# Websites: Where to Start

Source: https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/sites-overview

How website hosting works at KapsuleHost, what lives on each tab of a site, and which guide to read for the job in front of you.

Everything about a hosted site is managed from **Websites** in the KPanel sidebar. Click a site and you get its own menu, grouped by what you are trying to do rather than by which system does it. This page explains that structure and points at the detailed guides.

## Creating a Site

You need two things: a plan with room on it, and a domain pointed at us.

1. Go to **Websites** and create the site.
2. Choose the application type. WordPress is the most common, and there are also plain PHP, static, Node.js, Python and Ruby options.
3. Pick the domain, or use the temporary address we give you until your own domain is ready.
4. Choose a PHP version if the type uses PHP. Newer is faster and supported for longer.

A certificate is requested automatically once DNS resolves to us, which is why a site created before the domain is pointed will show as insecure for a while. That is expected, not a fault.

Start with [Creating Your First Website](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/creating-your-first-website), then [Custom Domain for a Website](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/custom-domain-for-website) and [SSL Certificates](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/ssl-certificates).

## The Site Menu, Explained

Once a site exists, its menu on the left is where everything happens. The groups are:

**Overview.** The site summary, plus Activity, Uptime and Analytics. See [Site Analytics](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/site-analytics) and [Uptime Monitoring](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/site-uptime-monitoring).

**WordPress.** Only appears on WordPress and WooCommerce sites. Holds the WordPress dashboard shortcut, Updates, Security, Caching, and Payments on stores. See [WordPress](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/wordpress-overview).

**Apps.** Addons, and on Node.js sites also Buildpack. See [Managed Addons](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/site-addons).

**Email.** Mailboxes on this site's domain, without going back to the top-level Email section. See [Email](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/email-overview).

**Database.** The site's MySQL database, with phpMyAdmin. See [Using phpMyAdmin](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/sites-phpmyadmin).

**Backups.** Backups, and Point-in-time recovery on WordPress and WooCommerce sites. Backups run automatically every day and are kept for 30 days, with longer retention available as an add-on. See [Taking a Backup](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/taking-a-backup), [Restoring From a Backup](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/restoring-from-backup) and [Point-in-Time Recovery](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/site-pitr).

**Performance.** APM (WordPress and WooCommerce sites), Kapsule CDN, Crawlers, and on Node.js sites also Scaling. See [Enabling the CDN](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/cdn-enabling) and [Crawlers](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/site-crawlers).

**Environment.** Staging (WordPress and WooCommerce sites) and Preview: private copies of the site for testing before real visitors see a change. Also Git Deploy, Deploys, and on Node.js sites Secrets. See [Staging Environments](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/staging-environments) and [Preview Environments](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/site-preview).

**Settings.** Site settings, Domains, DNS, PHP (PHP based sites), File Manager, SFTP, SSH Keys, Cron, Logs, Redirects, Error pages, Password protection, Security on sites that are not WordPress, and Country blocking. See [The Site DNS Tab](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/site-dns-tab), [The Site Domains Tab](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/site-domains-tab), [File Manager](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/file-manager), [SFTP Access](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/sftp-access) and [Adding SSH Keys](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/adding-ssh-keys).

> **Note:** There is no top-level Backups item in the sidebar. Backups belong to a site, so they live inside the site, under the Backups group. The same is true of PHP, DNS, staging and cron.

## The Five Most Common Jobs

**Get a site live on my own domain.** Point the nameservers, add the domain to the site, wait for the certificate. [Custom Domain for a Website](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/custom-domain-for-website).

**Upload my existing files.** SFTP for a desktop client, File Manager for a quick edit in the browser. [SFTP Access](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/sftp-access), [File Manager](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/file-manager).

**Test a change safely.** Copy to staging, break things there, push the good version live. [Staging Environments](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/staging-environments).

**Make it faster.** Caching first, then the CDN, then PHP version, then the actual code. [Site Caching](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/site-cache), [Website Speed](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/website-speed), [Enabling the CDN](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/cdn-enabling).

**Find out why it broke.** Logs tell you more in thirty seconds than guessing does in an hour. [Error Logs](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/error-logs), [Website Not Loading](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/website-not-loading).

## What Is Gated by Plan

Not everything is on every plan, and it is better to know that now than to go looking for a missing button.

The CDN is the clearest case. It comes in two tiers, Kapsule CDN and Kapsule CDN+, and which one you get depends on your plan. See [Enabling the CDN](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/cdn-enabling) and [Upgrading Your Plan](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/upgrading-your-plan).

Storage, bandwidth and how many sites you can run are also set by your plan. See [Site Slowness and Resource Limits](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/site-slow-resource-limits).

## Moving an Existing Site to KapsuleHost

There is a migration wizard in the panel under **Migrations**. It handles bringing a site across from another host, and there is a separate path for bringing email across. See [Migrations](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/migrations-overview) and [Migrating From cPanel](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/sites-migrate-cpanel).

## When Things Go Wrong

- [Website Not Loading](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/website-not-loading)
- [HTTP Error Codes](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/http-error-codes)
- [Site Slowness and Resource Limits](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/site-slow-resource-limits)
- [Error Logs](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/error-logs)
- [PHP Extensions and Settings](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/php-extensions-and-ini)
- [Fixing Mixed Content](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/ssl-mixed-content)
- [If Your Site Is Hacked](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/site-hacked-what-to-do)
- [Hosting Glossary](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/glossary)
- [Opening a Support Ticket](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/opening-a-support-ticket)