Create a Database Cluster — Step-by-Step
TL;DR — Go to
/cloudpanel/databases, click Create Cluster, pick a purchased plan, name your cluster, choose a region, and submit. Provisioning takes a few minutes.
Before You Start
- At least one Managed Database plan purchased on the Plans page. One plan = one deployable cluster.
- The plan must be unused — each subscription can back exactly one running cluster at a time.
If you have no plans available, the form will redirect you to the Plans page to purchase one.
Step 1 — Open the Create Cluster Wizard
- From the sidebar, click Databases to land on
/cloudpanel/databases - Click the Create Cluster button (top right)
You arrive at /cloudpanel/databases/new. The wizard has three sections, all visible on one page.
Step 2 — Choose a Plan
The first section lists every plan in your account that is not yet deployed. Each card shows:
- The engine (with a colour-coded dot)
- The tier (Starter or HA)
- The product name and price
- Node count, size (e.g.
db-s-1vcpu-1gb), and engine version
Click a card to select it. Selecting the plan locks in your engine, version, tier, node count, and storage size.
💡 All plans used? Buy another from
/cloudpanel/account/plans. Plans of the same engine + tier are interchangeable — pick any matching subscription.
💡 Different engine needed? Plans are engine-specific. To deploy PostgreSQL you need a PostgreSQL plan; for Valkey you need a Valkey plan, and so on.
Step 3 — Name Your Cluster
Type a name for the cluster.
Rules:
- 3 to 63 characters
- Letters, numbers, and hyphens only (no underscores, spaces, or special characters)
- Automatically lower-cased
- Must be unique within your account
Examples: production-pg, staging-cache, analytics-kafka
The name is used as the cluster's display label and as part of internal hostnames — choose something descriptive and stable.
Step 4 — Choose a Region
Use the searchable dropdown to find your region. You can search by region name (e.g. Frankfurt) or by country.
Each option shows the flag, the region's friendly name, and the slug code (e.g. fra1, nyc3).
How to pick:
- Same region as your application — keeps query latency to single-digit milliseconds
- Same region as your team / users — minimise round-trip time for ad-hoc queries
- Closest to your customers — for read-replicas, ideally in the user's region
- Data residency — pick an EU region for GDPR-sensitive workloads
Region can be changed later with a brief downtime (see Maintenance & Scaling).
Step 5 — Review the Summary and Submit
The summary card at the bottom shows everything that's about to happen:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Cluster name | production-pg |
| Engine | PostgreSQL |
| Version | 17 |
| Tier | Starter |
| Region | New York 3 (nyc3) |
| Nodes | 1 |
| Size | db-s-1vcpu-1gb |
Click Create Cluster.
You'll see a toast confirming "Database cluster is being provisioned" and you'll be redirected back to the cluster list.
What Happens Next
- The cluster appears in the list with a Provisioning badge (yellow dot).
- The list page polls live status every 10 seconds.
- Once the cluster reports Online, the row becomes clickable.
- Open the cluster to see the connection details on the Connection tab.
Provisioning typically takes 3–10 minutes depending on engine and tier.
After Provisioning — Recommended Next Steps
In order:
- Save your credentials — open the cluster, go to Connection, copy the URI and password to your password manager.
- Restrict access — add firewall rules so only your servers can connect. See Firewall & Trusted Sources.
- Create application users — don't use the default admin user from your app. See Users & Databases.
- Set a maintenance window — pick a low-traffic hour for automated patching. See Maintenance & Scaling.
- Verify backups — check the Backups tab once 24h have passed and the first automated backup appears.
Troubleshooting
"No plans available"
You have no unused Managed Database subscriptions. Buy one from the Plans page, or destroy an unused cluster to free its plan.
Cluster stuck on "Provisioning" for more than 15 minutes
Refresh the page using the refresh button. If it still hasn't progressed, open a support ticket — provisioning rarely takes longer than 10 minutes and we'll investigate.
Name rejected
Check that your name is 3–63 characters of letters, numbers, and hyphens only. Names that match an already-existing cluster are also rejected.
Region not available
Newer regions occasionally lack capacity for specific engine + tier combinations. Pick a nearby region or contact support.