism - AI-powered photo management using FFmpeg and ImageMagick
- Chevereto - Image hosting platform with ImageMagick support
- Zenphoto - Gallery CMS with image processing requirements
Cloud storage and file sharing
- Nextcloud - Uses FFmpeg for video thumbnails and ImageMagick for image previews
- ownCloud - Similar media processing requirements
- FileRun - File manager with media preview generation
- Pydio Cells - Document and media sharing with preview generation
Social and community platforms
- Mastodon - Federated social network using FFmpeg for media processing
- PeerTube - Video hosting platform heavily dependent on FFmpeg
- Pixelfed - Photo sharing platform requiring ImageMagick
- Discourse - Forum software with image processing for uploads
- Flarum - Modern forum with media handling
E-commerce
- PrestaShop - Product image processing and thumbnails
- OpenCart - Image manipulation for product catalogs
- Bagisto - Laravel e-commerce with media processing
Other applications
- Moodle - Learning platform with media processing for course content
- MediaWiki - Wiki software with image thumbnail generation
- Matomo - Analytics platform with report image generation
- Invoice Ninja - PDF and image generation for invoices
- Bookstack - Documentation platform with image handling
Limitations
To prevent abuse and ensure fair resource sharing, we limit the execution time of PHP scripts and media processing programs.
This means shared web hosting is not designed for heavy-duty media processing. Converting a hundred hours of 4K video to various formats, for example, is not an appropriate use case for shared hosting.
However, these limits are more than sufficient for typical web application tasks like:
- Generating thumbnails for uploaded images
- Creating preview images for galleries
- Processing short video clips
- Converting images between formats
Need more processing power?
If your project requires intensive media processing beyond what shared hosting can provide, we also offer:
- VPS hosting - Full control with dedicated resources and no execution time limits
- Dedicated servers - Maximum performance for the most demanding workloads
Why this matters
On many shared hosting providers, you’d need to upgrade to a VPS just to get FFmpeg or ImageMagick support. That means more cost and more server administration work.
With our cloud web hosting, these tools are already available. Install WordPress, Nextcloud, or any of the applications above, and media processing just works.
Explore our cloud web hosting with FFmpeg and ImageMagick included.