Deploy Laravel on UnderHost VPS and Shared Hosting

Laravel is the most popular PHP framework for building modern web applications. It includes everything: routing, ORM (Eloquent), s, authentication, queuing. Whether on UnderHost shared hosting or VPS, Laravel deployment involves the same fundamental steps.

Requirements

• UnderHost Hosting (shared hosting or VPS)
• PHP 8.0+ (check your hosting control panel)
• Composer for dependency management
• MySQL or MariaDB for database
• SSH access (VPS) or FTP (shared hosting)

Upload Laravel Project

Option 1: Via SSH/Git (VPS/Dedicated):

cd /home/username/public_html
git clone https://github.com/yourname/myapp.git
cd myapp

Option 2: Via FTP (Shared Hosting):

1. Download your Laravel project on your computer
2. Connect via FTP (FileZilla, WinSCP)
3. Upload to public_html folder

Install Dependencies (Composer)

Check if Composer is installed:

composer --version

If not installed, get Composer and install dependencies:

cd /home/username/public_html/myapp
composer install

This reads composer.json and installs all Laravel dependencies into vendor/ folder.

Environment Configuration

Copy example environment file:

cp .env.example .env

Generate application key:

php artisan key:generate

Edit .env with your database credentials:

APP_NAME=MyApp
APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_URL=https://yourdomain.com

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=username_myapp
DB_USERNAME=username_user
DB_PASSWORD=your_strong_password

Database Setup

In cPanel (Shared Hosting):

1. Create MySQL database: username_myapp
2. Create user with password
3. Grant all permissions to user on database

Run Laravel s:

php artisan migrate

This creates database tables from your files.

File Permissions

Laravel storage directories need write access:

# Via SSH
chmod -R 775 storage bootstrap/cache

# Via FTP or File Manager
Set permissions to 755 for storage/ and bootstrap/cache/

Shared Hosting vs VPS

Production Optimization

Cache configuration and routes:

php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache

Set proper APP_DEBUG and error handling:

# .env
APP_DEBUG=false
LOG_CHANNEL=single

Use queue jobs for long tasks (VPS only):

# queue:listen runs on VPS, processes background jobs
php artisan queue:listen

Enable lazy loading protection:

# config/database.php
'postgresql' => [
    // ...
    'strict' => true,
],

Related: PHP deployment | Composer package manager | Laravel optimization tips