This quickstart takes you from a new account to a site that is deployed from your Git repository and reachable on the internet. It takes about fifteen minutes, most of which is the server being installed while you wait.
You need a Git repository on GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket, and either an account at Hetzner Cloud, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Akamai, Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud, or a server of your own with a clean Ubuntu 24.04.
Step 1: Create your account
- Open the registration page and fill in Name, Email address, Password and Confirm password.
- Click Create account.
- Confirm your email address with the link we email you.
Every new account gets an organization of its own, named after you (for example "Sam's organization"). By creating the account you accept the legal documents, as the form says under Create account.
After you confirm your email address, a short welcome takes you through four steps:
- Welcome: what Vimonto Deploy does. Skip the introduction takes you straight to the app.
- Organization: give your organization the name of your company or team. You can change it later under Settings, or create more organizations. See organizations.
- Your trial: your first organization gets Premium for free for 7 days, with every feature and no payment details. The step shows when the trial ends and what comes after: Premium, or the free plan. See billing.
- Connect: the two connections to make first, your cloud provider and your Git host (steps 2 and 3 below). Connect a cloud provider and Connect a Git host open Settings → Integrations; Go to my dashboard opens the overview.
Either way, a short tour then shows you around: Settings, Servers, Sites, Activity, the search, the notifications and Support. Use Next and Back, or the arrow keys; Skip tour or Escape closes it.
The overview of a new organization shows Get started: a checklist from connecting your cloud provider to your first deploy. Each step ticks itself off when it is done, the next one has its button ready, and Take the tour shows the tour again. The cross hides the checklist for that organization; it also disappears once every step is done.
Step 2: Connect a cloud provider
Skip this step if you use your own server.
- Open Settings in the top navigation and choose Integrations.
- Under Add an integration, find Hetzner Cloud, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Akamai (Linode), Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud and click Connect.
- For DigitalOcean and Akamai, when sign-in through the provider is available, Connect takes you to the provider to sign in and brings you back; click With token to paste a token instead. Otherwise paste a token from your provider (for AWS an access key ID and secret, for Google Cloud a service account key) and click Check and connect.
The account shows as Working once the token has been checked. The same login manages the DNS of the domains in that account. Details per provider are in cloud and DNS accounts.
Step 3: Connect your Git host
- On the same Integrations page, find GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket under Add an integration.
- Click Connect and approve access at your Git host (a host shows Coming soon until sign-in with it has been set up on the platform). For a self-hosted GitLab, click Connect on the GitLab (self-hosted) card and paste its address and a personal access token.
Vimonto Deploy uses this connection to list your repositories and branches, and to add a read-only deploy key and a push webhook to the repository you deploy. See Git accounts.
Step 4: Create a server
- Go to Servers and click New server.
- Under Provider, choose your connected cloud account, or Custom server for a machine of your own.
- Under Type, keep App server (marked Recommended). It puts Nginx, PHP, a database, Redis, Memcached and Node.js on one machine, which is right for most applications.
- Choose a Location, a Size, a Server name and the versions to install, then review and click Create server.
With a cloud provider, Vimonto Deploy creates the server in your account, waits until it boots and then provisions it. With a custom server, you get one command to run on your machine as root; provisioning starts as soon as it calls back.
Provisioning takes a few minutes. You can follow every step live on the server page or under Activity, and you can leave the page in the meantime: you get a message when it is done, and a notification under the bell in the top bar. When the server shows Active, it is ready. See create a server, custom VPS and provisioning for all options.
Step 5: Create a site
- Open the server and choose Sites in the sidebar.
- Click New site and choose what your site is built with, for example Laravel.
- Choose the Repository and Branch to deploy.
- Choose the address. Every site can get a generated address on
on-deploy.link, which works immediately without DNS changes. Choose Use a custom domain to enter your own domain instead. - For frameworks that need one, choose or create a database under Connect a database.
- Click Create site.
Vimonto Deploy sets up the site on the server, adds a deploy key and webhook to your repository and starts the first deploy right away. See create a site.
Your sites are listed on the server's Sites page, and every site of the organization, on all its servers, under Sites in the top navigation.
Step 6: Watch the first deploy
Open the site and choose Deployments. The running deploy shows its steps as they happen: Fetch code, Run deploy script, Go live and Clean up old releases. Open it to read the output of each step. A deploy only goes live when every step succeeded, so a failed build never breaks your site.
When the deploy has succeeded, open the site's address. Your application is online.
From now on you can:
- click Deploy now in the site header to deploy the latest commit,
- turn on Quick deploy so every push to the branch deploys automatically,
- or call the site's deploy URL, or the REST API, from your CI pipeline.
See deployments.
Step 7: Finish the setup
- Edit the environment file (
.env) with your application's settings. - Point your own domain at the server and request a free Let's Encrypt certificate.
- Start queue workers and the scheduler if your application uses them.
- Set up database backups and monitoring.
- Invite your team and, if needed, use teams to limit who sees which servers.
- Choose which notifications you want, for example when a deploy fails.
Frequently asked questions
How long does provisioning a server take?
Usually a few minutes. It depends on the server size and on how quickly the provider boots the machine. You can follow each step under Activity while it runs.
Can I deploy without a Git repository?
Yes, for some site types. A site can be created without a repository, for example WordPress or phpMyAdmin, which Vimonto Deploy installs for you. To deploy your own code, connect a Git host first.
Do I need my own domain to start?
No. When generated addresses are available, every site can get an on-deploy.link address that works straight away. You can add your own domain later under Domains and SSL.