Laravel Deployment & Server Management Blog

Cloud Repatriation for Laravel: From AWS to a $10 VPS

37signals saved ~$10M leaving AWS, and 86% of CIOs plan to pull workloads back. Here's what your EC2 + RDS + NAT + egress bill really buys a Laravel app, the VPS architecture that replaces it, and a step-by-step migration playbook with a safe DNS cutover.

Sameh Elhawary · Jul 15, 2026 · 16 min read

FrankenPHP in Production on a Plain VPS: The Real Setup

A hands-on guide to running FrankenPHP with Laravel Octane on a plain Ubuntu VPS: installation, a production systemd unit, the Nginx handoff, worker mode gotchas, and the cases where PHP-FPM is still the right call.

Sameh Elhawary · Jul 15, 2026 · 16 min read

SQLite in Production for Laravel: When One File Wins

The honest guide to running SQLite in production for Laravel: the WAL config that matters, backups that don't corrupt, Litestream replication, the atomic-deploy gotcha, and the signals that it's time to move to MySQL or Postgres.

Sameh Elhawary · Jul 15, 2026 · 14 min read

Upgrading to Laravel 13 in Production with Zero Downtime

A production playbook for upgrading to Laravel 13 without downtime: PHP pre-flight checks, Composer strategy, additive migrations, atomic symlink deploys, worker restarts, and a rollback plan that actually works.

Sameh Elhawary · Jul 14, 2026 · 15 min read

Migrating Laravel from Railway, Render, or Fly.io to a VPS

A step-by-step runbook for moving a Laravel app off Railway, Render, or Fly.io onto your own VPS: env export, database migration, cutover, rollback plan, and a before/after cost comparison.

Sameh Elhawary · Jul 14, 2026 · 16 min read

The New Laravel Forge, Nine Months Later: An Honest Review

Forge 2.0 shipped zero-downtime deploys by default, a $6/mo Laravel VPS, and Organizations. Nine months on, here's an honest practitioner's review: what genuinely improved, where the fine print bites, and how it reshapes the Forge-alternative decision.

Sameh Elhawary · Jul 14, 2026 · 12 min read

Laravel Cloud's $5 Plan vs a $5 VPS: The Real Cost Math

Laravel Cloud's new $5 Starter tier with scale-to-zero hibernation sounds like it kills the $5 VPS. We run the honest 12-month cost math for a real Laravel app, queues, scheduler, database and all, and show exactly where each option wins.

Sameh Elhawary · Jul 14, 2026 · 13 min read

Self-Hosted PaaS Showdown 2026: Coolify vs Dokploy vs CapRover vs Deploynix

Coolify vs Dokploy vs CapRover vs Deploynix, compared for 2026 — an honest, data-backed breakdown of GitHub adoption, Docker vs native models, pricing, and which self-hosted PaaS fits your stack, plus where a managed Laravel-first control plane changes the math.

Sameh Elhawary · Jun 21, 2026 · 13 min read

Laravel Telescope vs Pulse vs Nightwatch (2026): Which Should You Use?

Laravel Telescope, Pulse, and Nightwatch aren't competitors — they solve different problems. A 2026 guide to what each does, current Nightwatch pricing, and which to use.

Sameh Elhawary · Jun 18, 2026 · 10 min read

Running Artisan Commands Across Tenants: A Guide to tenants:run (stancl/tenancy)

There's no tenants:artisan command in stancl/tenancy — the one you want is tenants:run. A practical guide to running Artisan commands across every tenant.

Sameh Elhawary · Jun 17, 2026 · 9 min read

Valkey vs Redis: API Protocol, Data Format & Compatibility — The Technical Deep-Dive

Valkey vs Redis: identical RESP protocol, but RDB formats diverge after 7.4 and Valkey 8 hits ~1.2M RPS. The technical deep-dive on compatibility & migration.

Sameh Elhawary · Jun 16, 2026 · 13 min read

How Much Traffic Can a $5 Server Handle? Load Testing Laravel on Deploynix

Load test a Laravel app on a $5 server to find breaking points. Progressive testing, optimization tips, and when to scale up with Deploynix.

Sameh Elhawary · Apr 26, 2026 · 9 min read