Choose Laravel Forge for small projects that need to control servers, and use Vapor for projects that do not require management of servers and have large traffic fluctuations. Forge can quickly configure cloud server environments, support multi-site coexistence and automatic HTTPS, and is low-cost (such as $5/month VPS); Vapor is based on AWS Lambda, billed on request, elastically expanded, but the initial settings are complex, suitable for combining static resource services such as S3; Forge requires a certain amount of knowledge in operation and maintenance, and Vapor almost does not require operation and maintenance; Vapor is elastic in performance, and Forge needs manual expansion; both of them support Git deployment, and Vapor also has a pre-release environment. Forge DigitalOcean is recommended for beginners to use first. Vapor needs to pay attention to the remote connection of the database.

When deploying Laravel applications, many people will be confused about whether to use Forge or Vapor. In fact, these two tools have different positionings. Which one is chosen depends mainly on your project needs and budget.

What is Laravel Forge?

Laravel Forge is a server automation management tool that helps you quickly create servers on cloud service providers (such as DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS) and automatically configure PHP, Nginx, MySQL and other environments. You only need a few clicks to deploy a production environment running Laravel.

Suitable for people:

• Developers who need to control server details
• Small projects that want to control costs
• People who are already familiar with server operation and maintenance but want to save time

Recommended usage:

• Can be paired with cheap VPS (such as DigitalOcean $5/month machine)
• Supports multiple sites to coexist, suitable for hosting multiple small projects
• Automatically configure HTTPS (via Let's Encrypt), basically no manual operation of certificates is required

What is Laravel Vapor?

Vapor is a serverless deployment solution based on AWS Lambda. It packages Laravel applications into functions and deploys them on AWS without having to manage the server itself. The resources are billed according to the requested amount, which is suitable for applications with large traffic fluctuations.

Suitable for people:

• Developers who want to completely eliminate server management
• Projects with unstable traffic and hope to save costs of idle resources
• People who don't mind binding to the AWS ecosystem

Recommended usage:

• The initial setup is a bit complicated, and you need to understand the AWS account and basic concepts.
• Free amount is limited, and the actual cost may be higher than that of ordinary VPS
• Easy integration with S3, CloudFront, etc., suitable for projects with a lot of static resources

How to choose? Compare from several key points:

• Operation and maintenance complexity : Forge requires a certain amount of server knowledge; Vapor hardly cares about operation and maintenance.
• Cost structure : Forge is a fixed monthly fee (server price); Vapor is billed by requests and resource consumption.
• Performance and scalability : Vapor is naturally supported for elastic scaling and suitable for burst traffic; Forge requires manual or automatic expansion.
• Development experience : Both support automatic deployment of Git, Vapor also has functions such as "pre-release environment".

Tips: Don't ignore these details

• If you are a novice, it is recommended to use Forge DigitalOcean first, which is simple and intuitive, and has rich documentation.
• Pay attention to database connection issues when using Vapor. It is recommended to use RDS or compatible remote database services.
• Forge supports local development synchronization (via SFTP or Deployer), Vapor is more suitable for CI/CD processes.

Basically that's it. Both tools have their own advantages, and choosing the right one can save a lot of trouble.

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