Smartstore – System Requirements

The right hosting strategy is a central success factor for any digital business model. A powerful, secure and scalable infrastructure forms the foundation for stable online services and an optimal customer experience. Especially in e-commerce, performance and security directly determine sales and growth. Whether it's a root server, managed hosting, or cloud, each option has specific advantages and disadvantages. Topics such as data protection, failover resilience, and automation play a central role. This blog post gives you a compact overview and supports you in making an informed decision so that your platform runs reliably today and grows with your business tomorrow.

From shop software to platform - Smartstore – more than just e-commerce

With Smartstore v6.3 you rely on far more than a classic shop software: thanks to the switch to ASP.NET Core 9 and a modern, modular architecture, Smartstore presents itself as a powerful, future-proof platform for demanding B2C and B2B projects. Whether in retail, within an omnichannel concept, or in event-based business models, Smartstore offers the flexibility and performance your digital growth needs.

Flexible. Scalable. Limitlessly deployable: The new technological basis makes Smartstore completely platform-independent: Run your solution on Windows, Linux, or macOS – locally, virtualized, or in the cloud. This freedom provides you with completely new possibilities but also often confronts companies with complex infrastructure decisions.

We make complexity simple: To ensure you set the right course from the very beginning, we accompany you from strategic planning to implementation to stable operation of your Smartstore solution. This way, you can harness the full potential of the platform – without risk and with maximum success.

System requirements for Smartstore v6.3

Operating systems

Smartstore can be operated on the following platforms:

• Windows Server 2019 / 2022 / 2025 (recommended for productive environments)

• Linux (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or higher, Debian 12+, CentOS Stream 9+)

• macOS (recommended only for local development and test environments)

Note: For long-term productive operation, we recommend a current LTS version of the respective operating system, particularly for security patches and kernel compatibility.

Software and framework requirements

Hardware recommendation (for typical stores)

Important: Resource requirements heavily depend on product number, traffic, database size, and cache strategy. We are happy to provide individual consultations.

Development & Test environments (Localhost) - Try out new ideas without risks

A development and test environment (localhost) is a local installation of your Smartstore application on your own computer or within your internal network. It serves to develop and test new features, extensions, or custom adaptations in a controlled, isolated environment – completely independent of your live platform.

Here you can safely try out designs, plugins, interfaces, or updates, identify errors, and make optimizations before they are deployed productively. This not only reduces risks in ongoing operations but also accelerates development cycles and significantly improves the quality of your e-commerce solution. You can find the download of the open-source software here. At this link, you will find the installation documentation providing further information on this topic. 

Example: Local installation on Windows or Linux

1. .NET SDK 9 install

2. SQL Server Developer or PostgreSQL set up locally

3. Clone Smartstore source code or release from GitHub

4. dotnet run or start Visual Studio / Rider

5. Access via https://localhost:5001

Advantages:

• Fully-fledged development and test environment

• No external dependencies

• Ideal for feature tests, plug-in development, or customer demos

Ideal for: Development teams, agencies, or companies wanting to customize Smartstore or safely test new features before going live. With the help of artificial intelligence, automated installation is now easily possible. This approach has already proven effective in practice.

Deployment: Hosting options at a glance - Find the hosting model that perfectly fits your project

Each e-commerce project has unique requirements regarding performance, scalability, or convenience of operation. Different business models and objectives require tailored solutions that are precisely aligned with your company's needs and resources. Smartstore therefore offers a selection of flexible deployment models that enable you to choose exactly the solution that fits your strategy perfectly. Perhaps you are looking for a ready-to-use solution that requires little technical effort and enables you to focus fully on your core business. Or you desire maximum control and insight into your IT infrastructure to shape and manage it according to your preferences. Whatever your requirements, we support you competently and reliably in finding the optimal hosting strategy for your specific situation.

In the following, we invite you to comprehensively discover the most common options and their advantages. Analyze the presented models thoroughly and make an informed decision about which deployment model not only fits your company but also your long-term growth strategy. Our goal is to present you with not just a solution, but the right solution that supports your business goals and helps your company succeed.

1. Managed Server – Convenience & security without effort

Focus on your core business – we take care of the rest

A Managed Server is the most convenient form of hosting: You receive a powerful, dedicated server environment without having to worry about installation, maintenance, or security yourself. All administrative tasks – from system updates to security patches to regular backups – are fully handled by our provider.

This means for you: maximum performance, high failover resilience, and professionally managed operation without needing to maintain your own IT staff or special DevOps know-how. You benefit from a stable, secure infrastructure and can fully focus your resources on building and growing your online business.

• No administration required: We fully take over the technical supervision for you.
• Regular maintenance & automatic backups: Highest security and availability without your own involvement.
• Fewer individual configuration options: Focus on operations instead of infrastructure details.

