Learn the fundamentals of working with domains on Netlify.

A domain name is the URL or web address where visitors find your site.

To access your deploys on Netlify, you can set up a custom domain or use the default Netlify subdomain.

Supported custom domains

Custom domains allow you to make your sites accessible at your own domain names, such as www.yourcustomdomain.com or docs.example.dev. All top-level domains are supported for your custom domain.

Netlify supports custom domains for your production site, Deploy Previews, and branch deploys.

• For your production site, Netlify supports a primary site domain, domain aliases, and domain-based redirects.
• For Deploy Previews, you can customize your domain after the Deploy Preview prefix deploy-preview-# with an automatic deploy subdomain. For example: deploy-preview-123.company.com.
• For branch deploys, you can customize your domain after your branch name with automatic deploy subdomains or branch subdomains.

For example: branch-name.company.com

For more example custom domains, check out the chart below.

Default Netlify subdomain

Unless you’ve set up a basic password protection or authentication, a production site/app on Netlify is accessible from its Netlify subdomain, which takes the form [name-of-your-site].netlify.app. Note that you can change the name of your site to change this Netlify subdomain.

For example, if your site is named brave-curie-12345, then by default your site is available at https://brave-curie-12345.netlify.app/.

Learn more about other types of default Netlify subdomains for other types of deploys in the chart below.

Example domains for deploys

Your site deploys can have different domain patterns based on the type of site deploy.

Custom domain examples

Site deploy type	Custom domain	Use case
Production deploy	company.com	Can set a primary domain for your production site.
Deploy Preview	deploy-preview-42.early-access.company.com	Can set a custom domain for Deploy Previews with an automatic deploy subdomain.
Branch deploy for a branch named staging	Branch subdomain: staging.company.com Automatic deploy subdomain: staging.early-access.company.com or staging.internal-events.com	Can set a custom domain for your branch deploys with an automatic deploy subdomain or branch subdomains.

Netlify subdomain examples

By default, your site deploys are available at a URL using the Netlify subdomain yoursitename.netlify.app. The Netlify subdomain URLs will always work even if you set up a custom domain for your site.

Site deploy type	Netlify subdomain	Use case
Production deploy URL	yoursitename.netlify.app	Typically a placeholder URL, ideal for internal development before assigning a custom domain for site visitors.
Deploy Preview	deploy-preview-42--yoursitename.netlify.app	Unique URL for previewing and collaborating on each pull/merge request.
Branch deploy for a branch named staging	staging--yoursitename.netlify.app Note: With a branch subdomain set up, the URL can be staging.yourcustomdomain.com.	Long-standing URL ideal for internal testing, QA teams, and ongoing development. To set up branch deploys, check out branch deploy controls.
Atomic deploy	1234abcd12acde000111cdef--yoursitename.netlify.app	Unique URL for a specific successful deploy. Also called deploy permalinks or just permalinks. Unlike the other site deploys, the web content at this URL never changes. A new deploy permalink is generated for each successful deploy of your site.