Laravel Forge review

Laravel Forge is a hosted control plane for provisioning and managing servers that run web applications. It sits between your team and the infrastructure provider: use Laravel VPS or connect a cloud provider, then manage server setup and application deployments through Forge. The servers remain yours to operate, with root access available.

Forge installs Nginx, PHP, MySQL, Postgres, Redis, and other essentials. It also handles tasks such as SSL setup, database management, and deployment automation. The homepage says it supports vanilla PHP, Nuxt, Next.js, WordPress, and Statamic as well as Laravel applications.

This is not a framework, application runtime, or replacement for a cloud provider. It reduces the manual work of setting up a server and shipping code, while leaving the underlying infrastructure and its costs in your stack. Teams still need to plan for server maintenance, application capacity, backups, and production operations.

Forge's homepage presents a web interface for provisioning and managing servers, sites, databases, deployments, and SSL. Its named integration path is connecting a cloud provider; it also offers Laravel VPS. Deployments can run scripts, and the homepage describes zero-downtime deployments, supervised queue workers, scheduled tasks, and a command palette.

The homepage does not name an API style, SDK, programming language, CLI, webhook protocol, or plugin system. Treat Forge as an infrastructure management service rather than assuming it is a code library. Check the vendor's docs to confirm whether the API, SDK, or CLI support your automation needs before designing a workflow around them.

Forge documents a ready stack that includes Nginx, PHP, MySQL, Postgres, and Redis. It supports apps including vanilla PHP, Nuxt, Next.js, WordPress, and Statamic. That breadth helps teams running mixed web stacks, but the integration surface for a specific framework or deployment pipeline should be verified in the docs.

Forge has no free plan. The Hobby plan costs $12 per month and includes one external server, unlimited Laravel VPS servers, unlimited sites and deployments, zero-downtime deployments, and community support. Growth costs $19 per month and includes a 5% Laravel VPS discount, unlimited servers, sites, and deployments, standard support, and server sharing with teammates. Business costs $39 per month, with a 15% Laravel VPS discount and advanced support. Custom pricing requires contacting sales.

These are subscription prices, not an all-in hosting bill. Cloud provider charges are separate, and Laravel VPS pricing is not published. The pricing page lists a Monthly/Annual toggle but does not publish annual prices. Ask for the annual rate and estimate the server and database costs with your provider before budgeting.

The listed plans do not price by requests, deployments, or usage. The pricing page lists unlimited servers, sites, and deployments on Growth and Business, but that does not make the underlying compute free. Growth and Business include sharing with teammates; Hobby does not list that feature. Confirm team needs and support expectations before choosing a tier.

Forge is sold as a hosted service for managing servers; root access applies to the servers Forge provisions, not to the Forge control plane. The vendor does not publish Forge's source availability or license, so teams that require an approved open-source license should ask before adopting it. Self-hosting the control plane is not listed as an option.

The vendor also does not publish a data export or migration process. Your applications and server configuration live on infrastructure you control, which gives you a route to move the workloads, but Forge-specific setup and deployment workflows may need to be recreated. One Reddit thread raised the need to migrate existing Envoyer and Forge setups, while another commenter described moving sites during server upgrades as a manual process. Document deployment scripts, server configuration, and database backup procedures so leaving the control plane is manageable.

Forge can automate repeatable setup, SSL, database tasks, and scripted zero-downtime deployments. Its homepage also lists database backups and monitoring, queue workers, scheduled tasks, and a dashboard for Laravel VPS CPU, memory, and usage. Root access preserves the option to tune the server, but it also means your team owns operational decisions.

Forge does not remove provider capacity constraints or the need to plan a multi-server design. One commenter on r/laravel said Forge was cheaper and more flexible but required them to keep servers running; another described major PHP and Ubuntu upgrades as tedious. A different commenter said a Forge setup was being outgrown under heavy traffic, while praising the ability to move to a managed platform.

Before relying on Forge, confirm your provider's availability and recovery options, the backup and restore path for databases, and how your team will handle OS and runtime upgrades. The vendor does not publish an uptime SLA in the homepage text. Treat scaling and compliance requirements as architecture questions to resolve before production.