Quick Start

The Quick Start guide walks you through setting up Hostgrid for the first time.

In a few minutes, you’ll connect your application and serve it on a custom domain with automatic HTTPS.

Your upstream is your application origin — where Hostgrid will send traffic.

This is usually something like:

app.saas.com
api.yourapp.com

From the dashboard:

1. Go to Upstreams
2. Click Create New Upstream
3. Enter your application hostname
4. Save

Once created, your upstream is ready.

Next, connect a domain that your users will visit.

For example:

customer.com
crm.customer.com

Steps:

1. Open your upstream
2. Click Add Domain
3. Enter the domain name
4. Save

At this stage, the domain is created but not yet active.

Click the status badge to view the DNS records that you need to add to your domain provider.

These records prove ownership of the domain.

Go to your DNS provider (Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.) and add the records exactly as shown.

Once DNS changes propagate, Hostgrid automatically verifies your domain.

This process:

• Confirms domain ownership
• Activates the domain
• Enables SSL provisioning

You can monitor status in the dashboard:

When verification is complete, your domain becomes active.

After verification, Hostgrid:

• Issues an SSL certificate
• Enables HTTPS
• Starts serving traffic securely

No manual certificate setup is required.

Rules allow you to modify how requests are handled before they reach your application.

For example:

• Redirect old URLs
• Add security headers
• Rewrite paths
• Return static responses for specific routes

To add rules:

1. Open your upstream or domain
2. Go to the Rules tab
3. Create a rule
4. Add matchers and handlers

Rules are optional — your setup works without them. Learn more: Hostgrid Rules

Once setup is complete:

• Users visit your custom domain
• Hostgrid handles SSL and routing
• Requests are sent to your upstream
• Responses are returned through Hostgrid

Your application remains unchanged.

At this point you have:

• Connected your application (upstream)
• Linked a custom domain
• Verified DNS ownership
• Enabled automatic HTTPS

From here, you can:

• Add more domains
• Configure rules
• Explore upstream vs domain behavior
• Scale to multiple customers

• How Upstreams Work
• How Custom Domains Work
• Upstreams vs Domains
• DNS Verification
• Automatic SSL