How To Install WordPress on Any Host

Every hosting company seems to have different buttons, dashboards, and wizards, so “just install WordPress” can feel harder than it should. The good news is that under the hood, nearly every host follows the same basic pattern.

This guide walks you through that pattern so you can install WordPress on almost any host, whether you are using shared hosting with cPanel, managed WordPress hosting, or a VPS. You will learn both the recommended one-click method and a reliable manual install workflow that works almost everywhere.

If you also want help planning your pages, themes, and launch checklist, see our guide on how to start a full WordPress website once your installation is complete.

Prerequisites

Before you install WordPress on any host, make sure you have the basics in place. This avoids errors halfway through the process.

• A domain name registered (you can point it to your host now or later).
• A hosting account that supports PHP and MySQL or MariaDB (any “Linux” or “WordPress” hosting plan usually qualifies).
• Login access to your hosting control panel (cPanel, Plesk, or a custom dashboard).
• Either a file manager in your control panel or FTP/SFTP access.
• An SSL option from your host (often “Free SSL” or “Let’s Encrypt”) so you can use HTTPS.

Step 1: Identify your hosting type and control panel

Your first job is to understand what kind of hosting environment you have. That determines which installation tools are available.

Common hosting scenarios

• Shared hosting with cPanel or Plesk: You probably have a one-click installer such as Softaculous, Installatron, or “WordPress Manager”.
• Managed WordPress hosting: WordPress is often pre-installed or provisioned automatically for each site.
• VPS or dedicated server: You might have a panel (cPanel/WHM, Plesk, DirectAdmin) or only SSH access. Manual installation is typical.
• Custom hosting dashboards: Look for sections called “Websites”, “Applications”, or “WordPress”.

Once you know where your site and tools live in the control panel, you are ready to install WordPress.

Step 2: Install WordPress using your host’s one-click tool

The easiest and most reliable way for beginners on almost any host is to use its one-click WordPress installer. The labels differ, but the process is very similar.

General one-click install workflow

1. Log in to your hosting panel. Open the dashboard your host provides.
2. Find the app installer. Look for “Softaculous Apps Installer”, “WordPress Installer”, “Applications”, or “Site Software”.
3. Choose WordPress. Click the WordPress icon or “Install”.
4. Select the domain. Pick the domain (and subdomain, if used) where you want WordPress installed.
5. Choose the directory. To install WordPress at https://example.com/, leave the “directory” or “path” field empty. To install into a sub-folder like https://example.com/blog/, enter blog.
6. Enable HTTPS. If your host already provides SSL, choose https:// as the protocol.
7. Set site details. Enter a site title and tagline (you can change these later).
8. Create the admin user. Choose a unique username (not “admin”), a strong password, and an email address you control.
9. Review advanced options. Most hosts let you set the database name and table prefix. The defaults are usually fine.
10. Start the install. Click “Install” or “Submit” and wait for the progress bar to finish.

Checkpoint: confirm the one-click install succeeded

• You see a success message with your site URL and an admin URL (usually /wp-admin).
• Visiting the site URL shows either a fresh WordPress site or the setup wizard.
• You can log in at the admin URL using the username and password you just created.

If your host offers a one-click installer, you usually do not need a manual install. However, the manual method is helpful when your host has no installer or when you want full control.

Step 3: Manually install WordPress on any host

The manual method works almost everywhere: basic shared hosting, cloud servers, and custom control panels. It takes longer the first time, but the steps are always the same.

1. Create a database and user

In your hosting control panel, find the database section (often called “MySQL Databases” or “Databases”). Create a new database, a new database user, and assign that user All Privileges on the database. Write down the database name, username, password, and server (often localhost).

2. Download WordPress

Download the latest .zip of WordPress from wordpress.org onto your computer. You will upload this archive to your host in the next step.

3. Upload the WordPress files

• Using a file manager: Open your hosting file manager, go to the site’s document root (often public_html), and upload the WordPress .zip.
• Using FTP/SFTP: Connect with an FTP client, browse to the document root, and upload the contents of the wordpress folder from the archive.

4. Extract and move files into place

If you uploaded the .zip via file manager, use the “Extract” tool. Move the contents of the wordpress folder into your document root so that files like wp-config-sample.php and wp-login.php sit directly inside public_html (or your site’s root folder).

5. Connect WordPress to the database

You can either let the installer create the configuration file for you or pre-configure it manually.

• Rename wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php.
• Edit it using the file manager’s editor and enter the database name, user, password, and host in the DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, and DB_HOST fields.

// Example (inside wp-config.php)
define( 'DB_NAME', 'your_db_name' );
define( 'DB_USER', 'your_db_user' );
define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'a_strong_password_here' );
define( 'DB_HOST', 'localhost' );

If you have SSH access and are comfortable with the command line, you can also download and unpack WordPress directly on the server:

# Run these from your site root over SSH
wget https://wordpress.org/latest.zip
unzip latest.zip
mv wordpress/* .
rm -rf wordpress latest.zip

Step 4: Run the WordPress setup wizard

Whether you used a one-click installer or the manual method, the final part of the installation is the WordPress setup wizard. This is where you create your main login and basic site identity.

1. Visit your domain in a browser. If WordPress is not yet configured, you will see the “Welcome to WordPress” screen.
2. Select your language and continue.
3. Enter your Site Title (you can change this later in Settings > General).
4. Choose a Username, Password, and Email Address for the administrator account.
5. Decide whether to allow search engines to index the site yet. For new builds, you can temporarily discourage indexing until you are ready to launch.
6. Click Install WordPress.

When the wizard finishes, you will see a success screen with a button to log in. From now on, you can reach your dashboard at https://yourdomain.com/wp-admin (replace with your actual domain).

Step 5: Secure and test your new WordPress site

With WordPress installed, take a few minutes to secure and test everything. This ensures your site is ready for themes, plugins, and real visitors.

Secure the basics

• Log in to /wp-admin and go to Settings > General to verify your site URL and admin email.
• Under Settings > Permalinks, choose a friendly permalink structure such as “Post name”.
• In your hosting panel, enable HTTPS with your free SSL certificate and force HTTPS if your host offers that option.
• Delete any unused “installer” directories or old test files from your site root.
• Plan to keep WordPress core, themes, and plugins updated regularly.

Test that everything works

• Visit your homepage and a sample post to confirm pages load without errors.
• Log in and log out of /wp-admin to ensure your credentials work.
• If you changed the install directory, check that URLs look like you expect (no extra /wordpress/ path unless you chose it).

At this point, WordPress is correctly installed on your host. You can move on to choosing a theme, installing essential plugins, and designing your content structure.

For a host-agnostic step-by-step walkthrough you can reference while you work, see our dedicated guide to installing WordPress step by step.

Confidently managing WordPress on any host

Once you understand that every host is just a different wrapper around the same basic WordPress requirements, installation becomes much less intimidating. You know you always need a database, a copy of the WordPress files, and the setup wizard to tie them together.

By combining your host’s one-click tools with the manual method when needed, you can install WordPress on almost any provider with confidence. From here, your focus can shift to optimizing performance, designing your site, and publishing content instead of wrestling with installers.

Further Reading

• WordPress Hosting Explained
• How Does WordPress Hosting Work?
• Managed WordPress Hosting Guide
• Fastest WordPress Hosting Providers

Frequently Asked Questions