Creating a Site

Last updated: September 7, 2022

This page will walk you through how to create a WordPress site with DevKinsta. When you first launch DevKinsta, you’ll see three different site creation options.

1. New WordPress Site
2. Import from Kinsta
3. Custom Site

New WordPress Site

This option creates a new WordPress site configured with Nginx, MySQL, and the latest version of WordPress. To create a new WordPress site, follow the steps below.

1. Click “Add Site” in the upper-right corner of DevKinsta.
2. Select the “New WordPress Site” option.
3. Fill in the “Site Name”, “WordPress Admin Username”, and “WordPress Admin Password” fields.
4. Click “Create Site”, and wait 30-60 seconds for the site to be created.

During the site creation process, you may need to provide your user account password (macOS) or accept a confirmation dialog (Windows). This is required because DevKinsta modifies the system’s hosts file.

After creating the site, you’ll be able to view it in DevKinsta’s “Sites” list.

Import from MyKinsta

If you have a Kinsta account, DevKinsta allows you to clone your sites to your local computer. This makes local development of your Kinsta-hosted sites very convenient! To import a site hosted on Kinsta, follow the steps below.

1. Click “Add Site” in the upper-right corner of DevKinsta.
2. Select the “Import from Kinsta” option.
3. Log in to your Kinsta account.
4. Select a site environment (live or staging) to import.
5. If your site is a multisite, specify whether it’s a subdomain or subdirectory multisite. If your site is not a multisite, select the “No Multisite” option.
6. Click “Import Site” to start the import process.

During the site creation process, you may need to provide your user account password (macOS) or accept a confirmation dialog (Windows). This is required because DevKinsta modifies the system’s hosts file.

After creating the site, you’ll be able to view it in DevKinsta’s “Sites” list.

Custom site

Note that at the moment not all fields can be modified when creating sites. DevKinsta is being actively developed and we have created fields for settings we anticipate will be changeable in the future.

1. Click Add New button in the top right corner of the site list.
2. Select Custom site option
3. Fill out at least Site name and WordPress username. You can modify the following settings:
   • PHP version
   • Database name
   • WP site title
   • WP e-mail
   • WP username
   • WP password
4. During site creation you need to provide your password (on macOS) or click accept in confirmation dialog (on Windows). This is required because DevKinsta modifies the hosts file.
5. It should take about 15-60 seconds.

Customizing sites

• Project name: this will show up in the site list.
• PHP version: We recommend always using the latest version. See our PHP versions guide for more information.
• Database name: The name of your database. Unless you are doing custom development you will likely not need to change this.
• Site title: This will become your actual site title, it populates WordPress’ setting of the same name.
• WordPress admin email: This will be the admin user’s email address. We recommend not using actual email addresses.
• WordPress admin username: This is the username of your admin user, you will use this to log in to your WordPress site.
• WordPress admin password: This is the password for your admin user, you will use this to log in to your WordPress site.

Steps of site creation

Updating NGINX config

In this step DevKinsta setup the required webserver settings. You can check sites.ini configuration file here: /Users/user/DevKinsta/kinsta/sites.ini
Modifying this file is not recommended. All changes are done by DevKinsta.

Creating MySQL database

DevKinsta creates a database for the site. If this step fails you may try to cancel the site creation, restart DevKinsta and create again the site.

Installing WordPress x.y

If webserver and database are ready DevKinsta can start to install the latest WordPress. This step may take 10-40 seconds.

Updating host file

Here DevKinsta will ask a confirmation from the user. On macOS you have to enter your password and on Windows you have to click on the OK button in the confirmation dialog.
DevKinsta needs this permission because it writes into hosts file (macOS: /etc/hosts, Windows: C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc/hosts). Your site will be able to use pretty url instead of ip address.

Generating thumbnail

In the last step DevKinsta creates a preview of your site and it will be displayed inside DevKinsta.