Using Kirby for multiple sites

You can run multiple sites via the same Kirby setup. This can help you maintain your sites as you only need to keep a single setup updated.

Custom folder and URL setup

A multi-site setup extends Kirby’s possibility to define your custom folder setup and custom URL setup.

Setting up your multisite

To run multiple sites on a single Kirby installation, modify the index.php at the root of your installation:

<?php
require 'kirby/bootstrap.php';

$sites = [
  'my-site.com' => 'my-site.com',
  'my-shop.com' => 'my-shop.com',
];

$host = Url::host();
$root = $sites[$host];
$url  = 'http://' . $host;

$kirby = new Kirby([
  'roots' => [
    'index'   => __DIR__,
    'site'    => $root . '/site',
    'content' => $root . '/content',
    'media'   => $root . '/media',
    'assets'  => $root . '/assets'
  ],
  'urls' => [
    'media'  => $url . '/' . $root . '/media',
    'assets' => $url . '/' . $root . '/assets',
  ],
]);

echo $kirby->render();

Let's walk through this step by step: First we load the kirby/bootstrap.php script and define our sites in an array with the domain as the key and the file directory root as the value:

$sites = [
  'my-site.com' => 'my-site.com',
  'my-shop.com' => 'my-shop.com',
];

Then we use the Url::host() method to retrieve the domain requested by the visitor and select the matching root for this one:

$host = Url::host();
$root = $sites[$host];
$url  = 'http://' . $host;

Finally, we use this information to create a $kirby object with custom roots and a custom URLs and output $kirby->render():

$kirby = new Kirby([
  'roots' => [
    'index'   => __DIR__,
    'site'    => $root . '/site',
    'content' => $root . '/content',
    'media'   => $root . '/media',
    'assets'  => $root . '/assets'
  ],
  'urls' => [
    'media'  => $url . '/' . $root . '/media',
    'assets' => $url . '/' . $root . '/assets',
  ],
]);

In the filesystem

Licenses for your multi-site

Even when running multiple sites through the same setup and code, you need a license for each of these sites: A single license is valid for a single Kirby installation, running on a single domain. If you add additional installations (i.e. under additional subdomains or subfolders) you need to purchase licenses for each of those installations.