Drupal and Multi-Domain Sites

Recently, multi-domain websites have become increasingly popular. For mobile devices, we create a separate domain; for the site's API, we also create a domain. The ability to host part of the site’s functionality on a subdomain allows us to use new features while sharing the same user base and node data with the main site. For example, we have example.org, and for it we create: api.example.org, pda.example.org, and so on.

As you might have guessed, Drupal allows us to implement multi-domain websites without much effort. There are various ways to use Drupal for this:

We can use separate Drupal installations with different databases. This simple method requires no special effort—just install the sites in different folders and assign subdomains.

We can use a single Drupal installation with a shared database. In this case, all sites share the same users, nodes, comments, taxonomy terms, and Drupal core itself. This setup is useful when implementing the same functionality for different devices.

We can also use multiple Drupal installations with a shared database. This approach is suitable when the sites serve different purposes, such as creating an API for the main website.

In the lessons on multi-domain websites, we will cover the Domain Access module and its companion modules in detail to implement various features on your site.