System Requirements
Benecaster runs on standard WordPress hosting. If your site already handles WooCommerce or any modern plugin without issues, it will handle Benecaster.
Minimum Requirements
| Component | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| PHP | 8.2 | 8.3 |
| WordPress | 6.4 | Latest stable |
| MySQL | 8.0 | 8.0+ |
| MariaDB | 10.6 | 10.11 LTS |
| HTTPS | Required | — |
Subscription Plugin (Paid Features)
Benecaster’s subscriber authentication and feed gating require one of the following membership plugins to be installed and active:
- MemberPress
- WooCommerce Subscriptions
- Paid Memberships Pro
- Restrict Content Pro
You do not need a subscription plugin to use the free WordPress.org version, which provides a public (unauthenticated) podcast RSS feed and episode management.
PHP Extensions
The following PHP extensions are required. They are enabled by default on virtually all managed WordPress hosts:
openssl— token generation and HMAC signingjson— feed compilation and license validationmbstring— multibyte string handling for episode titles and descriptionscurl— metadata auto-detection from hosted audio URLs
WordPress Configuration
- Permalinks: Benecaster requires pretty permalinks (any structure other than Plain). Go to Settings → Permalinks and choose any option except the default. Flush permalinks after activating the plugin.
- WP-Cron: Benecaster uses WP-Cron for scheduled tasks including availability checks, license validation, and feed cache warming. On low-traffic sites, availability unlocks may fire late if no one visits between the scheduled time and the next request. For time-sensitive availability schedules, configure a real server cron to trigger WordPress cron every 5 minutes.
- HTTPS: Required. Feed URLs contain subscriber tokens — serving them over HTTP exposes subscriber credentials in transit.
Hosting for Your Audience Size
Feed requests are Benecaster’s primary load. Each subscriber’s podcast app fetches their private RSS URL periodically — but apps typically poll when opened, not on a fixed timer, so 500 subscribers does not mean 500 requests per hour.
Benecaster’s feed cache is per tier, not per subscriber. A show with 1,000 subscribers across 4 membership tiers keeps 4 cached feed documents — cache hits cost roughly the same as any fast WordPress database query. Cache misses happen only when you publish or edit content.
Hosting guidance by audience size:
| Active subscribers | Hosting tier | Key recommendations |
|---|---|---|
| Under 500 | Shared hosting | Any modern WordPress host with PHP 8.2+ works fine |
| 500–2,000 | Managed WordPress or VPS | Object cache (Redis or Memcached) strongly recommended |
| 2,000+ | Managed WordPress or VPS | Object cache required; PHP-FPM + OPcache required |
| Any size with download proxy | Add 2–5× headroom | The download proxy routes every audio request through WordPress — size your host accordingly |
Object caching is the single most impactful upgrade for any show at the Starter tier or above. With Redis or Memcached, a cache hit is a memory read with no database involved. Most managed WordPress hosts (Kinsta, WP Engine, Cloudways) include Redis at no extra cost.
The download proxy multiplies your request volume. Benecaster’s optional download proxy routes audio downloads through WordPress to enable per-download analytics. If you enable it, every subscriber download is an additional WordPress request — plan your hosting accordingly. The proxy is off by default.
Hosting Compatibility
Benecaster works on any host that meets the above requirements. Hosts with known-good compatibility include:
- WP Engine, Kinsta, Flywheel, SiteGround (managed WordPress)
- Cloudways, SpinupWP (managed VPS)
- Most managed and shared hosts running PHP 8.2+
PHP 8.2 has been available since November 2022 and is supported by all major WordPress hosts. If your host doesn’t offer PHP 8.2, that’s worth addressing regardless of Benecaster — PHP version support is one of the clearest signals of a host’s overall maintenance posture.
Multisite
Benecaster works on WordPress multisite installations. Activate it per-subsite from each subsite’s Plugins screen — network-wide activation is not supported. See Multisite Compatibility for full details, including license activation counts per plan.
Audio and Video Files
Benecaster does not host audio or video. Your episode files stay at your existing podcast hosting provider (Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Podbean, Amazon S3, etc.). Benecaster generates the RSS feed that points to those files — the gate is the feed URL, not the files themselves.
