For traditional sites, they require very little in the way of extras from the back end, but that is not the same for content management systems (CMS).  In order to have your CMS site operate at its fullest, your webhost will need to meet the following requirements.

*Do not use PHP 4.3.9, 4.4.2 or 5.0.4. These releases have known bugs that will interfere with installation. Zend Optimizer 2.5.10 for PHP 4.4.x also has serious bugs and you should ask your host to upgrade to a newer version. Joomla is not yet compatible with PHP 5.3

**Joomla is not yet compatible with MySQL 6.x.

***In order to use SEO URLs, you will need to have the Apache mod_rewrite extension installed.

****Joomla is optimized for Apache, but also runs on Microsoft IIS (though not officially supported). Depending on your setup, you may need the following:

• PHP 5.2 - Installation instructions
• MySQL 5.1 - Installation instructions
• Apache 2.2 - Installation instructions
• Microsoft URL Rewrite Module - Required for SEO URLs only. For more information, click here. For information about using ISAPI, click here.
• FastCGI - Download for IIS6. Download for IIS7.

If you are unsure if your webhost supports them, you may need to contact your webhost to see if they meet your requirements. If you do not have a current webhost, we strongly recommend Dreamhost for all your webhosting needs.