Best hosting for Laravel apps in 2026
By CloudCostly editorial team Published July 3, 2026 Updated July 11, 2026
Laravel is a full-featured PHP framework, and hosting it well means thinking beyond a single web request. A serious Laravel app runs scheduled tasks, background queue workers, a cache layer, and often websockets, so your hosting has to support persistent processes and a proper cron, not just serve pages. This guide covers the realistic hosting options for Laravel in 2026, from managed deployment tools to raw VPS boxes, with sizing figures and provider names you can use straight away.
What makes Laravel hosting different
On the surface Laravel is PHP, so it runs anywhere PHP does, but a production app relies on features that cheap shared hosting handles badly. The scheduler needs a real cron entry, queue workers need to run as long-lived supervised processes, and cache and sessions perform best on Redis rather than the database. Those requirements nudge almost every real Laravel project toward a VPS or a managed platform. If you are still comparing the broad options, start with the VPS vs shared vs managed hosting overview.
The main hosting approaches
Laravel hosting in 2026 falls into a few clear camps, each with a different balance of control and effort. Picking the approach first makes the provider choice much simpler.
- Managed deployment on your own VPS: tools like Laravel Forge or Ploi provision and configure a server you own, then handle deploys. The dominant professional choice.
- Managed application platform: a service like Cloudways runs the stack for you on cloud hardware with minimal server work on your side.
- Fully hands-on VPS: a raw box you configure entirely yourself for maximum control and lowest cost.
- Serverless (Laravel Vapor): runs Laravel on managed cloud functions that scale automatically, trading predictable pricing for elasticity.
Sizing a Laravel server
Laravel sizing depends on request volume, the number of queue workers, and whether Redis and the database share the box. PHP-FPM worker count and Redis both consume memory, so RAM is usually the first ceiling you hit. The table below offers realistic starting points, and you can refine with the RAM sizing guide.
| App profile | Requests per minute (peak) | Queue workers | Suggested RAM | Typical monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small app or MVP | Up to 300 | 1 to 2 | 2GB | 10 to 20 USD |
| Growing SaaS | 300 to 1500 | 2 to 5 | 4GB | 20 to 45 USD |
| Busy production app | 1500 to 6000 | 5 to 12 | 8GB | 45 to 100 USD |
| High-scale, multi-node | 6000 plus | 12 plus | 16GB or several nodes | 100 to 300 USD |
These are ballpark figures. An app that leans on heavy queue processing, such as video encoding or bulk email, will need more workers and more RAM than the request rate alone suggests. Model your own workload in the cloud cost calculator.
Laravel Forge and the managed-VPS workflow
For most professional Laravel teams in 2026, the default is a managed deployment tool sitting on top of a VPS you own. Laravel Forge is the best known: you connect a provider account, and Forge provisions the server, installs Nginx, PHP, and the database, wires up queue workers and the scheduler, and gives you push-to-deploy from git. Ploi offers a very similar experience, often at a slightly lower price. The beauty of this model is that you keep full root access and pay the raw server price, while the tool removes nearly all the tedious setup.
Picking the VPS underneath
Because Forge and Ploi are provider-agnostic, you choose the actual hardware, which is where value providers shine. Hetzner is the standout for price-to-performance, with 4GB and 8GB boxes far cheaper than the big US clouds, and it pairs cleanly with Forge. DigitalOcean and Vultr cost a little more but offer more regions and very reliable networking, which matters if your users are spread globally. Compare live specs on the providers page, and see the Hetzner and DigitalOcean profiles for current pricing.
Cloudways for a fully managed feel
If you would rather not manage a server at all, even through Forge, Cloudways offers a more hands-off experience. It runs your Laravel app on DigitalOcean, Vultr, or Hetzner hardware while handling the operating system, security, and backups, and it includes built-in Redis and easy staging. You give up some low-level control compared with owning the box through Forge, but you gain a support team and a simpler dashboard. The Cloudways profile shows how the tiers compare, and the managed vs unmanaged hosting guide helps you weigh the trade.
Queues and background jobs done right
Queues are where Laravel hosting most often goes wrong. A queue worker is a long-lived process, so it must run under a supervisor that restarts it on failure and after reboots, never in a bare terminal. Supervisor is the classic tool, and if you are on Redis, Laravel Horizon adds a dashboard, auto-balancing, and metrics on top. Give workers their own memory headroom, because a job that loads large payloads can push a box into swap if you run too many workers for the available RAM.
- Supervisor or systemd: keep workers alive and restart them automatically.
- Horizon: monitor and balance Redis queues with a clear dashboard.
- Separate the work: heavy jobs can run on their own worker node as you scale.
