PageMotor on Hostinger, the picture-by-picture guide
The fool-proof version. Every step below has a screenshot of exactly what you will see, so you just match your screen to the picture. By the end PageMotor is running on a proper VPS, where your designs actually save.
▶ Watch the whole setup (about 2½ minutes), or follow the pictures step by step below.
Buy the VPS
1Start your VPS order
Log in to Hostinger and, on the home dashboard, click Get VPS. Buy a VPS (KVM) plan, never Shared or Web hosting. This is the whole point: a VPS lets PageMotor write its files to disk; shared hosting blocks that, which is why designs silently never apply.
2Open the Control panel tab
On the Choose what to install screen, click the Control panel tab, then find CloudPanel (the blue cloud icon, top right).
3Select CloudPanel
Click CloudPanel. The popup should say Installed in Ubuntu 24.04. Click Select.
4Set your panel password
Click Generate, then the eye icon to reveal the password, and save it somewhere safe. This is your CloudPanel login. Leave the SSH key blank. Click Next.
5Choose a plan
Pick a plan. KVM 1 is plenty for one PageMotor site; KVM 2 gives headroom for several. Click Select.
6Choose the term and pay
Pick a billing term (1, 12 or 24 months; 24 is the cheapest per month). The renewal price is higher than the promo. Click Choose payment method and pay.
Build the server
7Choose a server location
Pick the data centre closest to you or your visitors, then Next.
8Finish setup
Tick the free Malware scanner if you like, then click Finish setup. Hostinger may walk you back through the install choices once more first; just make the same picks (CloudPanel, your password, features).
9Wait while it builds
Hostinger builds your server, about 3 to 6 minutes. You can leave the page; it emails you when it is ready.
10Note your server IP
When it says you are ready, write down your server IP address. You will need it for the certificate and your domain. (In this example it is 82.29.190.61.)
Log in to CloudPanel
11Open CloudPanel
Open your VPS in hPanel and click Manage panel. Note your CloudPanel username is admin.
12Get past the certificate warning
Your browser warns This Connection Is Not Private. That is completely normal on a raw IP, it is your own brand-new server. In Safari: Show Details then visit this website. In Chrome or Edge: Advanced then Proceed.
13Log in
Log in with username admin and the panel password you saved.
Create the site
14Add a site
You are now in CloudPanel. Click + ADD SITE.
15Choose a PHP site
Choose Create a PHP Site.
16Fill in the site details
Enter your domain, a Site User (a short name like mysite) and a saved Site User Password. Set PHP Version to 8.3. Leave Application on Generic. Click Create.
17Open your new site
Your site appears in the list. Click Manage to open it.
Create the database
18Add a database
Open the Databases tab, then click Add Database.
19Watch out, no underscores
If you put an underscore in the name or user, CloudPanel rejects it with This value is not valid.
20Use hyphens
Name it with hyphens, for example pagemotor-db and user pagemotor-user, with a saved password. Click Add Database. Note the host shown is 127.0.0.1.
21Database created
Your database and its user are created. Keep the name, user, password and host (127.0.0.1) handy, PageMotor needs them shortly.
Upload PageMotor
22Open your document root
Open the File Manager tab, go into htdocs then your domain folder. If there is a placeholder index.php, delete it (PageMotor brings its own). Have the PageMotor files ready as a zip on your computer first.
23Upload the PageMotor zip
Click Add New → Upload file and upload the PageMotor zip into this folder.
24Extract it
Right-click the uploaded zip and choose Extract.
25Give the extract a folder name
CloudPanel insists on a folder name (leaving it blank is rejected). Type pagemotor and click Extract. We will point the site straight at this folder in two steps.
26Check the files
Open the pagemotor folder. You should see index.php, lib, config-sample.php and pagemotor.php sitting directly inside.
Configure PageMotor
27Rename the config file
Right-click config-sample.php, choose Rename, and change it to exactly config.php. PageMotor only reads config.php.
28Fill in your database details
Right-click config.php → Edit. Set the four database lines to your values: DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, and DB_HOST to 127.0.0.1. Leave every other line as it is. Save.
29Point the site at the PageMotor folder
Open the Settings tab and change Root Directory to yourdomain.com/pagemotor, then Save.
30The web server is already set up
Good news: nothing to do here. On the Vhost tab you can see CloudPanel already routes every address through index.php (the try_files line), exactly what PageMotor needs for clean links.
Point your domain and add SSL
31Point your domain at the server
In your domain DNS (Hostinger DNS Records, or Cloudflare if that is where your domain lives), add an A record for your domain (and one for www) pointing to your VPS IP. On Cloudflare, set it to DNS only (grey cloud) until the certificate is issued. Give it a minute or two before the next step.
32Create the SSL certificate
Once your domain points at the server: SSL/TLS tab → Actions → New Let's Encrypt Certificate. Check your domain is listed, then Create and Install.
33Certificate installed
Done. A real certificate is installed and renews itself automatically. Your site now loads over https with a valid padlock.
Finish
34Create your PageMotor admin
Visit https://yourdomain.com/admin/ and create your administrator account straight away. The first person to use this screen becomes the administrator, so do it before sharing the address.
35You are done
That is it. You are in the PageMotor admin, on a proper host, and your design changes will save and show up. Welcome to a PageMotor site that just works.
