Server requirements

Hardware requirements for a server running a single Sitecore installation

To run a single Sitecore installation, the minimum configuration requirements are:

• 4 core processor
• 16 GB of RAM

IIS requirements

You must use the version of IIS that your operating system supports. For more information about IIS and operating systems, see Microsoft’s documentation.

Sitecore Experience Platform does not officially support any other ASP.NET web servers such as IIS Express, or Mono Web Server.

Sitecore Experience Platform neither supports nor allows multiple IIS website definitions to point to the same Sitecore web root.

Operating system requirements

Sitecore Experience Platform is only compatible with the client and server operating systems that support .NET Framework 4.8.0.

Sitecore Experience Platform can be hosted on the following Microsoft operating systems:

• Windows Server 2025
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows 11 (64-bit)

.NET requirements

Sitecore Experience Platform requires .NET Framework 4.8.0.

Sitecore Identity server requires the latest .NET 10.0 Windows Hosting Bundle.

You must apply any available updates to the .NET Framework on every Sitecore installation.

Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable requirements

Sitecore Experience Platform 9.0 Update-1 introduced a new prerequisite for the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. For more information, see Microsoft's documentation.

Database requirements

Sitecore Experience Platform supports the following database servers:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2025

• Microsoft Azure SQL

  You must create the Azure SQL instance in advance and pass the address and the server administrator credentials in the corresponding parameters when you run the installation.

  For more information, see the Sitecore XP documentation.

Enable Contained Database Authentication

When you use Web Deploy Packages, you must ensure that the target SQL Server is configured to allow users and logins to be contained at the database level.

To configure the target SQL Server:

1. Launch Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and log in as an administrator.

2. Run the following new query:

   
   EXEC sp_configure 'contained', 1;
   RECONFIGURE;
   

Configure encrypted communication with SQL Server

New versions related applications might require encrypted communication with SQL Server, for example Sitecore Identity Server module version 8.0 and later, and Sitecore Publishing Service version 8.0 and later. This change is due to the adoption of a newer version of Microsoft.Data.SqlClient that enforces increased security, as described in Microsoft’s Breaking changes in EF Core 7.0 article.

To configure encrypted communication with SQL Server:

1. Configure an encryption certificate on SQL Server. A valid encryption certificate must be installed and configured on SQL Server to support encrypted communication. For more information refer to Microsoft’s Configure SQL Server Database Engine for encrypting connections article.

2. Ensure the certificate is trusted on the server hosting the Sitecore application.

3. (Optional) Enforce the Sitecore application to use an encrypted connection to SQL Server. Update the connection string of the Sitecore databases to add the following parameters:

   Encrypt=true;TrustServerCertificate=false;

   For example:

   <ConnectionString>Data Source=.;Initial Catalog=Sitecore.Core;User ID=coreuser;Password=Test12345;Encrypt=true;TrustServerCertificate=false;</ConnectionString>

This configuration ensures encrypted communication with SQL Server while enforcing strict certificate validation.

Search indexing requirements

Sitecore Experience Platform 10.5.X supports Solr 10.0.0. Solr is the default search provider and supports both content search and analytics search. To use the Sitecore Installation Framework (SIF), you must have Solr installed with basic authentication enabled.

For more information about how to install and manage these index providers in Sitecore Experience Platform, see Sitecore documentation.

Installing Solr

The standard Sitecore Experience Platform configuration requires Solr. The Sitecore Experience Platform is secure by default. You must enable SSL for Solr.

Before you run the SIF, you must:

• Install Solr and configure it to run as a Windows service.
• Set up basic authentication for Solr.
• Ensure that a Solr adminstrator user is available with at least the following permissions:
  • core-admin-read
  • core-admin-edit
  • collection-admin-read (only if running SolrCloud)
  • collection-admin-edit (only if running Sol Cloud)
  • security-edit
  • security-read
  • health
• Enable and set up SSL for Solr.

The Solr-Singledeveloper.json deployment configuration file installs and configures Solr with SSL, basic authentication, and the required administrator permissions.

For local testing and development, you can set up a self-signed certificate. The Apache Solr Reference guide has more information about creating a self-signed certificate.

For more information about installing Solr, see the section Install a search provider in a scaled solution.

Antivirus software considerations

Some antivirus software can have a detrimental effect on the performance of ASP.NET applications, including Sitecore. We recommend that you use only antivirus scanners that are certified for your operating system.

For more information about the certified products, see the Windows Server Catalog website.

For optimal performance, ensure that the following folders are not scanned by your antivirus software:

• The site root folder.
• The data folder defined in the web.config file.
• The folder that contains the actual Sitecore database files.
• The C:\Windows\Temp or {app_pool user profile}\Temp folder.

Prerequisites for using the Sitecore Installation Framework

To use the Sitecore Installation Framework to install Sitecore Experience Platform in an on-premises environment, you must download and install:

• Windows PowerShell® version 5.1