Redis, cache, and the config cache
Redis is close to standard for production Laravel because it accelerates cache, sessions, and queues far beyond the database drivers. Running it on the same VPS is fine for small and medium apps, moving it to a nearby instance once memory pressure grows. Just as important is caching your framework configuration, routes, and views in production with the artisan optimize commands, which cuts per-request overhead and keeps memory use predictable. These small steps often matter more than a hardware upgrade.
Database choices and placement
MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL all run Laravel well, and the choice usually comes down to team familiarity. For small and growing apps the database happily shares the VPS with the web layer, which keeps latency low and cost minimal. As traffic climbs, moving it to a dedicated instance or a managed database service isolates it from web and queue memory spikes, so a heavy report query cannot slow your checkout or API. The rough trigger to split is when the database working set plus PHP plus Redis together approach 70 percent of RAM.
Serverless Laravel with Vapor
Laravel Vapor runs your app on managed cloud functions that scale automatically with demand, so you never provision a server. It is compelling for spiky or unpredictable traffic, since capacity follows load without manual intervention, and it removes server maintenance entirely. The trade-offs are less predictable pricing under sustained heavy load and a different mental model for the filesystem, queues, and long-running tasks. For steady traffic a well-sized VPS is usually cheaper, while Vapor earns its place where elasticity is the priority.
Deployment, zero downtime, and rollbacks
A professional Laravel setup deploys without interrupting users. Atomic deployments build the new release in a separate directory and switch a symlink once it is ready, so a visitor never sees a half-updated app, and rolling back is just repointing the symlink. Forge, Ploi, and Vapor implement this for you, while on a raw VPS a tool like Deployer gives you the same pattern. Always run migrations carefully and keep a recent database backup before any schema change.
Scaling from one server to several
A single well-sized VPS carries most Laravel apps a long way, and vertical scaling to a bigger box is the simplest first step. When you outgrow that, split roles across servers: web nodes behind a load balancer, a dedicated database, a Redis instance, and separate queue workers. Keeping the app stateless, with sessions in Redis and uploads on object storage rather than local disk, is what makes this horizontal scaling clean. Plan for it early even if you launch on one box.
Queues, workers and scheduled tasks
Laravel apps often do more than serve web requests, and this shapes the hosting you need. Queued jobs, background workers and the scheduler all run outside the normal request cycle, which means you need a server where you can run long-lived processes and cron, something a plain shared plan rarely allows. A VPS or a platform that supports worker processes is the natural home for a real Laravel app, so you can process emails, imports and notifications reliably in the background. Budget for a little extra memory to run these workers alongside the web process, and confirm the host lets you manage cron and daemons. Our sizing checker helps you find a plan with the headroom for both.
Conclusion and next steps
For most Laravel apps in 2026, the winning combination is a Hetzner or DigitalOcean VPS managed through Laravel Forge or Ploi, with Redis for cache and queues, Supervisor or Horizon keeping workers alive, and atomic deploys for zero downtime. Choose Cloudways if you want a more hands-off managed feel, and consider Vapor when elastic scaling matters more than predictable cost. Ready to size and price your stack? Run the numbers in the cloud cost calculator or compare current plans on the plans page and launch your Laravel app on hosting that fits both your traffic and your budget.
Frequently asked questions
Can Laravel run on shared hosting?
A simple Laravel site can run on shared hosting that offers a modern PHP version and Composer access, but you lose the ability to run queue workers and scheduled tasks reliably. Real applications need a persistent process for queues and a proper cron, which points to a VPS or a managed platform. Shared hosting is fine only for the smallest brochure-style projects.
How much RAM does a Laravel app need?
A modest Laravel app with PHP-FPM and a database is usually comfortable on 2GB, while apps with queue workers, Redis, and Horizon lean toward 4GB and up. Heavier traffic or many concurrent workers push toward 8GB. Caching config, routes, and views in production keeps memory use predictable.
What is the easiest way to deploy Laravel?
Managed tools like Laravel Forge or Ploi provision a VPS and configure Nginx, PHP, queues, and deployments for you, so you push to git and the server updates itself. This gives you full control of the underlying server while removing most of the manual setup. It is the most popular path for professional Laravel teams in 2026.
Do I need Redis for a Laravel app?
Redis is not strictly required, but it is the standard choice for cache, sessions, and queues once your app grows beyond the basics. It dramatically speeds up cache and session reads compared to the database driver and makes queue processing far more efficient. Most production Laravel apps run Redis on the same server or a nearby instance.
How do I run Laravel queues in production?
Run queue workers as supervised long-lived processes using Supervisor or systemd so they restart on failure, and use Laravel Horizon if you are on Redis for monitoring and auto-balancing. Never rely on running the worker in a terminal, since it will stop when the session closes. Managed platforms and Forge set this up for you automatically.