Available binaries and tools - FFmpeg, Tesseract, ImageMagick, cURL and more

Our systems are geared towards development with PHP and MySQL / SQLite, and come with everything you need to get started. Even so, some projects need external programs or binaries for extra functionality. For example, projects that work with video may need FFmpeg, which can be installed on demand on every hosting plan.

For convenience, every account environment also comes with a set of useful binaries. This list is far from exhaustive; it covers some of the most widely used, with direct value for development or everyday tasks:

• FFmpeg: video/audio conversion and processing. Available on demand on all plans. See the guide to install and use it: Install and use FFmpeg on hosting plans.
• ImageMagick: image manipulation (resize, crop, convert formats) from the command line (convert/mogrify or magick, depending on the version).
• jpegoptim: JPEG optimisation. Some options keep the original quality and others recompress lossily; check the options before overwriting images.
• pngquant: colour-quantisation compression for PNG; reduces size while keeping good visual quality.
• Ghostscript: tools for working with PDF and PostScript (e.g. converting PDF to images or merging documents).
• curl: makes HTTP/HTTPS requests; useful for testing APIs, webhooks and downloads.
• git: version control and support for deployments from repositories.
• rsync: efficient directory synchronisation and incremental deployments.
• bind-utils (dig, host): DNS diagnostics to check resolution, records and propagation.
• openssl: cryptographic utilities (generate keys and CSRs, inspect certificates, create hashes).
• Python: the interpreter is available for your own scripts and tasks, without official support from us. You can use it over SSH or in a cron job; check the name and version available. We do not host Python web applications (Django, Flask) or offer «Setup Python App», just as we do not run Node.js applications as servers.
• tesseract: OCR to extract text from images.
• GeoIP (geoiplookup): geolocation lookup based on the installed database. The accuracy and freshness of that data vary; it is not the same as a person's exact location.
• smbclient: client for accessing SMB/CIFS shares (Windows network folders) from the command line.

If you need another binary not listed here, contact us and we can look into installing it whenever possible.

Check the tool in your account

From SSH or the cPanel terminal, first locate the command:

command -v tesseract
command -v convert
command -v magick
command -v python3

If a command does not return a path, it is not in that session's PATH; check that it is available before using it in a script. Then check its version, for example tesseract --version, and its options with the tool's help.

For OCR, tesseract --list-langs shows the installed languages: having the binary does not guarantee that the Spanish model is there. For images or PDFs, the available formats and operations also depend on the configured delegates and policies.

Test with a small file and save the result under another name. Some tools, such as mogrify, can overwrite the original. Check quality and size before processing a whole folder.

Commands use your plan's CPU, memory, processes and disk space. Being available does not mean unlimited workloads or installing system packages with administrator privileges are allowed.