The Site home is the initial page seen by someone reaching a Moodle site before or after login. Typically a student will see courses, some blocks of information, displayed in a theme. In the Navigation bar and Navigation block it is called "Home".
On new installations from Moodle 5.2, Enable Home is turned off in Site administration > Appearance > Navigation. While it is off, the Site home is not available: visitors who are not logged in are sent to the login page, and logged-in users are taken to their start page. See Default start (home) page.
A combination of site policies, user authentication and site home settings determine who can get to the Site home. And once they get there what they can see and what they can do.
In many ways, the Site home has similar features and functions to those in a Course. For example, Activities, Resources and Blocks can be added to the Site home to give it different looks. A summary and image may also be added to the central area by enabling the topic section in Site home settings.
