# Limitations

Source: https://docs.fortrabbit.com/platform/concepts/limits
Reviewed: 2026-07-03

> fortrabbit is not VPS hosting. The architectural limits worth knowing upfront — what the container allows, and where the platform says no.


## This is not VPS hosting

The fortrabbit platform has a service-oriented architecture with individually scalable components. The [environment](/platform/objects/environment) is a lightweight container that is optimized for speedy web delivery of PHP applications. If you are shopping for as much hardware resources as possible for as little money as possible, you might look elsewhere.

## No 1-click installers

When creating an app we ask for the desired software you are about to use. This can be Laravel, Craft CMS, WordPress or alike. That will not install the software. Read more about the [software templates](/platform/concepts/software-templates).

## No root shell

The SSH environment is "jailed". So you can use it for [deployment and common development tasks](/platform/code-access/ssh), but it's NOT possible to install software like: FFmpeg, Node, NPM, Gulp, webpack, ruby, Rails or a mail server. We do this for security and performance reasons.

## Need to call via php interpreter

To launch a PHP script you need to specify the PHP interpreter explicitly: for example, `php artisan` or `php craft`.

## No image optimization tools

Tools like `jpegoptim`, `optipng`, `pngquant`, `SVGO`, `gifsicle` and alike can help to reduce file size of your images. Using such tools is considered a best practice today. Unfortunately they consume a lot of CPU time and memory. fortrabbit apps are built for fast, short-running, light processes, not heavy lifting. Consider using a third-party service for this.

## No video compressing

`ffmpeg` and `ffprobe` alike are also not available to avoid overuse of resources.

## wkhtmltopdf

wkhtmltopdf is a popular library to convert HTML to PDF. It's NOT installed and you cannot install it on your own for the reasons named above. Check out the following alternatives:

- [dompdf](https://github.com/dompdf/dompdf) is a PHP-based PDF renderer that converts HTML and CSS to PDF
- Use PDF as a service
- Rethink if you really need PDF?
- Consider PDF creation on the client side with JS in the browser, with [jsPDF](https://parall.ax/products/jspdf) or similar

## Security responsibilities

We believe in a clear division of security concerns. We - fortrabbit - take care of the Operating System level and the PHP runtime, you - the developer - are responsible for the software you write and use.

## Service location

A region can be chosen for each app individually, but can't be changed later. The service is available in Euro (€) or US Dollars ($), which can be chosen with each [payment method](/platform/objects/payment-method). fortrabbit headquarters is based in Berlin (CET).

## Mailing

Many applications and websites need to be able to send emails. The classical example is a password reset form for a CMS. Best use a third-party service to achieve this. Here are the options:

### Transactional mail provider

**Recommended**: to use a "transactional mail service", those are built to ensure email delivery and will notify you when delivery fails — see [transactional mail](/integrations/transactional-mail/intro) for more details. These providers are easily integrated via an API and there are plugins for CMS and frameworks.

### Direct SMTP

**Caution**: It's possible to use a mail script that uses SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) via an email provider directly. There are countless possibilities for configuring SMTP. Most frameworks and CMS have configuration options built in.

Although this is the standard approach (for example, sending mails via Microsoft Exchange or Google for Work), we can no longer recommend it. More mail providers are closing down this option.

To use this option anyhow, it's required to manually open the SMTP ports (25, 465, 587) with the [outgoing firewall rules](/platform/settings/firewall-outgoing).

### No sendmail

**Not available**: It's not possible to use sendmail — the Mail Transfer Agent — on fortrabbit. The PHP `mail()` function uses Sendmail by default. Back in the good ol' days, this would simply call the shell command `sendmail` to send an email directly from your web server to the receiving email server. This is a bad practice nowadays and will rarely work. Most big email providers will simply ignore emails from unknown servers to avoid spam.

## PHP PATH_INFO

Our runtime implements PHP via FastCGI + FPM. To utilize `PATH_INFO` you need to do a small hack-around in your `.htaccess` file:



```apache
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} \.php/ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.+)\.php/(.+)$    /$1.php [NC,L,QSA,E=PATH_INFO:/$2]
```

<!-- TODO:
## Authorization header

If you need the `Authorization` header, for OAuth for example, you have to forward the header explicitly via an ENV variable:



```apache
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Authorization} .
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
```
Accurate still? -->

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- [What this is not](/platform/no-x)