Problem: no server specialist
You do not need a server specialist. You need the specialist's checklist, run for you.
A small business or agency with a few PHP sites on Windows cannot justify a server administrator, so it pays a day rate for the setup, another for every change, and hopes nothing happens at 2 in the morning. ServerMaid does what the specialist would do, on every server, every day: build it properly, harden it, keep it backed up, watch it, and explain every problem in words you can act on.
From £99 £49.50 per server for twelve months. No specialist to book. 30-day money-back promise.
Your automated Windows web server engineer
ServerMaid isn't just another hosting control panel. Traditional server-management tools give you controls and expect you to know what to do with them, and many expect a web server that is already set up before they will even install. ServerMaid takes a different approach. Give ServerMaid a Windows Server and it helps build, secure, verify, monitor, maintain and repair a production-ready IIS web server, without requiring you to become a Windows sysadmin.
ServerMaid automates much of the work normally performed manually by an experienced Windows server engineer, starting from a fresh Windows Server with nothing else installed.
What you are actually paying a specialist for
Most of a server administrator's value on a small hosting setup is routine: knowing which IIS role services a PHP site needs, which PHP build and runtime, how to lock the database to localhost, what folder permissions are safe, which firewall rules to write without locking everyone out, how to get a free certificate and keep it renewed, how to schedule a backup that actually restores, and how to read an error code. It is a checklist. A good specialist follows it every time; a busy one skips steps; a blog post gets it half right.
What is left after the checklist is judgement about your particular application, and that is where a person is still worth their fee. ServerMaid takes the checklist off the table so you only pay for the judgement, if you need it at all.
The specialist's checklist
What a specialist does, and what ServerMaid does instead
| Build the server | IIS with the right role services, an official PHP build verified by fingerprint (choose PHP 8.4, 8.5 or 8.3 as the default before the build, each explained, or let Quick Setup pick 8.4), MySQL or MariaDB from a signed package, all in one click with a snapshot first and every step explained. The build. |
|---|---|
| Harden it | A versioned security baseline: Remote Desktop only from your places with an auto-revert timer, database local only, exact NTFS permissions, request filtering, Windows controls. Each control explained before it is applied. The baseline. |
| Add websites | One form per site: folders, application pool, database account, pretty URLs, and a free certificate* that renews itself. Free SSL. |
| Install WordPress | One checkbox on the same form downloads the latest WordPress from wordpress.org, verifies it, connects it to the site's own database user and hardens it before you choose the admin user: file editor off, PHP refused in the uploads folder, xmlrpc.php refused, admin pages over HTTPS, security releases installing themselves. The WordPress module (included in every Agency licence). The one-click WordPress install. |
| Back it up | Websites, databases and configuration on a schedule, verified by fingerprint, by opening every archive and by replaying every database dump. Proven backups. |
| Watch it | A health score that keeps checking bindings, PHP, the database, disk, certificates, firewall, failed logons and drift from the baseline, with a sentence and a fix for every deduction. |
| Fix it | Repair compares the server with what it should look like and puts it right in one click. Every deployment can be rolled back step by step. When a site goes down. |
| Explain it | "PHP cannot start because a Microsoft Visual C++ runtime is missing", with a button, instead of an error code. Technical detail is one click away for anyone who wants it. |
| Hand it over | A commissioning report with versions, the baseline, every control and the validation results, so a client or a colleague can see exactly what was done. |
* Free SSL certificates need the Websites and SSL module (included in Agency and Enterprise licences) on a licence within its twelve-month period. Certificates come from Let's Encrypt; new websites get one while the licence is in date, and certificates already issued keep renewing.
When you still want a person
ServerMaid does not design networks, tune a bespoke application or debug your code. If your setup is a standard IIS, PHP and MySQL web server, which is the case for most WordPress, Laravel and custom PHP sites, the checklist is the whole job. If it is something unusual, ServerMaid still does the routine and leaves a clear report for whoever you bring in. And when you have a question, support@servermaid.com is answered by the people who built the product.
Questions about running a server yourself
Do I need to know how to code, or how Windows Server works?
No. ServerMaid asks where your websites should live, shows you the plan in plain English and builds the server. Adding a website is one form. If something needs attention it tells you what and offers the fix; the technical detail is one click away for anyone who wants it.
How is this different from a managed hosting plan?
Managed hosting rents you someone else's server and their choices. ServerMaid runs on a server you rent from any provider, does the setup and upkeep the same way every time, and leaves everything on your machine, readable and reversible. Pay yearly per server rather than a management fee every month.
What happens when something breaks that ServerMaid cannot fix?
It tells you what it found in a sentence, with the reason. That is usually enough to fix it yourself or to brief a specialist for an hour rather than a day.
Is it safe to click the recommended option?
That is the design goal. Every change is checked first, applied only when needed, verified afterwards and recorded so it can be rolled back. Anything that could affect your remote access runs with an auto-revert timer.
What if I stop paying?
Your server and websites keep working exactly as they are. ServerMaid drops to read-only for the lapsed modules: it still inspects and reports, it just makes no new changes until a licence is installed. It never switches off anything your visitors depend on.
Server administration without becoming a server administrator
Pick the modules you need, pay for twelve months, and your licence and installer are in your account within minutes. Every build shows the whole plan before it changes anything.