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Avaloi

Create a site

Add a WordPress site or an empty environment: pick a data center, set the first WordPress administrator and language, and follow the site while it is created.

Parts of this feature are still being built. The Not yet section lists them.

Open Sites, then Add site. The window walks you through a few short steps. You need permission to create sites.

1. Choose how the site starts

  • Install WordPress: the latest WordPress on PHP 8.5, ready to sign in to.
  • Empty environment: PHP 8.5 without WordPress. You add your own code through Git, or switch the environment to SFTP mode first.

Pick a card, then Continue. A new site's staging starts in Git mode: its code is a read-only release, and code changes only through Git. WordPress is installed against the first release. To install plugins from wp-admin or edit files over SFTP, switch staging to SFTP mode on the Code card of Info. See Git access.

2. Site options

  • Site name: only visible in the Avaloi dashboard. You can rename the site later.
  • WordPress type (WordPress only): Fresh WordPress, WooCommerce, or Multisite. A multisite network counts as one site on your plan. See WordPress Multisite.
  • PHP version: PHP 8.5 unless you pick another.
  • Data center location: grouped by continent, with the default location first. Each one shows its city and country, such as "Eemshaven, Netherlands". Pick the one closest to your visitors. You can pick any location. If it has no data center yet, a note says so: your first site opens one, which takes about two minutes, and the first plan there costs more at first. See Region pricing.
  • Plan: each site takes one slot of a plan for the same location. If no plan has a free slot, Buy a new plan starts a plan inside the same window and then creates the site. See Billing and plans.

The step also lists what every new site gets: the server page cache, the Cloudflare CDN for images, CSS, and JavaScript, and Brotli or gzip compression with HTTP/3. See Performance defaults.

3. WordPress options

Avaloi suggests the first WordPress administrator:

  • Email: your account email. Change it if someone else runs the site.
  • Username: a random name that starts with admin. Avaloi refuses admin, administrator, and root, because bots try them first.
  • Password: 20 random letters, numbers, and symbols, made in your browser. Use the eye button to show it, the arrow button for a new one, and Copy password to put it on your clipboard.

Save the username and password in your password manager before you go on. Once you close the window, you cannot see them again. Avaloi never stores the password: it goes to your server once, and the setup job deletes it when it finishes. If you lose it, send yourself a reset from WordPress, or sign in with one click login.

Then set the WordPress site title, which shows across the top of every page, and the Language. Languages other than English (United States) download from WordPress.org while the site is set up. Avaloi adds the language files through a short working tree and a commit during setup, so they are part of your code.

With the Multisite type, this step also asks for the Network type:

  • Subdirectory (the default): new sites live at address/blog. It works on the temporary address at once.
  • Subdomain: new sites live at blog.address. The temporary address cannot hold subdomains, so each site needs a domain of its own before visitors can reach it.

Select Create site.

4. While the site is created

The window says Your site is being created. In a location with no data center, it also says Opening your new data center, this takes about two minutes. You can close it and keep working: the Sites list shows the site as Creating, and the job is in the jobs drawer. When the site is ready, Manage domains opens the Domains page so you can add your domain and go live.

If the setup fails, the window shows the reason and a link to the site. If Google has no room for a server in your location, Avaloi first tries other server types, then the nearest locations in the same legal area (at most three in all), and tells you in the job's progress notes where your data center opened, for example "Council Bluffs is full right now, so we opened your data center in Columbus instead." Your site, the Sites list, and the API show the real location, and your plan price does not change. The owners also get a notification and an email.

If nothing could be opened, or the cloud account is at a limit, the reason reads "We could not open a server for you right now. We have not charged you for anything extra. Please contact support and tell them your site name, and we will sort it out." The failed job has a Contact support button, and Avaloi opens a support ticket for you with the details. See Nodes for the full order Avaloi tries.

Test sites

When your account offers test sites, the Create a test site switch makes a free site on a simulated server. Test sites skip the location and the plan.

API

  • GET /v1/regions lists the data center locations you can pick, each with a label (city and country) and has_data_center. When it is false, the first site there opens a data center.
  • GET /v1/platform says whether sites can be created and which location is the default.
  • POST /v1/sites creates the site and answers with a job. Send template, multisite_mode (only with the multisite template), region, php_version, site_title, admin_email, admin_username, admin_password, and locale.
  • GET /v1/jobs/{id} and GET /v1/sites/{id} show the progress.
  • Creating an environment (POST /v1/sites/{id}/environments and the MCP tool create_environment) takes code_mode. It defaults to git; classic starts the environment in SFTP mode.
  • MCP tool: create_site

Not yet

  • Cloudflare's edge page cache is not on for live traffic yet, so pages come from the server page cache. See Edge cache and CDN.

Still stuck?

Email [email protected] with your site name and what you tried, or send us a message.