Drupal CMS Hosting Live In 5 Minutes

Deploy Drupal CMS hosting on infrastructure you control, as a self-hosted content management system, instead of piecing together a PHP runtime, a database, a hash salt and a cron schedule by hand. xCloud configures the pinned Drupal CMS 2.1.4 image, a private MariaDB database, a dedicated cron process, persistent storage for code, files and database, and HTTPS, with a generated administrator account waiting when you sign in.

Deploy your Drupal CMS

No terminal
No technical skills needed
No lock-in, cancel anytime

What is Drupal CMS?

Self-hosted Drupal CMS is a content management system that upstream describes as a fast-moving open source product letting site builders create new Drupal sites and extend them with smart defaults, using their browser. It is not Drupal core renamed: the installer offers features preconfigured with smart defaults. It is a self-hosted alternative to website builders such as Squarespace and Wix, and it is licensed GPL-2.0-or-later.

On xCloud the template runs Drupal CMS 2.1.4, the Starter site template with Canvas page building, media, editorial tools and the Gin admin theme, on Drupal core 11.4.7 and PHP 8.4. A private MariaDB 11.4 database and a cron container run beside it, and three named volumes hold the database, code and files. Only nginx is published, and public account registration is disabled.

From Sign-Up to a Live Drupal Site In Just 3 Easy Steps

Self-hosting Drupal normally means a PHP runtime, a database, a hash salt, a cron schedule, a domain and a certificate before the installer even runs. This is the same result without assembling any of it.

Step 01
Sign Up
Create your xCloud account and pick Drupal CMS from the OneClick catalog. Choose your site title, domain and target server, and confirm the administrator email — there is nothing else to fill in, since every secret and credential is generated automatically.
Step 02
We Deploy It For You
One click. We bring up the Wodby Drupal CMS 2.1.4 image behind an nginx gateway, alongside a private MariaDB 11.4 database and a dedicated cron process — mount the drupal_db, drupal_code and drupal_files volumes, generate the administrator password, hash salt and database credentials, install the Starter site template, and publish it over HTTPS on your domain.
Step 03
Sign In And Build Your First Page
Open the Login URL, sign in as admin with the generated password shown in your Credentials panel, and change it. Configure outbound mail before relying on password resets, then use Content, Media or Canvas to build and publish your first page.

Everything Drupal CMS Does, On Your Own Server

The Starter distribution runs in full here — content, media, Canvas, cron and administration, on infrastructure you control.

Drupal CMS 2.1.4, Not Just Core
The Drupal CMS Starter site template on Drupal core 11.4.7 — Canvas, media handling, editorial tools and the Gin admin theme preinstalled, not a bare core image.
Visual Page Building With Canvas
Build and publish pages with Drupal CMS's visual Canvas editor and media library, instead of hand-writing templates before content can go live.
Closed Registration, Admin-Controlled
Public sign-up is off from the first boot. New accounts come from an administrator inside Drupal, not a self-service form anyone can reach.
Private MariaDB Database
Content, accounts and active configuration live in MariaDB 11.4, kept off the public internet behind the internal network.
Dedicated Cron Every 5 Minutes
A separate cron process runs Drupal's scheduled tasks on a timer, so cron never depends on a visitor happening to load a page.
Persistent Code, Files And Database
Your Composer project, custom modules and themes, uploaded media and database each persist on their own volume across restarts.

Everything You Need To Run Your Website 24/7

Managed hosting for Drupal CMS, so the parts that keep it online are not your problem.

Drupal CMS 2.1.4 deployed instantly
Digest-pinned application image
Administrator account generated for you
Private MariaDB, not exposed to the internet
Free SSL certificate
Server backups and snapshots
Server security updates included
30+ server locations
Unused balance refunded

What You Can Do With Drupal CMS

Build a website in the browser
A site builder creates pages with visual page building and editorial tools after installing the Starter template, without assembling PHP, a database and cron by hand.
Publish content with an editorial team
A small organisation uses Content and Media to publish articles and images, with accounts created by an administrator because public registration stays closed.
Own your site's code and files
A developer keeps the full Composer project on the drupal_code volume, adds custom modules or themes, and backs up code, files and database together as one project.
Run a content site without a website builder
An organisation that wants its site on infrastructure it controls, rather than a hosted builder's platform, deploys Drupal CMS on a dedicated Cloud VPS under its own domain.

