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Antonios Thanasis
Antonios Thanasis

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Deploy Your Laravel Demo for Free — Domain, MySQL & Hosting at $0

#php #deployment #laravel #webdev

If you've built a Laravel project and need a live demo link — for a portfolio, a client presentation, or just to share with friends — spinning up a VPS just to host a demo feels like overkill.

InfinityFree gives you:

  • 🌐 A free subdomain (yourapp.great-site.net or .epizy.com)
  • 🗄️ A free MySQL database
  • ☁️ PHP hosting

All for $0.

The catch? It's not a typical shared host. There are real restrictions that break a standard Laravel deployment out of the box. This post documents exactly what breaks and how to fix every single one of them — based on a real deployment I did for a Laravel social media app.

⚠️ Know the Limitations First

Before you start, understand what you're working with:

Feature Available?
Free subdomain ✅ Yes
Free MySQL database ✅ Yes
PHP support ✅ Yes
File Manager (browser-based) ✅ Yes
SSH access ❌ No
php artisan commands ❌ No
Symlinks (storage:link) ❌ No
open_basedir restriction ❌ PHP only reads inside htdocs/
Composer on server ❌ No

🔴 The open_basedir restriction is the biggest gotcha. PHP will refuse to read any file outside of htdocs/ — which completely breaks Laravel's default folder structure.

Step 1 — Prepare Your Project Locally

Set your .env for production 

APP_NAME=YourApp
APP_ENV=production
APP_KEY=base64:YOUR_32_CHAR_KEY_HERE==
APP_DEBUG=true   # temporarily true to see errors
APP_URL=http://yourapp.great-site.net

DB_HOST=sql123.epizy.com   # from your cPanel
DB_DATABASE=epiz_xxxxx_dbname
DB_USERNAME=epiz_xxxxx_user
DB_PASSWORD=yourpassword
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💡 You can't run php artisan key:generate on InfinityFree. Generate your APP_KEY locally and paste it in. It must start with base64:.

Package your files into two ZIPs

The vendor/ folder is typically 30–50MB which exceeds the File Manager upload limit. Split it:

# ZIP 1 — everything except vendor/
zip -r project.zip . --exclude="vendor/*" --exclude=".git/*"

# ZIP 2 — vendor/ folder only
zip -r vendor.zip vendor/
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Step 2 — Upload via File Manager

FTP may not connect reliably on InfinityFree's free tier. Use the built-in File Manager in your cPanel instead:

  1. Log in to InfinityFree → open File Manager
  2. Navigate to htdocs/
  3. Upload project.zip → right-click → Extract
  4. Upload vendor.zip → extract into the same folder
  5. Upload your .env file into the project root

✅ Everything — and I mean everything — must be inside htdocs/. Due to open_basedir, PHP cannot access any path above it.

Your final directory structure should look like this: 

htdocs/
├── index.php        ← moved from public/
├── .htaccess        ← moved from public/
├── storage/
│   └── avatars/     ← manually created for uploads
├── app/
├── bootstrap/
├── config/
├── database/
├── resources/
├── routes/
├── vendor/
├── .env
└── ...
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Step 3 — Fix index.php

Laravel's default public/index.php references ../vendor and ../bootstrap — paths that go outside htdocs/. Since everything is now flat inside htdocs/, you need to remove the ../.

Here's the full corrected index.php:

<?php

// Temporary — remove once everything works
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
ini_set('display_startup_errors', 1);
error_reporting(E_ALL);

define('LARAVEL_START', microtime(true));

// ✅ No more ../ — everything is in htdocs/
require __DIR__.'/vendor/autoload.php';

$app = require_once __DIR__.'/bootstrap/app.php';

$kernel = $app->make(Illuminate\Contracts\Http\Kernel::class);

$response = $kernel->handle(
    $request = Illuminate\Http\Request::capture()
);

$response->send();

$kernel->terminate($request, $response);
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The only change from the default: __DIR__.'/../vendor' → __DIR__.'/vendor' (same for bootstrap).

Step 4 — Fix File Uploads (No storage:link)

php artisan storage:link creates a symlink from public/storage to storage/app/public. Symlinks don't work on InfinityFree.

The fix is to bypass Laravel's storage system for uploads and write directly to the web-accessible folder using $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].

// ❌ Default Laravel — breaks on InfinityFree
$attributes['avatar'] = request('avatar')->store('avatars', 'public');

// ✅ InfinityFree-compatible
if (request('avatar')) {
    $file     = request('avatar');
    $filename = time().'.'.$file->getClientOriginalExtension();
    $dest     = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/storage/avatars';

    $file->move($dest, $filename);
    $attributes['avatar'] = 'avatars/' . $filename;
}
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Files saved this way are immediately accessible at:

yourapp.great-site.net/storage/avatars/filename.jpg
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✅ Make sure the htdocs/storage/avatars/ folder exists before uploading. Create it manually in File Manager.

Step 5 — Set Up the Database

Since there's no SSH, you can't run php artisan migrate. Export your schema locally and import it via phpMyAdmin:

# Export locally
mysqldump -u root -p your_local_db --no-data > schema.sql
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Then in InfinityFree cPanel:

  1. Go to MySQL Databases → create a database and user
  2. Open phpMyAdmin
  3. Select your new database → click Import → upload your .sql file

Errors You'll Hit & How to Fix Them

Error Cause Fix
403 Forbidden No index.php found in htdocs/ Move public/ contents into htdocs/
HTTP 500 Missing APP_KEY in .env Set APP_KEY manually starting with base64:
open_basedir restriction Files placed outside htdocs/ Move everything inside htdocs/, fix index.php paths
Images not loading storage:link not supported Use DOCUMENT_ROOT to write uploads directly to htdocs/storage/

✅ Deployment Checklist

Before going live, run through this:

[ ] APP_KEY set in .env (starts with base64:...)
[ ] All files inside htdocs/ — nothing outside
[ ] index.php uses __DIR__.'/vendor' not __DIR__.'/../vendor'
[ ] .htaccess moved from public/ to htdocs/
[ ] vendor/ folder uploaded and extracted
[ ] Database schema imported via phpMyAdmin
[ ] htdocs/storage/avatars/ folder created manually
[ ] File upload controller uses $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']
[ ] APP_DEBUG set to false when done ✅
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Final Thoughts

InfinityFree is not for production. There's no SSH, no queue workers, no scheduler, and performance is limited. But for demo projects, portfolios, and proof-of-concept apps it does exactly what it promises — gets your Laravel app live with a real URL, a real database, and zero cost.

If you outgrow it, the same codebase deploys cleanly to any proper VPS — just reverse the index.php paths and re-run php artisan storage:link.

Built and deployed a Laravel project on InfinityFree? Drop your experience in the comments — especially if you hit an error not covered here! 👇

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