Managed deployment services like Laravel Forge and Envoyer are excellent and I use them on larger...
Managed deployment services like Laravel Forge and Envoyer are excellent and I use them on larger client projects. But you don't need them. Everything they do is SSH commands and symlinks, and you can do those yourself for free.
This is the deployment pattern I use on side projects and small client sites. It costs nothing beyond the VPS ($6/month on Hetzner or DigitalOcean).
The Releases Pattern
Instead of deploying directly to /var/www/app, you deploy to a timestamped folder:
/var/www/app/
How to deploy an app to your VPS automatically with GitHub Actions: lint, a blocking Trivy scan, Docker build to a private…
Uploading a ZIP file to cPanel after every small code change gets old very quickly. You fix one bug,...
Cloud CI/CD costs can get out of hand quickly. If your team is running heavy workflows on managed...
Manual deployments follow a fairly predictable pattern. They work fine until someone on the team...
Picture this: You just spent weeks building an awesome new feature. It's fully tested and ready to...
There was a ritual I do not miss: the manual deploy.