Drupal CMS vs Alternatives

WordPress: In a Drupal CMS vs WordPress comparison, Drupal CMS is the one that ships as the Starter distribution of Drupal, with Canvas page building and Gin administration. Choose by the editing experience and extensions you need.
Squarespace: Drupal CMS is a Squarespace alternative for teams that want to host and own the whole site. You run the server, the database and the code, so you also handle updates, mail and backups yourself.
Joomla: Joomla is another self-hosted CMS, with its own OneClick page. Drupal CMS differs by being a Drupal distribution with recipes and a Starter site template, running PHP 8.4 with a separate cron process.
Ghost: Ghost is a self-hosted publishing platform on this site with its own OneClick page. Drupal CMS is a site-building option with Canvas pages, media handling and editorial tools.

Simple Pricing. Everything Included.

Dedicated Cloud VPS sizes, pre-configured for Drupal CMS and its private MariaDB database. Pick the one that fits, and resize any time.

Cloud VPS 6 GB

Cloud VPS 16 GB

More headroom for a larger content library and more concurrent editors.

$59.99per month

16 GB RAM
6 vCPU cores
200 GB NVMe SSD
30 TB
Unlimited

Get started

Cloud VPS 24 GB

Drupal CMS alongside a larger self-hosted stack.

$84.99per month

24 GB RAM
8 vCPU cores
300 GB NVMe SSD
30 TB
Unlimited

Get started

Every size is a dedicated Cloud VPS we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Billed monthly with no lock-in — delete the server and the unused balance comes back to your account. Drupal CMS itself is free under the GPL-2.0-or-later licence.

Docker hosting

Already Have a Server? Bring Your Own

Connect any VPS — DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, Hetzner or bare metal — and deploy Drupal CMS on it through the same panel, for a per-server management fee instead of a Cloud VPS rental.

Free

Start your journey without cost.

$0forever

1 server
10 sites

Start free

Starter

Professional

The same platform, discounted at 6–10 servers.

$4per server / month

6–10 servers
Unlimited sites
All features included
Bring any VPS provider

Get started

Agency

The same platform, discounted at 11+ servers.

$3per server / month

11+ servers
Unlimited sites
All features included
Bring any VPS provider

Get started

Priced per connected server, so your rate adjusts automatically as you add or remove servers. You pay your own provider for the server itself.

Self-managed hosting

Ready To Run Your Own Drupal Website?

Drupal CMS on xCloud runs on a dedicated Cloud VPS that we provision, patch, monitor and restore. Deploy faster. Own the server. Stay in control.

Fast Provisioning
Deploy faster using an xCloud Managed Server built with optimized stacks and high-speed SSDs.
Enterprise-grade security
Protect your infrastructure with a free SSL certificate and more advanced security features at no additional cost.
Intuitive Control Panel
From Server creation to application deployment, everything can be managed from our intuitive control panel.

Hear what people are saying about us

See why agencies, developers, startups, and growing businesses choose xCloud to power their projects.

xCloud works really well, I am surprised by its performance being this the release version, I have tried many paid platforms such as runcloud, cloudpages or serveravatar, as well as free platforms such as CyberPanel, CloudPanel or Hestia Control Panel and direct competitors such as SpinupWP and FlyWP. Of all those that I have tried, the platform that works best for WordPress is SpinupWP and I believe that xCloud can reach and surpass that development, its roadmap is promising. Congratulations to the xCloud team, I hope they become the leading platform in the segment, it has all the potential to achieve it!

Brian Geovanny

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How Cloud Nine Web Elevated Client Experience While Streamlining Hosting Operations using xCloud

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Trust me when I say, once people explore the potential of xCloud they gonna switch from other panels, just keep delivering the best tech, lots of love for the team 😍😍

Rahul Singh

So far my experience has been smooth like silk. I didn't imagine that configuring and managing a VPS would be so easy. As of today, I have deployed 8 sites. The support is good, and they treat users with respect, even if they ask stupid questions (myself included). For the future, I hope for greater flexibility in scheduled backups and more comprehensive and consistent documentation. I'm sure that within a few months, xCloud will become the leader in its segment. This community is amazing, and the Staff here is super helpful.

