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We're currently using a single ExpressionEngine install with MultiSite Manager to serve up 11 total sites that share the same database. After investigating Craft, and asking questions via Twitter it appears that multisite may not be supported.

Is there a way to use a single Craft install to serve up completely separate sites, or any knowledge of this being implemented in the future?

Jon Horton
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  • If there is no plan for multisite, is there some practice for sharing content between installs? In g+ discuss such plugin is mentioned but not released yet, is it on roadmap? –  Jul 30 '14 at 09:03
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    @lexyk Welcome to the Craft CMS Stack Exchange! I converted your answer here to a comment, since you were clearly asking a question and not providing an answer to this question. – Matt Stein Jul 30 '14 at 16:31

1 Answers1

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Currently multi-site support isn't planned.

If you want simple multi-site-support you could use the localization feature with a custom locale. But with Craft's auto-update's and easy deployment, why would you want to use MSM anyway?

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...we're pretty against adding it to Craft... at least in the way EE did it, where everything is stored on a per-site basis.

However you should take a look at Craft's localization features. With that, all content can be stored on a per-locale basis, all users can have per-locale permissions, each locale can have its own base URL, templates, routes, etc.. Really is pretty powerful. The only thing missing is the ability to define custom locales, in the event that your localized sites aren't defined by territory/language, but some other factor. That's the main thing that's going to be changing ;)

https://plus.google.com/105300374023226628031/posts/CS2uUefs6Ah

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Correct. Initially it did have an MSM-type feature, but we ended up taking it out, due to it overcomplicating the system.

If you want to run multiple domains/sites off of Craft, you’ll just need multiple Craft installs.

https://plus.google.com/102316327373347344486/posts/71qEZ4SANhP

EDIT:

You can however use one craft/app/ folder for multiple sites. But since you'd still need multiple databases, configs, plugins, templates... it's probably not worth it, except that you would save a few bytes on files.

Victor
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    As someone who has had to make a secondary site the primary in an MSM install, i can truly say I wish i'd never used it. It is all good and well until you need move MSM site to a different server or hit the MySQL column limit and cant add any new fields to your MSM site. Keeping things separate does not seem like that big of a deal after having to mitigate the hell that MSM can cause. – Steve Adams Jun 22 '14 at 23:00
  • If you're using a single craft/app/ folder, does that require additional licenses per site, or only a single license? – Jon Horton Jun 23 '14 at 12:57
  • Good question, but I don't know. To be save ask P&T directly. – Victor Jun 23 '14 at 13:17
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    The main reason I'm interested in a multisite install is the share-ability of data between sites. Because the 11 sites we run are closely related, multisite would allow us to to keep a central database and share data easily. Using the Locale option seems interesting, but doesn't look like it will work for completely separate sites! – Jon Horton Jun 24 '14 at 13:18
  • If by data, you mean for example assets, you can use the same asset-source on multiple installs. -- Otherwise you could write a plugin: (1) Which connects to one central database (2) Allows you to edit the data in it's own CPsection (3) Allows access to data with a TwigExtension. – Victor Jun 24 '14 at 13:38
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    Dragging up an old thread, but a thought regarding this discussion is that one of the main functions I've needed in the past from multiple sites is shared users/authentication. If at the least there was a plugin/core function to expose the member base with authentication you're half way there. Thoughts? – Brendan Underwood Oct 24 '14 at 02:58
  • @VictorIn what is meant by MSM? – codecowboy Jun 03 '15 at 10:20
  • @codecowboy Multi-Site-Manager – Victor Jun 08 '15 at 21:26
  • We have a few customers who just want one Admin interface to login to and from there be able to switch between sites to manage content. The content pages may be different, and even different fields. And some of them like to share content between sites.

    So if my understanding of Crafts localisation is correct, I dont think localisation would be a good solution because the content is managed on a per field basis in each entry. Whereas on a multisite install I may have different fields for different entry types per sites.

     – Laurence Cope Apr 08 '16 at 12:27
  • @LaurenceCope no, you wouldn't need to mis-use the localization feature for this. I'd just set up the sections (shared ones and site specific ones) for one locale. Then add environment variables to distinguish the site / environment requested from your templates. Use this info to dynamically include template partials, extends different layouts or exit 404 requests. – carlcs Apr 08 '16 at 13:01
  • OK great, so could be possible then. Thanks for educating me! – Laurence Cope Apr 09 '16 at 15:40
  • This now changes with Craft 3. See https://craftcms.com/news/craft-3-multi-site – Simon East Jun 15 '17 at 02:17