# Cloning a Live Site

> The third way to create a site - clone makes a near-exact copy of a live site into a tenant, as drafts, with no keyword research and no generated copy.

Cloning is the third way to fill a new client site, alongside [porting](/docs/help/port-a-site) and [generating](/docs/help/generate-a-site). It makes a near-exact copy of a live site into a tenant: real content, real chrome, real images, as drafts you own and can edit.

Reach for clone when you want a plain, faithful copy of a site into the platform quickly, without the parity-report takeover workflow of a port and without the keyword plan and rewritten copy of a generate run.

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## What Cloning Does

Given a live URL and a target tenant, cloning brings over:

- **The real page content**, with semantic headings, as native builder elements
- **Images**, imported into your own media storage
- **Brand and logo** - the site's colors, fonts, and mark
- **Navigation and business details** (name, address, phone)
- **The site chrome** - header and footer, rebuilt in the builder
- Internal links relativized so pages point at each other, not back at the source

Every page lands as a draft. The tenant is created for you if it does not exist yet.

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## What It Does Not Do

Cloning is deliberately plainer than the other two flows:

- **No keyword research and no page plan.** You get the source's pages as they are.
- **No generated or rewritten copy.** The real prose comes across unchanged. Writing copy in the client's voice is the [generate flow](/docs/help/generate-a-site).
- **No parity scoring.** There is no coverage report to work through; if you want the measured, gap-by-gap takeover workflow, [port the site](/docs/help/port-a-site) instead.
- **No forms.** As with porting, a scraped form would still post to the old host, so re-add each form as an [embed](/docs/help/forms).

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## Running a Clone

From the platform repo, with your CMS running:

```bash
seedly clone https://the-source-site.com client-slug \
  --cms https://your-cms.example.com
```

The tenant is found or created by slug, the pages are captured and persisted as drafts, and the capture workspace is discarded afterward.

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## Choosing Between Port, Generate, and Clone

| You want to | Use |
|-------------|-----|
| Take over a client's existing site with a measured, gap-by-gap review | [Port](/docs/help/port-a-site) |
| Build a fresh site from a client's brand inputs, in their voice | [Generate](/docs/help/generate-a-site) |
| Make a quick, faithful copy of a live site as editable drafts | Clone |

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## After a Clone

The cloned pages are ordinary builder pages from here on. Review them, adjust anything the capture did not carry perfectly, re-embed forms, set the [brand](/docs/help/site-settings) and [custom domain](/docs/help/hosting-domains), then publish and [deploy](/docs/help/deploying) on your own schedule. Nothing goes live until you deploy.

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Source: https://seedlysites.com/docs/help/clone-a-site