How to Host a Laravel Project on a Shared Hosting Server

Deploying a Laravel application on shared hosting (such as cPanel, Hostinger hPanel, or Namecheap) starts with placing your project files in the appropriate web root directory. Instead of manually uploading ZIP files via FTP, using Git makes deployment and future updates fast and reliable.

Open your hosting terminal (via SSH or the cPanel / Hostinger Terminal utility) and navigate to your target root folder (typically public_html or your domain directory):

# Navigate to your domain web root directory
cd ~/public_html

# Clone your Laravel repository into the current directory
git clone https://github.com/your-username/your-laravel-repo.git .

# Install Composer production dependencies (if composer is available)
composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader

Laravel requires a dedicated .env file containing your production settings, encryption key, and database configuration.

1. Copy the example environment template .env.example to .env.
2. Generate a unique 32-character application encryption key (APP_KEY).
3. Set your production URL and environment flags.

# Copy .env.example to active .env
cp .env.example .env

# Generate secure application encryption key
php artisan key:generate

Update your top-level environment configuration in .env:

APP_NAME="Your App"
APP_ENV=production
APP_KEY=base64:...
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_URL=https://yourdomain.com

Now set up your MySQL database on your hosting control panel:

1. cPanel: Go to MySQL Database Wizard → Create Database → Create User with strong password → Check ALL PRIVILEGES.
2. Hostinger: Go to Databases → Management→ Create MySQL Database, User & Password.
3. Open .env in your root directory and fill in your database credentials:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=cpaneluser_dbname
DB_USERNAME=cpaneluser_dbuser
DB_PASSWORD=your_strong_password_here

Run your database schema migrations via terminal:

php artisan migrate --force

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Artisan;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

Route::get('/run-migrations', function () {
    try {
        Artisan::call('migrate --force');
        return 'Database migrated successfully: ' . Artisan::output();
    } catch (\Exception $e) {
        return 'Migration error: ' . $e->getMessage();
    }
});

In a standard Laravel installation, all web traffic should enter via the public/ folder where index.php resides. On shared hosting, rather than manually hacking paths or splitting the Laravel core across different folders, the cleanest and most maintainable method is placing an Apache .htaccess file directly in your project root directory (e.g. public_html/.htaccess).

Create or edit the .htaccess file in the root directory of your Laravel application with the following rules:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On

    # Redirect /public/something or /public to /something or / permanently
    RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \s/public/?([^\s?]*) [NC]
    RewriteRule ^public/?(.*)$ /%1 [L,R=301]

    # Redirect all requests to the public directory internally
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/public/
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ public/$1 [L]
</IfModule>

To wrap up and make your Laravel project ready for production:

1. Create Storage Symlink: Allows uploaded files in storage/app/public to be served publicly.
2. Set Folder Permissions: Ensure web server write access to storage and bootstrap/cache.
3. Cache Configuration & Routes: Boost performance on shared hosting by compiling routes, configs, and blade templates.

# Create storage symlink
php artisan storage:link

# Set correct write permissions
chmod -R 775 storage bootstrap/cache

# Optimize application cache for production
php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache

Route::get('/link-storage', function () {
    try {
        Artisan::call('storage:link');
        return 'Storage symbolic link created successfully!';
    } catch (\Exception $e) {
        return 'Symlink error: ' . $e->getMessage();
    }
});