System Requirements

Minimum requirements

Component	Minimum	Recommended
WordPress	3.0.1	Latest stable (tested up to 6.9)
PHP	7.0	8.1 or newer
MySQL	5.6	MySQL 8 or MariaDB 10.4+
Memory limit	64 MB	256 MB
Disk space	~30 MB free for the plugin	—

PHP configuration

• cURL extension — required. AFI uses cURL (via the WordPress HTTP API) to talk to every receiver platform. Without it, no outgoing API call will work.
• OpenSSL — required for HTTPS requests, which is all modern APIs.
• JSON extension — required (bundled in every PHP build since 5.2; mention only if you run an unusual minimal build).
• mbstring — required for safe UTF-8 handling of form data.
• allow_url_fopen — not required (AFI uses cURL).
• max_execution_time — at least 30 seconds recommended. Large submissions to slow APIs can exceed shorter limits.
• WP Cron — must be running. The background-queue feature relies on WP Cron. If you have disabled WP Cron (DISABLE_WP_CRON), set up a server cron that hits wp-cron.php at least once per minute.

WordPress configuration

• Pretty permalinks are required if you use the Inbound Webhooks (Pro) feature, because it registers REST routes.
• Multisite is fully supported — see the Multisite page for licensing notes.
• Local sites / localhost work for testing the plugin’s UI, but external receivers will only work if your local machine has outbound HTTPS access to the receiver’s API.

Hosting environment notes

• AFI works on every mainstream managed WordPress host (Kinsta, WP Engine, SiteGround, Cloudways, Pantheon, Pressable, Flywheel, Bluehost, etc.).
• Hosts that aggressively cache REST responses can interfere with the Inbound Webhooks endpoint. Add an exception for /wp-json/afi/* in your host’s page cache rules.
• Firewalls (Cloudflare, Wordfence, Sucuri) sometimes block POST requests from “unusual” user agents. If integrations fail with HTTP 403, add the receiver’s IPs or the AFI plugin’s user-agent to your firewall allow-list. See AFI > Log for the exact response that was returned.

How to check if your site meets the requirements

1. In WordPress admin, go to Tools > Site Health > Info.
2. Open the Server section and confirm PHP version, max_execution_time, memory limit, and the cURL extension are present.
3. Open the Database section to confirm MySQL/MariaDB version.

If your environment is short on any of the requirements above, contact your host — most of them can switch PHP version or raise memory limits from their control panel.