Requirements and tools

The basic requirements for Yii2 are a web server (local or remote) and PHP v.5.4 (or newer). It is recommended to have a shell (or command line) access to the machine (local or remote) where we store the code, as there are scripts that it will be very beneficial to use in the development of complex applications. We can also develop the application locally and upload it to the web server when we wish to test it.

For remote hosting, there are multiple options. We can use a simple web hosting service (with PHP v.5.4 support) or we can opt for virtual or dedicated server hosting. Keep in mind that with the former option, if the server doesn't meet the PHP requirements, it can be difficult to change whatever is wrong.

Yii2 has a script, requirements.php, which checks whether our hosting meets the requirements to run Yii2 application.