Museum Hosting

Museum hosting built for a collection, not a brochure.

A museum site is two things at once: a catalogue of thousands of objects with very large images, and a shop selling timed entry to a building with a fixed capacity. They fail in opposite directions.

Derivatives generated off the requestTimed entry never oversoldFree migration
Collection-scale indexingEdge-served imageryLocked slot writesDaily backupsFree SSL24/7 support
Built for collections

Everything a catalogue asks of a host.

Very large source files, very deep archives and a ticket inventory that has to be exactly right. Each needs a different part of the stack configured.

Large originals processed in the background

A hundred-megapixel object photograph should not be resized while a curator waits for an upload to finish. Derivatives are generated as background work with limits sized for it.

Background processingRaised upload limits

Archives that stay queryable at scale

Collection records carry many taxonomies: period, medium, maker, gallery, acquisition. Those queries are indexed for how the archive is actually browsed rather than left to a generic meta lookup.

Timed entry that cannot be oversold

Capacity for a slot is decremented under a lock at the moment of purchase, so two people checking out simultaneously cannot both take the last place.

Locked writesNever double-sold

Object images delivered from the edge

Zoomable imagery is served as static files from the edge rather than rendered per request, so an exhibition going viral costs bandwidth instead of workers.

Rights-restricted material kept private

Not every image can be published. Restricted files live in paths that are not publicly listable and are served through signed links rather than obscure URLs.

Staging for a new exhibition

Build the exhibition, its objects and its ticket types on a clone, then push the whole thing at opening rather than editing it into existence in public.

Operations

The collection and the till in one view.

A museum site has a quiet failure and a loud one: a derivative queue that stopped, and a slot that sold twice. Both are visible here before a visitor finds them.

  • One-click admin login, no shared passwords
  • Per-site resource and storage view
  • Plugin and core updates with per-item status
  • Restore any daily backup from the dashboard
Derivative queue
Background, off-request
0 waiting
Collection index
Taxonomy queries indexed
18,240 objects
Timed entry
Locked at purchase
no oversell
Nightly backup
Replicated offsite
02:40
Performance

Eighteen thousand objects, filtered.

Browsing a collection is a taxonomy query with images attached. Whether it takes a moment or a second is decided by indexing and by where the images come from.

Indexed
collection taxonomies
Background
image derivatives
14
edge regions for media
MagicWP155 ms
Generic meta queries on the archive1350 ms
Full-size originals served per view2100 ms

Illustrative comparison of a filtered collection archive. Your numbers depend on object count and how many facets the archive exposes.

Configuration

What we change for a museum site

These differ from a standard WordPress site on the same plan, and each follows from a catalogue whose source files are far larger than a normal site's.

SettingWhat we doWhy
Upload and memory limitsRaised for the admin and background contextsObject photography arrives at sizes that exceed a normal upload limit, and a curator hitting that limit has no way to tell it apart from a broken site.
Derivative generationMoved to background jobs rather than run during uploadResizing a very large original inside the request that uploaded it is what makes bulk cataloguing time out halfway through an accession batch.
Archive queriesIndexes added for the taxonomy combinations the collection is browsed byCollection records carry several taxonomies at once, and an unindexed combination scans the whole object set for every filter a visitor applies.
Ticket inventorySlot capacity decremented under a lockTimed entry sells a physical capacity, so two simultaneous checkouts reading the same remaining count is the difference between a full gallery and a queue of people holding invalid tickets.
Restricted mediaStored outside the publicly listable paths and served through signed linksRights-restricted images are usually protected only by a difficult URL, which stops nobody once a single link is shared.
Plans

Simple, transparent pricing.

Every plan includes free migration, daily backups, SSL and 24/7 support.

MonthlyYearly
Starter
For personal sites, blogs, and portfolios.
$20/mo
Billed $240 yearly · save $60
  • 1 WordPress site
  • 10 GB NVMe disk
  • Free SSL
  • Daily backups
  • One-click deployment
  • Support tickets
Start free trial
Pro★ Most popular
For growing businesses and busy stores.
$80/mo
Billed $960 yearly · save $240
  • 5 WordPress sites
  • 50 GB NVMe disk
  • Free SSL
  • Daily backups
  • One-click deployment
  • Priority support tickets
Start free trial
Enterprise
For agencies and high-traffic platforms.
$250/mo
Billed $3000 yearly · save $600
  • 20 WordPress sites
  • 200 GB NVMe disk
  • Free SSL
  • Daily backups
  • One-click deployment
  • Dedicated support
Start free trial
FAQ

Questions, answered.

Our uploads fail on high-resolution object photography. Why?
Two limits at once: the upload size and the memory needed to resize it. Both are raised here for the admin context, and the resizing itself is moved to a background job so a large accession batch does not time out.
How large a collection can WordPress handle?
Tens of thousands of records is routine. What decides it is whether the taxonomy combinations people browse by are indexed, because an unindexed facet scans the whole collection for every filter click.
Can timed-entry tickets be oversold?
Not when the capacity is decremented under a lock. Two checkouts landing in the same second otherwise read the same remaining count, and a gallery with a legal capacity cannot absorb that.
How do we handle images we are not allowed to publish?
They go in paths that cannot be listed publicly and are served through signed links. Relying on an unguessable URL works exactly until one person shares it.
Can we prepare an exhibition privately?
Yes, on a clone. Exhibitions arrive as objects, pages and ticket types together, so pushing the finished thing at opening is safer than assembling it live.

Put the collection online without shrinking it.

Start in minutes, or let our team move your museum site across - no card, no commitment.