# Hosting Guide

Estimated time: 8 minutes
Difficulty: Beginner

Recommended Hosting Providers

Option 1: Laravel Cloud (Easiest)

The official managed Laravel hosting platform.

# Install CLI
curl -fsSL https://cloud.laravel.com/installer.sh | sh

# Login
cloud login

# Deploy from your project root
cloud deploy

Laravel Cloud handles:

• Zero-downtime deployments
• Auto-scaling
• SSL certificates
• Queue workers
• Cron jobs

Option 2: Forge + DigitalOcean

Best balance of control and automation.

Step 1: Create a DigitalOcean Droplet

• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
• At least 2GB RAM (4GB recommended)
• 2 vCPUs

Step 2: Connect to Forge

1. Visit forge.laravel.com
2. Add your server (DigitalOcean)
3. Forge SSH's in and configures PHP, Nginx, MySQL, Redis

Step 3: Add Your Site

1. Add site: laracorekit.com
2. Connect GitHub repo
3. Click Deploy Now

Step 4: Set Environment Variables

In Forge → Site → Environment → Edit .env:

APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false
APP_URL=https://www.laracorekit.com
DB_DATABASE=laracorekit
DB_PASSWORD=your-secure-password
QUEUE_CONNECTION=redis
CACHE_DRIVER=redis

Step 5: Deployment Script

cd /home/forge/laracorekit.com
git pull origin main
composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
npm ci && npm run build
php artisan migrate --force
php artisan optimize
php artisan queue:restart

Option 3: Railway

Great for quick deployments with zero server management.

# Install Railway CLI
npm install -g @railway/cli

# Login
railway login

# Initialize project
railway init

# Add services
railway add mysql
railway add redis

# Deploy
railway up

Set environment variables in the Railway dashboard.

Option 4: Fly.io

Docker-based deployment with global edge distribution.

# Install flyctl
curl -L https://fly.io/install.sh | sh

# Login
fly auth login

# Initialize (creates fly.toml)
fly launch

# Deploy
fly deploy

fly.toml (based on your Dockerfile):

[build]
  dockerfile = "Dockerfile"

[env]
  APP_ENV = "production"

[[services]]
  protocol = "tcp"
  internal_port = 80
  [[services.ports]]
    port = 80
    handlers = ["http"]
  [[services.ports]]
    port = 443
    handlers = ["tls", "http"]

SSL Certificates

Using Let's Encrypt (Free)

# Install Certbot
sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx

# Issue certificate
sudo certbot --nginx -d laracorekit.com -d www.laracorekit.com

# Auto-renewal (runs twice daily)
sudo systemctl enable certbot.timer

Next Steps

Performance Optimization →