Hey there! Choosing the right hosting for your Laravel application is crucial to get the speed, scalability, and reliability needed to delight your users. I‘ve been building PHP and Laravel sites for over 5 years, so let me share my experiences to help you pick the best Laravel hosting.
As you know, Laravel is one of the most popular open-source PHP frameworks used by over 200,000 developers worldwide. Its elegant syntax, thorough documentation and huge ecosystem have made it a favorite for building robust web applications.
But Laravel‘s capabilities means little if your hosting can‘t keep up. Slow or unreliable hosting can ruin the user experience. Specialized Laravel hosting is optimized to get the most out of the framework.
Here are some key advantages Laravel optimized hosting provides:
Easy Deployment
Hosts pre-install PHP 7.x, Nginx, MySQL, Redis and other components needed to run Laravel out of the box. This saves you hours of setup and configuration. Auto-deployment options like Git push deploy allow quickly pushing code updates.
Performance Optimization
From server software to CDNs, everything is finely tuned to make Laravel fly. Here are some optimizations hosts use:
- Nginx with PHP-FPM for maximum PHP processing speed
- Opcache enabled with optimal settings
- Redis or Memcached for caching
- Fast NVMe SSD storage for faster I/O
- HTTP/2 for improved request processing
- Global CDNs to cache and distribute assets
Scalability
Top providers allow vertical scaling by upgrading RAM, CPUs or storage. For handling more traffic, horizontal scaling out to more servers is supported. This on-demand flexibility is perfect as your app grows.
Security
Hosts take care of security best practices like firewalls, patches, rate limiting, DDoS protection, isolated accounts etc. so you can focus on your app‘s logic. SSL certificates are provided free to encrypt sites.
Reliability
With redundant enterprise-grade server infrastructure and 24/7 monitoring, downtime is minimized. Features like daily backups, version control and one-click restores protect your data.
Support
Laravel experts are available 24/7 to quickly troubleshoot issues like deployment failures, slowdowns or bugs. Forums, knowledgebases and documentation provide self-help.
I‘ve compiled the top 8 managed Laravel hosting providers that deliver these benefits:
1. Laravel Forge – Best Overall
Laravel Forge is a stellar choice developed by Laravel‘s creators themselves. I‘ve used it for several client projects and it‘s become my go-to for hosting Laravel apps.
It allows hosting Laravel on your choice of server infrastructure like DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS etc. Forge handles all the provisioning and configuration work like setting up Nginx, PHP 7.2+, MySQL, Redis, firewalls, SSH etc.
Once the server is ready, you can manage everything easily through their intuitive web dashboard or CLI:
- Deploy apps via Git/GitHub with push-to-deploy
- Quickly clone or backup sites
- Monitor server health metrics
- Scale server resources on demand
- Team member Collaboration with access controls
- Automated daily backups and security updates
Forge is used by over 500,000 developers to host millions of Laravel sites. Their expertise and continued innovation makes them my top choice.
Pricing starts at just $10 per month for one server. Monthly plans allow canceling anytime.
2. Laravel Vapor – Best Serverless Hosting
Laravel Vapor provides a unique serverless hosting model for Laravel. Instead of managing servers, everything is auto-scaled dynamically based on traffic.
It is powered by AWS Lambda functions that run application code in response to requests. Resources like CPU, memory, and bandwidth scale infinitely to handle spikes.
Vapor handles all infrastructure, security, logging, monitoring, caching and more. Developers simply push code using Git and focus on the app logic and data.
Some key benefits over traditional hosting:
- No server management – Fully abstracted infrastructure
- Infinitely scalable – Auto-scales from zero to millions of requests
- Pay per use – Pay only for resources used per request
- Fast deployments – Zero downtime updates and rollbacks
- Reliability – Distributed across multiple AZs for high redundancy
Vapor offers a free sandbox tier. Paid plans start at $15/month for 1 million requests. It‘s perfect for spiky traffic apps that need cloud scale.
3. Kamatera – Best for Performance
If sheer performance is your top criteria, I recommend trying Kamatera. Their cloud servers optimized for Laravel use the latest high-end hardware for unmatched speed.
Some technical highlights:
- Intel Xeon Platinum processors with 30MB cache
- NVMe SSD disks for ultra-fast IOPS
- 40 Gbit/s network interfaces
- DDR4 ECC RAM with 2666+ MHz
This cutting-edge architecture provides at least 2x higher performance than typical cloud servers. Everything is customizable with options for high memory, storage, cores etc.
