Almost all of us as backend Laravel or PHP developers use a server like Laragon or XAMPP, though most of us prefer Laragon for its flexibility, especially when switching PHP versions. However, Laravel recently (about a year ago) introduced a new tool called Laravel Herd. Let’s go over some of its features.
Firstly, Laravel Herd supports both macOS and Windows, and it’s worth mentioning that Herd is not Laravel’s first local server tool — they have other applications as well.
Herd allows you to easily change the PHP version and supports Node.js along with various databases like PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, SQLite, MySQL, and more. So far, nothing particularly groundbreaking, but let’s keep going.
One notable difference with Herd is that it doesn’t support Apache; instead, it uses Nginx.
If you’re unfamiliar with the difference between Apache and Nginx, we could make a post about that if you’re interested, my friend.
Now, onto something more practical. When you deploy a site to a host, you often use Filezilla or SSH. This is where Laravel offers Laravel Forge, which can be integrated with Herd to simplify and improve this process.
There are also nice options, like using Ngrok to quickly turn your device into an external server, or Expose. Additionally, you can create a copy of your local server settings, making it easy to share your environment with matching versions, all saved in a herd.yml file. You may recognize the yml format from Docker.
One feature I particularly like is Manage Sites, which helps you manage your local projects by assigning each one a domain, opening a terminal or Tinker for each, and allowing custom settings to be saved per project.
All these features are free so far, but…
Since we’re talking about convenience, Laravel Telescope also offers more advanced features like viewing logs, queries, and emails, with Xdebug support. However, these features in Herd are paid — they aren’t free.
Honestly, I’m not sure who would pay $100 a year for these options, but hey, to each their own.
That’s about it for Herd’s main features, though there are others. So, what do you think? Will you be leaving Laragon or your current local server for Laravel Herd?
Finally, here’s the link to the Laravel Herd docs for you to check out and try for yourself: Laravel Herd
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