Laravel Forge

What Is Laravel Forge?

Laravel Forge is a server provisioning and management tool for PHP applications. It is not a hosting platform like Vercel or Netlify - it does not own any servers. Instead, Forge sits on top of the VPS servers you provision at cloud providers like DigitalOcean, Hetzner, AWS, Vultr, or Linode, and handles all the infrastructure configuration work that would otherwise require direct server administration.

When you spin up a new server through Forge, it installs and configures Ubuntu, Nginx, PHP-FPM, MySQL or PostgreSQL, Redis, and everything else a production PHP application needs - in minutes, from a UI. From there, Forge handles deployments triggered by Git pushes, SSL certificate provisioning and renewal via Let's Encrypt, Nginx configuration per site, queue worker management via Supervisor, scheduled cron jobs, and environment variable management. The underlying server is a standard Ubuntu VPS that you own and pay for directly with your provider.

This architecture has a meaningful implication for agencies and teams: you are not renting compute from Forge. You are paying a flat subscription fee for the management layer, while the servers themselves belong to you (or your client). That means no usage-based billing, no surprise invoices, no vendor lock-in, and full control over server sizing and location. When Forge is not the right fit anymore, your servers keep running exactly as configured.

Key Features

• Zero-downtime deployments - Forge now deploys to a new release directory and flips an atomic symlink on success. Traffic never hits partially deployed code. This feature was introduced in 2024.
• Nginx management - Per-site Nginx configs are editable directly in the dashboard. No manual SSH for routine config changes.
• Automated SSL - Let's Encrypt certificates are provisioned and renewed automatically. Custom certificates are also supported.
• Queue workers via Supervisor - Background workers are configured per site in the UI. You set the connection, queue, timeout, and restart policy without touching a config file.
• Named cron jobs - Scheduled tasks are managed through the Forge dashboard with human-readable names, predefined intervals, and custom cron expressions.
• Multi-provider support - DigitalOcean, Hetzner, AWS, Vultr, Linode, and custom Ubuntu VPS servers are all supported from the same Forge account.
• Environment variable management - Per-site env vars are stored and synced to the server's .env file on deploy.
• Database management - MySQL and PostgreSQL are installed and managed by Forge. The Business plan adds automated database backups.
• Server monitoring - The Business plan includes a monitoring agent with configurable CPU, memory, and disk alerts.
• Forge CLI - A terminal-based interface for deployments, server switching, site management, and log access.

Pricing

Forge charges a flat monthly subscription, separate from your VPS costs:

Annual billing is available and saves roughly 17%.

Your VPS costs are billed directly by your provider. A Hetzner CX22 (2 vCPU / 4 GB RAM) starts around $6/mo and handles multiple Laravel sites comfortably. A DigitalOcean Droplet at the equivalent spec is closer to $18/mo. The point is: you choose your VPS size and provider based on your project needs, and there is no usage metering from Forge itself.

For an agency on the Growth plan managing ten client sites across five Hetzner servers, the all-in infrastructure cost might be $19 + $30 = $49/mo. That is hard to beat.

In 2024, Forge also launched Laravel VPS - a managed VPS product sold directly through Forge, available at tiered pricing depending on Hobby, Growth, or Business plan. This is optional and does not change the core Forge model.

Our Experience

We have been running Forge as our default provisioning tool for Laravel projects for years, and it remains our first instinct for anything that needs a VPS. The tool handles the work we used to do manually - configuring Nginx server blocks, setting up Supervisor for queue workers, managing SSL renewals, wiring up deployment scripts - and does it reliably without getting in our way. When we take on a new Laravel client or launch a new internal project, the server is provisioned, configured, and deploying from Git in under an hour.

The 2024-2025 generation of Forge is a meaningful improvement over earlier versions. Zero-downtime deployments shipping as a first-class feature (not a custom script) fixed a real gap. The new dashboard is cleaner and faster to navigate day-to-day. Named cron jobs and per-site queue worker configuration reduced the mental overhead of managing multiple projects on shared servers.

