System requirements

Wake needs PHP and a web server, nothing else: no database, no Node.js, no cron job, no SSH access. Ordinary shared hosting is enough.

In short

	Needed	Recommended
PHP	8.4 or newer	the newest version your host offers
Web server	Apache 2.4 with `mod_rewrite` and `.htaccess`, or nginx	document root on `public/`
Disk space	about 60 MB for Wake	plus your images; backups need about as much again
Memory	`memory_limit` 128 MB	256 MB for large images
HTTPS	for the panel and two-factor sign-in	a free Let's Encrypt certificate from your host
Database	none
Cron	none (why)	optional, for exact publishing times

PHP extensions

Extension	What Wake uses it for
`mbstring`, `ctype`, `tokenizer`, `filter`, `hash`, `openssl`, `session`, `json`	Laravel itself; almost always present	needed
`fileinfo`	checking uploaded files	needed
`dom`, `xml`	the Ghost import and feeds	needed
`gd`	resizing images; with WebP support for `.webp` versions	needed for images
`zip`	backups, theme installation and updates from the panel	needed for those features
`curl` or `allow_url_fopen`	checking for updates, importing images from Ghost	optional
`intl`	nicer date formats in some languages	optional
OPcache	keeps the content index in memory, which makes Wake much faster	strongly recommended

Without zip, Wake still runs; the backup and update pages tell you what is missing. Without WebP support in gd, Wake simply serves JPEG and PNG.

Check your server

On your computer:

php -v
php -m

On a web host, open the panel after installing: Settings lists everything Wake found wrong, for example a folder it cannot write to or a document root that exposes your content. During setup the same checks run before the first account is created.

Folders Wake writes to

Folder	Why
`content/`	pages, posts, categories, tags, media, `style.css`
`themes/`, `plugins/`	installing and copying themes and plugins in the panel
`settings/`	settings from the panel, menus, redirects, roles, consent
`data/`	accounts, statistics, versions, trash, backups, mail settings
`temp/`	caches, locks, logs, sessions
`public/media/`, `public/assets/`	resized images, theme and plugin assets

The user PHP runs as needs write access to these, which most hosts set up already. Otherwise use 775 for folders and 664 for files.

Upload sizes

Images up to 20 MB can be uploaded in the editor. Your host's PHP settings upload_max_filesize and post_max_size must allow that size, too. Large backups are easier to upload by FTP into data/backups (backups).

Hosts

Wake is developed against Apache 2.4 with PHP-FPM and nginx with PHP-FPM. It needs no special features, so any host with PHP 8.4 should work. If you run Wake somewhere and something did not work, please tell us in an issue, so this page can list hosts that are known to work.

Browsers for the panel

The panel works in current versions of Firefox, Chrome, Edge and Safari, including on phones. The website itself depends on your theme; Tide works in every current browser.