By default, your client websites run on Pagoras hosting, which is included in the price. You can also run individual websites on your own hosting, for instance because a client is contractually tied to a provider or you want to keep your own infrastructure.
How your own hosting works
Pagora works the same way in both cases: every change is pushed as a commit to the website's GitHub repository. On Pagoras hosting, Pagora then deploys the site itself. On your own hosting, your provider takes over, as long as it rebuilds automatically on every push. Practically every code host can do this (Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages and the like).
The switch happens in the Domain & hosting tab via "External hosting". The cockpit automatically verifies that your hosting reacts to pushes: it creates an invisible marker commit and checks whether it shows up on the website. With "Test push-to-deploy" you can repeat that check at any time.
You switch back to Pagoras hosting in the same tab, any time and without losing anything: the repository stays the same.
Two things worth knowing
- The setup assistant always deploys new websites to Pagoras hosting first. You switch to your own hosting afterwards in the client detail view.
- On your own hosting, health and uptime monitoring keep working, but hosting issues (server problems, build failures at your provider) are yours to handle.
Environment variables
Many websites need keys for external services, say an API key for a booking system. Those values don't belong in code. In the Domain & hosting tab you manage them under "Environment variables": add, edit, delete.
After every change, the website is rebuilt automatically so the new value takes effect. On a website's very first deploy, Pagora detects required variables from the repository's .env.example and asks for them in the setup assistant.