Deployment

YiiPress generates static HTML files during the build process, eliminating the need for YiiPress or a PHP runtime in production. Any static file hosting service can serve the resulting files.

Run the build command to generate the static output:

make yii build -- --content-dir=content

The generated files will be placed in the output directory (default: output). You can then host this directory with any static file server or hosting service.

Any Web Host (FTP / cPanel)

The simplest deployment option is to upload the build output directly to your hosting provider's webroot. First, generate the static files in your local development environment (where YiiPress is installed via Docker):

1. Build your site: make yii build -- --content-dir=content
2. Open your hosting control panel or FTP client.
3. Upload the entire contents of the output directory to your server's webroot folder. This folder is commonly named www, public_html, htdocs, or html depending on your provider.
4. Your site is live — no PHP runtime or database is required on the server.

GitHub Pages

GitHub Pages hosts static sites directly from a GitHub repository for free. The recommended approach is to use a GitHub Actions workflow that builds the site and publishes it to the github-pages environment on every push.

How GitHub Pages works

GitHub Pages serves the files uploaded to its github-pages deployment environment. A workflow uploads the build artifact using actions/upload-pages-artifact and then deploys it using actions/deploy-pages.

Example GitHub Actions workflow

Create .github/workflows/deploy.yml in your repository:

name: Build and Deploy to GitHub Pages

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master
  workflow_dispatch:

permissions:
  contents: read
  pages: write
  id-token: write

concurrency:
  group: "pages"
  cancel-in-progress: false

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Build site
        run: |
          docker run --rm \
            --user=root \
            -v ${{ github.workspace }}/content:/app/content \
            -v ${{ github.workspace }}/_site:/app/_site \
            ghcr.io/yiipress/engine:latest \
            ./yii build --output-dir=_site --no-cache

      - name: Upload artifact
        uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v4

  deploy:
    environment:
      name: github-pages
      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: build
    steps:
      - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
        id: deployment
        uses: actions/deploy-pages@v4

Enable GitHub Pages in your repository settings: go to Settings → Pages and set the source to GitHub Actions.

Tip: Replace ghcr.io/yiipress/engine:latest with a specific version tag (e.g., ghcr.io/yiipress/engine:1.0.0) for reproducible, stable builds.

Real-world example: This is exactly how the YiiPress documentation itself is built and deployed — see .github/workflows/build-docs.yml in this repository.

Cloudflare Pages

Cloudflare Pages offers a free, globally distributed CDN for static sites with automatic deployments from Git.

1. Push your project to a GitHub or GitLab repository.
2. In the Cloudflare dashboard, go to Workers & Pages → Create application → Pages → Connect to Git.
3. Select your repository and configure the build settings:
   • Build command: docker run --rm --user=root -v $(pwd)/content:/app/content -v $(pwd)/_site:/app/_site ghcr.io/yiipress/engine:latest ./yii build --output-dir=_site --no-cache
   • Build output directory: _site
4. Click Save and Deploy.

Cloudflare Pages will rebuild and redeploy your site automatically on every push to the configured branch.

Alternative: If you prefer, build the site locally or in your own CI pipeline, then deploy the _site/ directory using the Wrangler CLI:

npx wrangler pages deploy _site --project-name=my-site

Minimalistic Docker Image

You can package your static site into a tiny Docker image using lipanski/docker-static-website. This image is based on BusyBox httpd and is only a few megabytes in size, making it ideal for self-hosted or containerised environments.

Create a Dockerfile in your project root:

FROM ghcr.io/yiipress/engine:latest AS builder

WORKDIR /app
COPY . .
RUN ./yii build --output-dir=_site --no-cache

FROM lipanski/docker-static-website:latest

COPY --from=builder /app/_site .

Build and run the image:

docker build -t my-site .
docker run -p 3000:3000 my-site

Your site will be available at http://localhost:3000.

To deploy, push the image to any container registry and run it on any platform that supports Docker — a VPS, Fly.io, Railway, Render, or any Kubernetes cluster.