CollabPortals

Custom Domains

Serve your CollabPortals portal on your own domain like portal.acme.com, with an automatic TLS certificate. Available on any paid plan.

Overview

By default a portal lives on a CollabPortals URL like https://www.collabportals.com/your-portal-slug. A custom domain lets you serve the same portal on a domain you own, so end users see your address instead of ours:

https://portal.acme.com

The portal works exactly the same way. Only the address in the browser bar changes. CollabPortals provisions and renews the TLS certificate for the domain automatically, so it is served over HTTPS with no work from you.

Custom domains are available on any paid plan. One custom domain per portal.

Setting Up a Custom Domain

You add a domain in the portal admin, then add one DNS record at whatever provider hosts your domain (your registrar, Cloudflare, Route 53, and so on).

The portal admin Domain tab with a field to enter your domain and a Save button
The Domain tab in a portal's settings. Enter the domain you want to use and save.
  1. 1

    Open the Domain tab

    From your admin dashboard, open the portal you want to put on a custom domain and switch to the Domain tab of its settings.

  2. 2

    Enter your domain

    Type the domain you want to use, for example portal.acme.com, and save. Use a subdomain you control. Do not use a CollabPortals domain.

  3. 3

    Add the DNS record

    The Domain tab shows the exact record to add at your DNS provider. For a subdomain like portal.acme.com it is a single CNAME. Add it at your provider and save it there.

  4. 4

    Wait for verification

    Once your DNS record is live, CollabPortals verifies the domain and issues a TLS certificate for it. This usually takes a few minutes. The status in the Domain tab moves from "Waiting on DNS" to "Live", and the portal starts serving on your domain.

The Domain tab showing the CNAME record to add: portal.example.com pointing to collabportals.onrender.com, with a Waiting on DNS status and a Cloudflare DNS-only note
After you save, the Domain tab shows the exact record to add at your DNS provider.

If your DNS is managed by Cloudflare, set the record to DNS only (the grey cloud, not the orange "Proxied" cloud). A proxied record stops the domain from verifying.

Subdomain or Root Domain

A subdomain such as portal.acme.com or members.acme.com is the simple case. It uses a single CNAME record, and most teams use a subdomain so their main website keeps the root domain.

A root domain (also called an apex, like acme.com with no subdomain) is also supported, but root domains cannot use a CNAME. Your DNS provider needs to support ALIAS or ANAME records, which not all providers do. If yours does not, use a subdomain instead. The Domain tab shows the right record type for the domain you entered.

How It Appears

Once the domain is live:

  • The portal is served on your domain, and the address stays on your domain as users move around it. CollabPortals does not redirect it back to a collabportals.com URL.
  • In the admin, the portal's URL shown at the top of its settings is your custom domain, and the Preview button opens the portal on your domain.
  • End users log in the same way as on a CollabPortals URL. The email verification flow is unchanged.

The portal's CollabPortals URL keeps working too, so any links you already shared still resolve.

Changing or Removing a Domain

To change the domain, enter the new one in the Domain tab. To remove it, use Remove domain, and the portal goes back to serving on its CollabPortals URL.

Next Steps

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