Are you a Drupal site admin or developer venturing into Laravel? Here’s how to host Laravel like a pro — using your existing cPanel knowledge.

🔍 Laravel Isn't Drupal — But It's Just as Powerful

At Lovely Family Host, many of our Drupal clients are now exploring Laravel for custom applications, API backends, and modern web projects. But Laravel’s folder structure is different — and deploying it on cPanel can feel overwhelming.

Don’t worry — we’re going to make this process feel familiar.

💡 Laravel on cPanel vs. Drupal on cPanel

If you’ve deployed a Drupal site before, you’re used to:

• Uploading everything to public_html
• Modifying .htaccess for clean URLs
• Managing databases and file permissions via cPanel

Laravel introduces a twist:
 Its public/ folder must be the web root — not the entire project.

This keeps core code secure, but means you need to tweak a few paths and configs. Sound hard? It’s not.

 Here’s the Step-by-Step Laravel Deployment on cPanel

Whether you're migrating from Drupal or just need a solid Laravel deployment guide, follow these steps.

 1. Prepare Your Laravel Project

• On your local machine, zip your entire Laravel folder.
• Exclude the vendor/ folder unless you don’t have SSH access.
• Also prepare your .env file with correct database and app settings.

 2. Upload to File Manager

• Log in to cPanel → File Manager
• Navigate to your home directory (one level up from public_html)
• Upload and extract your Laravel project zip

You should now see app/, bootstrap/, public/, and others.

 3. Set Up public_html as Laravel's Web Root

• Open your Laravel app’s public/ folder
• Select all files inside (index.php, css/, etc.)
• Move (not the folder itself) them to public_html

 4. Edit index.php to Link to the Core

Now, open public_html/index.php and update the paths like this:

require __DIR__.'/../your-laravel-folder/vendor/autoload.php'; $app = require_once __DIR__.'/../your-laravel-folder/bootstrap/app.php';

Replace your-laravel-folder with the name of your extracted Laravel project.

 5. Set File Permissions

Just like with Drupal's sites/default/files, Laravel needs write access:

• Set permissions for:
  • /storage
  • /bootstrap/cache
• You can do this in File Manager or via SSH:

chmod -R 755 storage chmod -R 755 bootstrap/cache

 6. Set Up Your Database

• Go to MySQL® Databases in cPanel
• Create a database, user, and assign privileges
• Update your .env file accordingly:

DB_DATABASE=your_db DB_USERNAME=your_user DB_PASSWORD=your_password

 7. Install Composer Dependencies

If your hosting plan allows SSH:

cd ~/your-laravel-folder composer install --no-dev php artisan key:generate

📦 No SSH? Run Composer locally, then upload the vendor/ folder manually.

 8. Optional: Run Migrations

Need tables?

php artisan migrate

 9. Visit Your Site

Open your domain in the browser — and you should see your Laravel app live!

If it’s blank or erroring, double-check index.php paths and file permissions.

 Laravel Hosting That Feels Like Home

At Lovely Family Host, we make Laravel deployment as easy as Drupal. Whether you’re:

• Transitioning from Drupal to Laravel
• Hosting both on one cPanel
• Need SSH or hands-on help

We’ve got your back 

 Why Use Lovely Family Host?

 Laravel- and Drupal-optimized shared hosting
 SSH & Git access
 Free SSL, staging, backups
 Developer-friendly support
 Myanmar-friendly payment & time zone

Ready to Launch?

Explore Laravel Hosting Plans
Need help? Contact Our Support Team

Let us help you grow your Laravel journey — with the same care and love we give our Drupal family 💖