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I like xCloud better than RunCloud, but one thing I'll point out is that some years ago RunCloud was hungry for business, the support was outstanding, and the community was active and helped each other. Maybe it was sold, there was a change in management, or they stopped being hungry, but the quality of the RunCloud offering declined and it hasn't been moving forward quickly. My point is that currently the xCloud team has the edge and it is theirs to keep or lose

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How Kevin Heinrichs Cut Hosting Costs by 84% While Running WooCommerce & Node.js Sites Efficiently

Kevin Heinrichs

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Dan Spinoza

Dear xCloud Team, I have been using xCloud for some time now and am genuinely impressed with its capabilities and the flexibility it offers by allowing users to bring their own VPS for management. It's a fantastic service, and my experience so far has been very positive. Successful migrated 5 sites on a single server. Xcloud migration tool worked great. There were few hiccups with security plugin like MalCare but disabling the plugin prior to migration worked just fine.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

What is the difference between Drupal and Drupal CMS?

Drupal CMS is a distribution built on Drupal that gives site builders smart defaults and an installer with preconfigured features. This template ships Drupal CMS 2.1.4, the Starter site template, not a bare Drupal core image. The name Drupal alone refers to the underlying platform.

Is Drupal CMS free?

Yes. Drupal CMS and all derivative works are licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later, so there is no licence to buy. The cost on xCloud is the dedicated Cloud VPS. Outbound mail and any extra integrations are separate services you add yourself.

How do I install Drupal CMS with Docker?

This template installs it for you: the Wodby drupal-cms image pinned by digest, nginx, a private MariaDB 11.4 and a cron container, behind HTTPS. It acts as Drupal CMS Docker hosting; Drush installs the Starter template on first start before HTTP comes up.

Docker hosting on xCloud

How much RAM does a Drupal CMS cloud server need?

The manifest asks for 2048 MB of RAM, 2 CPU cores and 10 GB of disk, with more disk for media and backups. This page sells the 6 GB Cloud VPS for a Drupal CMS cloud site, where PHP-FPM, MariaDB, nginx and cron share the server. Uploads are limited to 32 MiB.

How do I update Drupal CMS?

Pulling a newer image does not upgrade the persisted Composer project. Back up the database, code and files, update the project with a reviewed lockfile, run drush updatedb and cache rebuild, then verify the site and cron. Never use volume deletion for an upgrade.

Should I back up before updating Drupal CMS?

Yes. Take one backup of drupal_db, drupal_code and drupal_files together, quiescing writers or using a consistent snapshot and database dump, and restore all three together. Code is not overwritten on later boots, so the code volume is project state you must protect.

Backups in xCloud

What are Drupal CMS recipes?

Recipes are the packaged, preconfigured features the Drupal CMS installer offers, which you can customise and extend after logging in. This image includes Drupal CMS recipes and extensions, and Drush installs the Starter site template on first start, so you do not run the installer yourself.

Is Drupal CMS suitable for non-developers?

Upstream aims it at site builders who create and extend sites using their browser, with smart defaults. This template installs the Starter site template with Canvas, media and editorial tools, but you still run a server, so mail, updates and backups remain your job.

How do I sign in to a new Drupal CMS site?

Open your HTTPS URL and go to the login page as admin, with the generated 32-character password shown in your credentials panel. Registration stays administrator-only, so there is no public sign-up. Change the password inside Drupal; editing the environment does not reset it.

Does Drupal CMS send email out of the box?

No. No mail server is included, so configure outbound mail in Drupal before relying on password recovery. The template also includes no object storage or AI provider subscription, and optional integrations and keys are managed by the administrator inside Drupal.

Is the Drupal CMS image pinned?

Yes, with a caveat. The app and cron containers use one Wodby image pinned by digest, while MariaDB 11.4 and nginx 1.30.5 are pinned by exact version tag, not digest. Do not float the image tag, and requalify any newer packaging release before upgrading.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. There is no lock-in — cancel any time. Hosting is billed monthly and charged for what you actually use, so when you delete the server the unused balance is refunded to your account, less up to 10% in payment-processing fees.