BionicWP Platform Service & Technical Considerations

This document outlines the key platform behaviors, technical limitations, and environment details that apply to sites hosted on BionicWP. Understanding these platform-level settings will help you troubleshoot faster,set accurate expectations with clients, and avoid unsupported configurations.set accurate expectations with clients, and avoid unsupported configurations.

We support PHP 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3 for all new sites. PHP 7.4 is available on existing sites but is considered deprecated. You can switch between supported versions per site via the BionicWP dashboard.

Note: While PHP 7.4 is available, we strongly recommend upgrading to PHP 8+ for better performance and security. Community-wide support for PHP 8+ is still evolving, but we’ve ensured your site remains stable during the transition.

ionCube and ZendGuard Loader are not installed or supported. Any plugins or apps that require these extensions will not function on the platform.

BionicWP does not install or support Imagick. The GD library is used instead for image-related processing, which meets the needs of most WordPress sites.

BionicWP sites allow traffic over TCP ports 80 and 443 as well as support for uploading of files via TCP port 22 (SFTP). BionicWP does not support and will not add custom firewall rules to allow inbound traffic to your site or your site’s database/database server(s).

BionicWP allows outbound traffic only on these ports:

• TCP ports 465, 587 (SMTP)

• TCP ports 110, 995 (POP3)

• TCP ports 143, 993 (IMAP)

• TCP ports 80, 443 (HTTP, HTTPS)

All other outbound traffic is denied and logged.

Each WordPress site has a single dedicated database. BionicWP does not support:

• Creating multiple databases per site

• Connecting a site to an external or shared database

• Remote MySQL access

All DB activity must occur within the containerized site environment.

Video uploads to your site’s media library are supported, but BionicWP does not provide support for video transcoding or streaming. Use platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, or VideoPress for optimized delivery.

BionicWP uses NGINX and PHP-FPM to handle requests and render page content for a given site. As such, and without the use of Apache, an ‘.htaccess’ file has no effect on the site or its settings.

Expiry headers are not set by default, and we are unable to modify the NGINX configuration file to include them. However, you can enable the CDN on a site with an active domain (i.e. not staging site), which will enable server-side caching and set expiry headers for all static resources on your site that are served from our CDN.

NGINX is centrally managed and cannot be customized per site. Redirects or rewrites must be handled through a plugin like Safe Redirect Manager. BionicWP support cannot edit NGINX rules for individual sites.

BionicWP enables Brotli compression at the server level by default. If a browser that doesn’t support or blocks Brotli is used, then GZIP compression is used as the fallback. You do not have to worry about setting up Brotli or GZip compression.

These compression methods compress your site’s CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files. They do not compress images. This compression can reduce a file’s size by 60 percent or more.

When connecting via SFTP:

• You can access standard site files

• You will not see or be able to modify managed WordPress core files or platform-managed themes/plugins

• Access is limited to preserve security and ensure system-managed updates function correctly

BionicWP manages the version of WordPress installed for each site and always keeps the version up-to-date with the latest stable release found on WordPress.org, updated automatically on release day. Planned WordPress release dates are publically available.

The ability to make direct modifications to WordPress core files, uninstall WordPress, or to install and use a prior release of WordPress are not supported.

Sites hosted at BionicWP may have a BionicWP user added to their site for support purposes. This user is fully secured and cannot be removed while the site is hosted on our platform.

In addition to WordPress core, BionicWP installs and manages the following plugins on each site:

• Akismet

• Jetpack

• Jetpack Protect

The following themes/plugins are also installed and managed on each BionicWP site:

• Twenty Twenty-Four

• Edge Cache

There is an Edge Cache option on all BionicWP sites under Site Settings > Edge Cache. This is a mu-plugin, but not visible in the /htdocs/wp-content/mu-plugins folder, nor can it be removed.

Multisite networks using path-based URLs and Domain-based URLs are supported. If unsure, reach out to support before enabling multisite.

While technically possible to run non-WordPress code (e.g., Laravel, Node.js), Bionic WP does not provide support for non-WordPress-based sites, applications, and frameworks. While nothing on the BionicWP platform prohibits the execution of these applications, their functionality should be considered “as-is”. If BionicWP detects that a non-WordPress-based site, application, or framework is causing resource strain, we’ll ask the site owner to remove the application.