How to Use Laravel with Subdomains on cPanel

Laravel supports subdomain routing out of the box, but configuring it on cPanel can be confusing for new developers. Whether you're building a multi-tenant app or organizing admin panels, here's how to properly set up subdomains with Laravel on shared hosting.

🛠️ Prerequisites

• Laravel project deployed on a cPanel-hosted domain
• Access to the Subdomains section in cPanel
• Basic knowledge of Laravel routing

🌐 Step 1: Create Subdomains in cPanel

1. Log in to your cPanel account.
2. Go to Subdomains under the Domains section.
3. Create a subdomain like admin.example.com.
4. Point the document root to your Laravel project’s public/ directory. For example:

   /home/your-user/your-laravel-project/public

5. Repeat for each subdomain (e.g. user.example.com).

🧭 Step 2: Define Subdomain Routes in Laravel

In your Laravel routes file (routes/web.php), you can define subdomain-specific routes like this:

Route::domain('admin.example.com')->group(function () {
    Route::get('/', [AdminController::class, 'dashboard']);
});

Route::domain('user.example.com')->group(function () {
    Route::get('/', [UserController::class, 'home']);
});
    

This allows Laravel to route requests based on subdomain.

🔁 Step 3: Use Wildcard Subdomains (Optional)

For multi-tenant applications, you might want wildcard subdomains like tenant1.example.com, tenant2.example.com, etc. To do this:

1. In cPanel, create a subdomain with an asterisk (*) — like *.example.com.
2. Point it to the same public/ directory.
3. Update your route definition in Laravel:

   
   Route::domain('{account}.example.com')->group(function () {
       Route::get('/', [TenantController::class, 'index']);
   });
           

📄 Step 4: Update .env and Config (If Needed)

• Make sure APP_URL in your .env file reflects your main domain or subdomain.
• If needed, update config/session.php to allow cross-subdomain sessions:

  
  'domain' => '.example.com',
          

🧪 Step 5: Test Everything

• Visit each subdomain and verify it loads the correct route/view/controller.
• Log activity in laravel.log if routes don't behave as expected.

🎉 Done!

With these steps, your Laravel application can now handle multiple subdomains in a clean and scalable way — even on shared hosting with cPanel.

---

If this guide helped, share it with others or drop your questions in the comments!