Ideal for: Businesses looking for a reliable, maintenance-free hosting solution that values security, convenience, and professional support.

2. Virtual Servers (V-Server) - The smart entry into professional hosting

A Virtual Server (V-Server) is a cost-effective and flexible hosting solution where a powerful physical server is divided into multiple virtual environments. Each of these instances functions like its own independent server – including its own operating system, configuration, and full administrator access.

Thus, you benefit from an individual, scalable environment at significantly lower costs than with a dedicated server. At the same time, you retain the full control over your applications and settings. Since multiple users share the physical hardware, performance may vary slightly depending on the load – however, for many applications, this is an ideal compromise between flexibility, performance, and economy.

• Inexpensive and flexible
• Scalable with increasing demands
  
• Resources are shared, performance fluctuates

Ideal for: Test and staging environments, smaller online shops, or projects with moderate traffic that require inexpensive, yet professional hosting.

3. Dedicated Root Servers – Maximum performance and full control

The premium solution for the highest demands

A dedicated root server is a physical server whose complete hardware is exclusively available to you. Unlike shared or virtual hosting solutions, you do not share resources with other users here – all CPU cores, RAM capacities, and storage resources belong solely to your project.

With full root access, you enjoy unrestricted control over the operating system, software, security settings, and server architecture. This freedom allows you to operate even complex applications, customized system configurations, or resource-intensive e-commerce projects exactly according to your requirements – with maximum performance, security, and stability.

• Maximum control & performance
  
• Full access to operating system and database
• High administrative effort, security responsibility rests with the operator

Ideal for: Large online shops, mission-critical applications, or projects with high security and performance requirements, where full control and dedicated resources are crucial.

4. Smartstore as SaaS or PaaS – Flexibility and scalability from the cloud

With Smartstore as SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) or PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) on Microsoft Azure you operate your e-commerce platform without your own servers, hardware, or complex IT infrastructure. Instead, you use Smartstore as a fully managed cloud service that is immediately available and flexibly adapts to your business requirements.

As a SaaS solution, we handle the entire technical operation – from provisioning, maintenance, and updates to automated monitoring, high availability, and scalability. You simply access your Smartstore instance via the browser and can fully concentrate on your core business.

In the PaaS variant, we provide you with an optimized, scalable platform environment on Azure that you can customize and extend with your own applications or DevOps processes – ideal for companies with specific requirements or their own IT expertise.

Important note:

• We offer SaaS contracts exclusively on Microsoft Azure
• We provide technical support for installations on AWS or Google Cloud but do not handle monitoring or 24/7 operations management there

Advantages of Smartstore SaaS on Azure:

• Scalable infrastructure within minutes
• Automatic updates & security patches
• GDPR-compliant data storage in European data centers
• Integration of Azure services such as CDN, Blob Storage, or AI Search

Ideal for: Companies looking for a quickly available, highly available, and future-proof e-commerce solution without having to worry about operation, maintenance, or scaling.

Our service: From planning to operation

Many store operators underestimate the complexity associated with the decision about the right infrastructure. The choice between a managed server, a V-server, or your own cloud instance is not just a simple cost issue. Rather, it has profound implications for various aspects of online business. It affects the security of data and the system, the performance and speed of the store, the maintainability of the entire infrastructure, as well as the scalability to respond to future growth. Each of these options comes with its own advantages and disadvantages, which must be carefully weighed to make an informed decision that meets the unique requirements and strategies of the company.

We support you at every stage:

• Consultation & planning: Analysis of your requirements and development of a hosting concept
• Implementation: Set up and configuration of server, database, and store instance
• Migration & go-live: Secure transfer of existing data and launch support
• Operation & maintenance: Monitoring, updates, backups, and 24/7 support (Azure SaaS)

Conclusion: The right environment determines success

Smartstore v6.3 is a modern, high-performance, and scalable commerce platform – but it only unleashes its strength on a suitable infrastructure. Whether on-premises, virtualized, or as a managed cloud service: We ensure that your store but also grows. Talk to us before making decisions – so that your e-commerce platform stands on solid ground right from the start.

Here you can find more blog posts on these topics.

https://smartstore.com/en/smartstore-in-the-cloud/
https://smartstore.com/en/smartstore-commerce-cloud/
https://smartstore.com/en/types-of-cloud-computing/
https://smartstore.com/en/smartstore-builds-on-microsoft-azure-for-a-leading-edge-cloud-based-e-commerce-offering/
https://smartstore.com/en/cloud-native-platform-no-hosting-stress-with-cloud-commerce-made-by-smartstore/
https://smartstore.com/en/plug-in-hosting-smartstore-in-a-web-farm-with-redis/

Do you have questions about this topic? Or would you like to send us your feedback? You can reach us via the contact form, by email at info@smartstore.com or by phone from Monday to Friday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at +4923153350.