Where it lives
Three ways to host it, and the honest cost of each
The product is the same in all three. What changes is how fast an alert lands and who patches the machine.
Shared hosting
From a few dollars a month
The cheapest thing that works, and it does work. Verified on a live Hostinger install.
- PHP and a database is all it needs — no Docker, no Node on the server
- Twenty-five screens comfortably
- The application sits outside the web root, so configuration is not downloadable
- No background process required: the schedule runs off inbound traffic
- No WebSocket, so alerts arrive in two to five seconds rather than under one
- Media storage is bounded by the hosting quota
A VPS
From about ten dollars a month
The middle option, and the one most estates end up on.
- A real WebSocket, so alerts land in well under a second
- A queue worker and a proper cron
- MySQL or PostgreSQL, and as much media storage as the disk holds
- Ships with Docker Compose if you would rather not configure any of it
- Somebody has to keep the machine patched
Your own hardware
No hosting cost at all
A machine in your rack, on your network. Nothing leaves the building.
- No external dependency at runtime whatsoever
- Works on an isolated network with no internet at all
- Media served over the LAN, so a 40 MB video does not cross a shared uplink
- Answers the procurement question before it is asked
- You own the backups
- Remote screens need a VPN or a reverse proxy
What it needs
Requirements, in full
Deliberately unremarkable. Anything a PHP application can run on, this can run on.
PHP
8.2 or newer
Database
SQLite, MySQL or PostgreSQL
Disk
Whatever your media needs
Optional
A WebSocket server, for sub-second alerts
On hosting with no cron
Timed content needs something to check the clock every minute, and the cheapest hosting plans do not offer a scheduler. Rather than making that a hard requirement, the system can run its schedule off inbound traffic instead — screens poll every few seconds, so one screen switched on is enough to drive it. The health page always says which of the two is actually in use, because guessing about that is how a schedule silently stops firing for a fortnight.
Not sure which fits?
Tell us how many screens you have and where they are, and we will tell you which of the three we would actually use.
No open demo, no sign-up wall — a person reads every request.