Host your first website on UHost
Your first website takes a few minutes: create it, choose how it runs, point a domain at it and let UHost issue the certificate. This guide goes through those parts in the order the panel asks for them.
Step one
Create the website, and say how it runs.
UHost asks what kind of site it is before anything else, because the answer decides what gets set up. Static serves files straight from disk. PHP gives the site its own PHP-FPM pool and its own PHP version, so one website's settings never reach another's. Node.js runs an application that UHost keeps alive and restarts, with WebSockets supported. A reverse proxy puts UHost in front of something already running on the server.
Whichever you choose, the website gets its own Linux account and its own pool, and cannot read another website's files.
Step two
Point a domain at the server.
Under Domains, a website has the name you created it with and can take more. Additional domains and subdomains serve the same files as the site itself. Until your DNS points at the server, UHost gives the website a temporary address so you can open it and check your work.
- An A record for the domain, pointing at the server's IP address
- A record for www, if you want it, pointing at the same place
- Nothing else yet — mail records come later, and only if the site sends mail
If UHost is also your authoritative DNS, the zone is created for you and you edit the records in the panel instead.
Step three
Get the certificate.
Once the domain resolves to the server, UHost issues a free certificate and renews it before it runs out. A domain you add later joins the certificate within the hour, so you do not have to come back and reissue anything. If you would rather install your own, including a wildcard or one from your own authority, it is checked before it goes on and the panel names any domain it does not cover.
Step four
Put your files on it.
The file manager is in the panel. For anything bigger, each website has its own SFTP login, locked to that website's own directory, and Extra file transfer accounts lets you give someone upload access without giving them the panel.
A PHP site usually wants a database. Under Databases, the website gets its own MariaDB database with its own user, phpMyAdmin, and an SQL import of up to 64 MB for bringing an existing site across.
Use Install an application. WordPress and Joomla install into a website, or into a folder of one, from a download checked against its published checksum, with the administrator account created for you.
Then
Two things worth doing on day one.
Turn on backups
A schedule you set once is worth more than a backup you remember to take. See backups and recovery points.
Sort out mail records
If the domain sends email, it needs the right records or the mail lands in spam. See email DNS records.
Your first website is also the right one to practise restoring, while there is nothing on it you would miss.
Your servers, without the per-account bill.
UHost launches 13 October 2026: the whole panel free for up to three websites, and Pro for unlimited websites on a server.