Hosting

This guide walks you through getting Ava CMS live on the internet. Whether you're hosting your first website ever or you're a seasoned developer, there's an option that fits your needs.

Before You Start

Ava CMS needs:

• PHP 8.3 or later
• Composer (PHP's package manager)

That's it. No database, no special server software, no complex stack to configure.

Storage Requirements

Ava CMS itself is small. What consumes significant disk space:

• Uploaded media in public/media/
• Cache files in storage/cache/
• Logs in storage/logs/

Make sure PHP can write to the storage/ directory. For large sites (10k+ items), the content index cache can grow to 100 MB or more depending on your content size and index backend.

Local Development

PHP includes a built-in server perfect for local development:

php -v                              # Check PHP is installed (need 8.3+)
cd /path/to/your/ava-site
composer install                    # Install dependencies (first time only)
php -S localhost:8000 -t public     # Start the dev server

Open http://localhost:8000 in your browser. No Apache, Nginx, or LAMP stack required.

brew install php composer

sudo apt install php php-mbstring php-xml composer

php -v        # Should show PHP 8.3+
composer -V   # Should show Composer version

php ava status       # Check site status
php ava rebuild      # Rebuild content index
php ava lint         # Validate content files

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the easiest and most affordable option. The hosting company handles server maintenance while you get a control panel, file manager, and one-click SSL.

What to Look For

• PHP 8.3+ — Check before signing up
• SSH access — Optional but highly recommended for running commands
• Enough RAM — Ava works fine with 128M memory_limit, but larger sites may need more
• SSD/NVMe storage — Faster file reads/writes
• Write permissions — PHP must be able to write to storage/
• Free SSL — Look for Let's Encrypt support
• Daily backups — Your content is files, so backups matter

Recommended Providers

Had a good experience elsewhere? Let us know in GitHub Discussions!

File Structure

Ava CMS has a simple flat structure:

/home/yourusername/
├── app/                  ← Themes, plugins, config
├── content/              ← Your Markdown content
├── core/                 ← Ava CMS core (don't edit)
├── public/               ← Web root (point your domain here)
│   ├── index.php
│   ├── assets/
│   ├── robots.txt
│   └── media/
├── storage/              ← Cache, logs (PHP needs write access)
├── vendor/               ← Composer dependencies
├── ava                   ← CLI tool
├── bootstrap.php
└── composer.json

Setup steps:

1. Upload Ava CMS to your home directory (e.g., /home/yourusername/).
2. Point your domain's document root to the public/ folder.
3. Run composer install --no-dev and ./ava rebuild.

If your content_index.mode is set to auto (the default) or always, the first request will rebuild automatically. If it’s set to never, you must run ./ava rebuild (or trigger a rebuild from the admin dashboard).

If SSH isn't available, generate the vendor/ folder locally, upload it, then rebuild via the admin dashboard.

Connecting to Your Server

You'll need to connect to your server to upload files and run commands. Both SSH and SFTP use the same credentials—look in your hosting control panel under "SSH Access" or "SFTP".

Your credentials:

• Host: Your domain or server IP
• Username: Your hosting account username
• Password: Your account password (or SSH key)
• Port: 22

SSH (Running Commands)

SSH lets you run commands on your server. It's optional but highly recommended — it makes ./ava rebuild and troubleshooting much easier.

ssh [email protected]

Once connected, you can run Ava CMS commands:

./ava status       # Check site health
./ava rebuild      # Rebuild content index
./ava cache:clear  # Clear webpage cache

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "[email protected]"
ssh-copy-id [email protected]

SFTP (Uploading Files)

SFTP lets you upload files via a graphical interface. Use "SFTP" (not plain "FTP") in your client.

Tip: VS Code's Remote - SSH extension lets you edit files on your server directly—no separate SFTP client needed.

Uploading Ava CMS

1. Upload all Ava CMS files to your server
2. Run composer install --no-dev (via SSH, or locally then upload the vendor/ folder)
3. Run ./ava rebuild (or visit your site — auto mode will rebuild on first load)

No SSH? Run composer install --no-dev on your computer, upload the vendor/ folder, then visit your site.

Troubleshooting: "composer: command not found"

# Install Composer locally to your project
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
php composer.phar install --no-dev

VPS Hosting

A VPS (Virtual Private Server) gives you dedicated resources and full control. Consider this when shared hosting can't keep up, you need specific PHP extensions, or you want to host multiple sites.

Recommended VPS Providers

Don't want to manage a server? Use Ploi.io—it connects to your VPS and handles server setup, SSL, and deployments through a friendly dashboard.

Deployment Workflows

Manual (SFTP)

Upload changed files via SFTP, then run ./ava rebuild if you have SSH.

Git-Based

If you keep your site in a Git repository (your own customised Ava CMS installation—not a clone of the main Ava repo), you can deploy by pulling changes:

# On your server (pulling your own site repo)
git pull origin main && ./ava rebuild

Automated (CI/CD)

Use GitHub Actions, Ploi, or Laravel Forge to deploy automatically when you push:

name: Deploy
on: { push: { branches: [main] } }
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: appleboy/ssh-action@master
        with:
          host: ${{ secrets.HOST }}
          username: ${{ secrets.USERNAME }}
          key: ${{ secrets.SSH_KEY }}
          script: git pull && composer install --no-dev && ./ava rebuild

CDN (Optional)

Ava CMS's built-in page cache is already fast. A CDN helps most when you have a global audience or lots of large media files.

Cloudflare (free tier) provides caching, DDoS protection, and free SSL. Just point your domain's nameservers to Cloudflare.

Other options: BunnyCDN (pay-as-you-go), KeyCDN (simple).

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;
    root /home/yourusername/public;
    index index.php;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }

    location ~ /\. { deny all; }
}

sudo a2enmod rewrite && sudo systemctl restart apache2

Need Help?

• CLI Reference — All available commands
• Configuration — Site settings
• Performance — Optimisation tips
• GitHub Discussions — Ask questions, get help