How to Install Laravel on Shared Hosting: Softaculous or Upload (2026)

Laravel is the most popular PHP framework for building web applications, from a simple company portal to a small SaaS product. This guide shows beginners how to install Laravel on Domain India shared hosting in 2026: in one click with Softaculous, or by building on your own computer and uploading the finished project.

1. Before you start: what you need

Set the PHP version before you install (how to change your PHP version). Laravel also needs common extensions such as mbstring, pdo_mysql, xml and fileinfo. If you see an error about a missing one, enable it in your control panel's PHP extensions section.

2. Choose your install route

Domain India's cPanel and DirectAdmin shared servers disable PHP functions such as exec, proc_open, popen and shell_exec for security, and the block applies to PHP on the command line too. Composer downloads and installs packages without these functions, but its scripts, such as Laravel's package:discover step, need them, so on the server you may need --no-scripts (section 5). Route 2 avoids that: all the Composer work happens on your computer.

3. Route 1: install Laravel with Softaculous

Softaculous is the one-click installer in your control panel. Domain India lists Softaculous on its cPanel, DirectAdmin and Webuzo hosting.

Afterwards, open the installation folder in File Manager and check three things:

• The version, in composer.json. Softaculous may offer an older Laravel release than the latest one.
• The document root. If you have to add /public to the URL, or yourdomain.com/.env opens in a browser, fix it now (section 6).
• The .env file. Softaculous fills in the database and APP_KEY. Set APP_URL, APP_ENV and APP_DEBUG as shown in section 7.

4. Route 2 (recommended): build on your computer and upload

You run Composer on your own computer and upload the finished project. The server only has to run PHP.

For redeploys and more detail, read Laravel on cPanel and DirectAdmin: what works, what doesn't.

5. Composer on shared hosting (and what SSH is for)

Jailed SSH access is available on every shared hosting plan (cPanel, DirectAdmin, Webuzo). It is off by default; ask support to enable it for your account. Login is with an SSH key; see Enabling and accessing jailed SSH.

SSH is useful for Laravel on shared hosting. Use it to create the public_html link (section 6), to run php artisan commands such as migrations, and to check logs. Composer isn't pre-installed, but you can download composer.phar and run php composer.phar install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader; if it stops with a proc_open message, run it again with --no-scripts, then run php artisan package:discover. Or run Composer on your computer or in CI and upload the project with its vendor folder.

6. Point your domain to the public folder

Only Laravel's public folder should be reachable from the web; otherwise visitors may be able to download your .env file with your database password.

For the link option, keep a backup of your old files:

cd ~
mv public_html public_html_old
ln -s ~/laravel-app/public ~/public_html

The copy option is explained step by step in Path A of our Laravel deployment guide. To give your app its own domain, see How to add an addon domain in cPanel.

7. Configure the .env file and APP_KEY

The .env file holds your settings and secrets. It lives in the project folder, never in public_html. First create a database and user in your control panel (on cPanel the names get your username as a prefix, such as youruser_laravel). Then, in File Manager, copy .env.example to .env and edit it:

APP_NAME="My App"
APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_KEY=base64:paste-the-key-you-generated
APP_URL=https://yourdomain.com

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=youruser_laravel
DB_USERNAME=youruser_dbuser
DB_PASSWORD=your-strong-password

QUEUE_CONNECTION=database

Recent Laravel versions default to SQLite, so change DB_CONNECTION to mysql.

APP_KEY encrypts sessions and cookies. Without it you see "No application encryption key has been specified". Generate it on your computer with php artisan key:generate --show and paste it in, or run php artisan key:generate over SSH. Never change the key on a live site: it logs every user out and breaks data encrypted with the old key.

8. Permissions, database tables and the storage link

Laravel writes logs, cache and compiled views to storage and bootstrap/cache, so both must be writable by your account. In File Manager, use Change Permissions to set them to 755, or over SSH run chmod -R 755 storage bootstrap/cache. Use 644 for files. Never use 777; it is a common way sites get hacked.

Next, create the database tables. If SSH is enabled on your account, try:

php artisan migrate --force

If php artisan commands fail on the server with a "disabled for security reasons" error, or you have no shell, do the work on your computer instead. Run the migrations against a local MySQL database, export it as a .sql file, and import that file into your hosting database with phpMyAdmin (Import tab). See How to manage databases with phpMyAdmin.

If your app serves uploaded files from storage/app/public, it needs a public/storage link. php artisan storage:link uses a PHP function that shared hosting disables, so create the link from the shell instead: ln -s ~/laravel-app/storage/app/public ~/laravel-app/public/storage. Without SSH, ask our support team. For the full list, see PHP disabled functions on shared hosting.

9. The scheduler and queues

Scheduler: one cron job

Laravel's scheduler runs your timed tasks. Add one cron job in your control panel's Cron Jobs page (on Domain India shared hosting the shortest interval is every 4 minutes):

* * * * * cd /home/youruser/laravel-app && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Replace youruser with your username. On our shared servers, jobs set to every 1, 2 or 3 minutes are changed to every 4 minutes, so the scheduler runs every 4 minutes; plan tasks with that in mind. And schedule:work will not work, because shared hosting stops long-running processes. For cron basics, read How to set up a cron job.

Because proc_open is disabled on shared hosting, scheduled artisan commands (Schedule::command(...)) cannot start, because the scheduler launches each one as a separate process. Schedule closures (Schedule::call(...)) and queued jobs (Schedule::job(...)) run inside the same process, or you can give each command its own cron line.

Queues: the database driver and cron

Queues let your app do slow work, such as sending email, after the page has loaded. On shared hosting, use the database driver. Recent Laravel versions include the jobs table in their default migrations; if yours does not, run php artisan make:queue-table and migrate. Then add a second cron job:

* * * * * cd /home/youruser/laravel-app && php artisan queue:work --stop-when-empty --max-time=50 >> /dev/null 2>&1

10. Sending email from Laravel

A fresh Laravel install writes email to the log file (MAIL_MAILER=log). Laravel's built-in sendmail transport fails on our cPanel and DirectAdmin servers, because it starts a process. The SMTP transport fails on cPanel, because the socket functions it needs are disabled; on DirectAdmin, test it on your plan. Two methods to use instead:

• A small custom transport that calls PHP mail(), with an envelope sender on your own domain. This works wherever mail() works.
• A transactional email API over HTTPS, such as Amazon SES, Postmark, Mailgun or Brevo, using Laravel's ready-made API mailers. On most DirectAdmin sites curl_exec is disabled, so test first.

The full explanation, with the SPF, DKIM and DMARC setup, is in Sending email from PHP on shared hosting.

11. Where Domain India fits

Our shared hosting plans run the Apache web server and include File Manager, MySQL databases with phpMyAdmin, cron jobs, a choice of PHP versions and free SSL. Softaculous is listed on our cPanel, DirectAdmin and Webuzo hosting. Jailed SSH is available on every shared plan on request (it is off by default); Composer isn't pre-installed, but you can run composer.phar there, or build vendor/ locally and upload it.

If your app needs permanent queue workers, Redis or websockets, choose a VPS, where you control the server, or the App Platform to deploy from Git without managing a server.

Ready to build your Laravel app? Compare cPanel hosting, DirectAdmin hosting and Webuzo hosting, read the Laravel deployment guide when you are ready to go live, or open a support ticket if an install step fails.