Where we still feel the edge of Forge is when a client project needs PR preview environments - for staging design changes before merge, for example. We have set up forge-previewer via GitHub Actions for a handful of projects and it works, but it is clearly a workaround rather than a feature. For projects where PR previews are a core part of the workflow, we evaluate Laravel Cloud or Vercel depending on the stack.

When Lucky Media Recommends Laravel Forge

We reach for Laravel Forge when:

• The project is a Laravel application - API, web app, or a Statamic CMS site - where a persistent, always-on server is the right model
• The client or project needs predictable, flat-rate infrastructure costs with no usage-based surprises
• The project uses background jobs, queue workers, WebSockets, or other long-running processes that do not fit serverless execution models
• We are managing multiple client projects and want a single pane of glass across all their servers
• The team wants full server control - being able to SSH in, adjust PHP config, install additional packages - without sacrificing a management UI
• Performance requirements make server proximity and sizing important, and we want to choose our own VPS region and size

We would suggest alternatives when:

• The project is a pure static or frontend-heavy site (Next.js, Astro with no PHP backend) - Vercel or Netlify are a better fit
• The team genuinely needs zero-ops and does not want to think about server administration at all - Laravel Cloud is designed for that use case
• PR preview environments are a hard requirement and setting up a GitHub Action workaround is not acceptable overhead
• The project needs auto-scaling in response to unpredictable traffic spikes - Forge servers are fixed-size instances
• The client or team is fully serverless and already committed to AWS Lambda or similar - Forge is the wrong layer for that infrastructure model

faq

What is Laravel Forge and how is it different from a hosting provider?

Laravel Forge is a server provisioning and management tool, not a hosting provider. You bring your own VPS from DigitalOcean, Hetzner, AWS, Vultr, Linode, or any Ubuntu server - and Forge handles the setup and ongoing management: Nginx configuration, PHP-FPM, SSL certificates, deployment scripts, queue workers, and cron jobs. You pay your VPS provider for the server, and you pay Forge a flat monthly fee for the management layer.

How does Laravel Forge pricing work?

Forge has three subscription tiers: Hobby ($12/mo, one external server), Growth ($19/mo, unlimited servers), and Business ($39/mo, unlimited servers plus automated database backups, server monitoring, and team collaboration via Circles). Annual billing saves roughly 17%. These fees are on top of your VPS costs, which start around $5-6/mo on Hetzner or DigitalOcean for a basic server.

Is Laravel Forge free?

Forge does not have a free tier. Plans start at $12/month (Hobby, one external server) and go up to $39/month (Business, unlimited servers with database backups and monitoring). Annual billing saves roughly 17%. These subscription fees are separate from your VPS costs, which you pay directly to your cloud provider. Hetzner starts at around $6/month for a server that handles multiple Laravel sites comfortably, making Forge cost-effective relative to managed PaaS alternatives at similar capability levels.

What is the difference between Laravel Forge and Laravel Cloud?

Forge is a tool you use to manage your own VPS servers - you control the infrastructure, the costs are predictable, and there is no lock-in. Laravel Cloud is a fully managed PaaS built by the Laravel team, similar to Vercel or Render - you push code and the platform handles everything, including auto-scaling and native PR preview environments. Cloud is usage-based and can scale to zero; Forge is flat-rate and always-on. We use Forge for client projects where cost predictability matters and Cloud for projects that need auto-scaling or heavy preview environment workflows.

What are the best alternatives to Laravel Forge?

The main alternatives are Ploi, RunCloud, and SpinupWP for provisioning tools in the same category, and Laravel Cloud or Render for teams that want a fully managed PaaS instead. Ploi ($8/mo) is the closest Forge competitor - it supports the same cloud providers, has a similar UI, and costs less on entry-level plans. RunCloud focuses on WordPress and PHP but works for Laravel. SpinupWP is aimed at WordPress. For teams that want to eliminate server management entirely rather than just simplify it, Laravel Cloud is the natural next step - it handles everything Forge handles, plus autoscaling and zero-ops infrastructure.