How To Deploy Laravel On Shared Hosting?

Deploying Laravel on shared hosting can be a challenging task, but it’s not impossible. With the right approach and careful planning, you can successfully host your Laravel application on shared hosting, opening up new possibilities for your website or web application.

One of the most significant aspects of deploying Laravel on shared hosting is ensuring that your hosting provider supports the necessary requirements for running Laravel. This includes having PHP version 7 or above, as well as extensions like OpenSSL, PDO, Mbstring, and Tokenizer. Additionally, you’ll need access to composer to install the required dependencies for your Laravel application.

If you’re looking to deploy Laravel on shared hosting, follow these steps:

Create a new folder on your hosting account for your Laravel application.
Upload all the Laravel files and folders to the new folder you created.
Set the appropriate permissions for the storage and bootstrap/cache folders.
Create a new MySQL database and user.
Update the database connection details in your Laravel application’s config files.
You’re now ready to access your Laravel application on your shared hosting.

Why Choose Shared Hosting for Laravel Deployment?

When it comes to deploying Laravel on a web hosting platform, shared hosting can be a cost-effective and practical choice. Shared hosting is a type of hosting service where multiple websites are hosted on the same server. This means that the server’s resources, such as CPU, RAM, and storage, are shared among multiple users.

One of the main advantages of shared hosting is its affordability. Compared to dedicated hosting or virtual private server (VPS) hosting, shared hosting plans are significantly cheaper. This makes it an attractive option for individuals or small businesses who are just starting or have limited budgets.

Shared hosting also offers ease of use and convenience. Most shared hosting providers offer user-friendly control panels, such as cPanel or Plesk, which allow users to manage their websites, databases, and other hosting-related settings with just a few clicks. This makes it beginner-friendly and suitable for non-technical users.

Performance Considerations for Laravel on Shared Hosting

While shared hosting has its benefits, it’s important to consider some performance factors when deploying Laravel on this type of hosting environment. The shared nature of the server means that the resources are divided among multiple websites. This can lead to slower performance, especially if some websites on the server experience high traffic or consume a significant amount of resources.

To mitigate these performance issues, it’s essential to optimize your Laravel application and make use of caching mechanisms. Laravel provides various caching mechanisms, such as route caching, view caching, and optimizing Composer’s autoload performance. These optimizations can help improve the speed and performance of your Laravel application on shared hosting.

Additionally, it’s important to choose a reputable shared hosting provider that offers reliable and fast servers. Look for providers that provide SSD storage, which can significantly improve the read and write speeds of your application’s files. Consider choosing a hosting provider with built-in caching solutions, such as Redis or Memcached, to further enhance performance.

Configuring Laravel for Shared Hosting

Before deploying Laravel on shared hosting, there are a few configuration changes you need to make to ensure compatibility and proper functionality.

1. Environment Configuration: Update the environment configuration file (“.env”) to reflect the database credentials and other settings specific to your shared hosting environment.

2. Storage Permissions: Make sure the storage directories and their contents have appropriate read and write permissions. This is important for Laravel to be able to write logs, cache files, and any other storage-related operations.

3. URL Rewriting: Shared hosting often uses Apache as the web server. To enable URL rewriting for Laravel’s clean URL structure, you’ll need to set up a .htaccess file with the necessary rewrite rules. Laravel provides a preconfigured .htaccess file that you can use.

Deployment Steps for Laravel on Shared Hosting

Once you have made the necessary configuration changes, you can follow these steps to deploy Laravel on shared hosting:

Prepare your Laravel application for deployment by running composer install --no-dev to install the necessary dependencies and remove development-related packages.
Upload the Laravel application files to the desired location on your shared hosting account. This can be done via FTP, cPanel’s File Manager, or any other file transfer method provided by your hosting provider.
Ensure that the “public” directory is set as the document root of your hosting account. This is important for Laravel’s routing and security purposes.
Create a new MySQL database and user in your shared hosting control panel or using a tool like phpMyAdmin.
Update the “.env” file with the database credentials and other relevant settings specific to your shared hosting environment.
Run database migrations by executing the php artisan migrate command. This will create the necessary tables in your database.
If you have any seeders for generating dummy data, run php artisan db:seed to populate the database with initial data.

Additional Considerations for Laravel on Shared Hosting

Here are a few additional considerations to keep in mind when deploying Laravel on shared hosting:

1. Security: Shared hosting environments can have shared vulnerabilities. It’s crucial to keep your Laravel application and dependencies up to date with the latest security patches and best practices. Enable HTTPS/SSL to secure the communication between your application and users.

2. Backups: Regularly back up your Laravel application and its database to ensure data integrity. Shared hosting providers usually offer backup solutions, but it’s a good practice to have your own backups as well.

3. Monitoring: Continuous monitoring of your Laravel application’s performance, uptime, and security is essential. Consider using monitoring tools or services to keep track of your application’s health.

By following these steps and considering the necessary factors, you can successfully deploy Laravel on shared hosting and take advantage of its benefits while ensuring optimal performance and security for your application.

For more information on Laravel deployment strategies and best practices, you can refer to the official Laravel documentation and community resources.

Conclusion

Deploying Laravel on shared hosting can be a cost-effective and practical option for individuals or small businesses. It provides ease of use, affordability, and convenience. However, it’s important to consider performance factors and take necessary steps to optimize your Laravel application for shared hosting.

Key Takeaways: How to Deploy Laravel on Shared Hosting?

Choose a hosting provider that supports Laravel.
Create a new account and domain on the hosting provider’s platform.
Upload your Laravel project files to the server using FTP or file manager.
Create a new database and configure the .env file with the database credentials.
Use SSH or cPanel to set the correct file and folder permissions for your Laravel project.

Deploying Laravel on shared hosting can be done by following a few simple steps. After verifying that your hosting provider supports Laravel, you can upload your Laravel files to the hosting server using FTP or file manager. Next, create a new database and update the database credentials in your Laravel configuration file.

To ensure your Laravel application works correctly, you may need to set the appropriate file permissions and make some changes to the .htaccess file. Finally, update the public directory in your Laravel application to the correct directory on your shared hosting server, and your Laravel application should be up and running on shared hosting.