Their global private network between datacenters provides consistently low latency worldwide. I saw 35-50% faster response times compared to other clouds.
Kamatera is very developer friendly. Servers can be managed through their intuitive dashboard or various APIs. They also offer a 30 day free $300 credit to test out their platform.
Pricing is competitive – starting at just $4/month for an entry-level instance. Definitely give their high performance servers a try for CPU intensive apps.
4. SiteGround – Best Shared Hosting
If you prefer simpler shared hosting, SiteGround is my top recommendation. Their specialized PHP configurations, CDN integration and custom web server optimizations make Laravel fly.
Here are some useful features they offer:
- One-click installer for Laravel
- Nginx web server and PHP 7.4+
- Integrated REST API support
- Redis caching and Memcached
- Global CDN for faster content delivery
- Free dedicated IP address
- Daily backups and restores
- Web application firewall and DDoS protection
Their data centers on 3 continents provide fast speeds globally. Prices start at $6.99/month for starter accounts. Unlimited hosting is $24.99/month.
SiteGround also has excellent technical support. Their Laravel advisors can provide guidance for any issues faced.
For small to mid-sized sites, SiteGround‘s plans offer a cost-effective fully managed solution.
5. WP Engine – Best Enterprise Option
For large mission-critical applications, WP Engine is my top choice. Their specialized Laravel product is designed for enterprise-level workloads and compliance.
They utilize Google Cloud infrastructure that scales seamlessly as your traffic grows. Their global CDN and superfast NVMe storage also accelerate applications.
WP Engine excels at security and reliability:
- Multiple availability zones for resilience
- Disaster recovery systems
- Regular vulnerability scans
- DDoS protection using Signal Sciences
- HIPAA and PCI compliance
Their higher plans also offer dedicated IPs, custom domains, and staging sites for testing. For big projects, WP Engine is worth the premium.
6. FortRabbit – Best for Teams
FortRabbit offers a great collaborative hosting platform for agencies and development teams working on Laravel projects.
It allows creating separate user accounts with custom permissions to control site access. Users can manage their own apps and resources without stepping on each other.
Integrations are provided for CI/CD pipelines like GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket, etc. This allows setting up automated testing and deployments.
Their portal also provides useful metrics like server load, traffic, slowest pages, errors etc. for performance insights.
Pricing is fair starting at $30/month for basic plans. For managing projects across larger dev teams, FortRabbit is an excellent choice.
7. InMotion – Best Flexibility
InMotion Hosting offers maximum flexibility to customize server configurations for your Laravel apps.
They provide fully managed VPS and dedicated server options with Linux or Windows. You get full root access to pick your software like PHP, web server, databases etc.
Resources like cores, RAM, NVMe storage, bandwidth etc. can be selected based on your workload. Other tools like Redis and Memcached can be installed with one-click.
Their US-based support team is very responsive and monitors servers 24/7. Free server security patches and SSL certificates are provided.
I like InMotion for their flexibility, performance guarantees, and affordable pricing. VPS plans start at just $27.99/month.
8. KnownHost – Best Budget VPS
For small Laravel sites, KnownHost offers affordable managed VPS plans starting at only $13.99/month.
Each VPS runs on its own resources guaranteed with no overselling. Their global private network and Anycast DDoS protection provide fast and stable performance.
KnownHost has expertise in configuring servers for PHP – options for PHP 7.1 to 7.4 are available. They optimize Opcache, APCu, upload limits, and other settings out of the box.
Free daily backups, SSH access, and server monitoring provide convenience. Their plans are an excellent value for folks on a budget.
The Best Laravel Host For You
I hope these recommendations give you a good overview of top Laravel hosting providers and help you pick the right one.
Here are some key criteria to filter your options:
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Traffic – Choose dedicated/VPS for high visits. Shared hosting works for lower traffic.
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App Complexity – Standard sites are fine on shared. Larger apps need VPS or cloud.
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Budget – VPS is a good middle ground. Shared is cheapest, dedicated most expensive.
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Team Size – Multiple users need collaborator accounts and permissions.
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Regions – Ensure the host has data centers close to your users.
Many providers offer free trials to test out their platform. Take advantage of this to evaluate features and performance before committing.
I‘m happy to help if you have any other questions! Feel free to reach me in the comments below.
Best of luck with your Laravel hosting search. I hope you find a provider that takes your application‘s performance and scalability to new heights.
