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Laravel Forge Alternative

Discover the key differences between ServerAvatar' and Laravel Forge for Laravel hosting.
We'll dive into a detailed comparison to help you choose the best solution for your needs.

Fundamentals

Fundamentally, ServerAvatar and Laravel Forge are control panels or server management panels. Let's learn the differences in detail.

Generic Control Panel

ServerAvatar is a generic control panel for your servers that allows you to deploy any PHP, Laravel and Node.js sites on your servers.

Easy to use

ServerAvatar is built for non-technical as well as technical people. So, the interface has many one-click options and automated features.

Laravel specific Control Panel

Laravel Forge is built to deploy Laravel projects on servers. It means, deploying Node.js and some PHP applications is not possible.

Developer focused

If you are a Laravel developer who wants to only deplloy Laravel applications, Forge's Interface might be attractive to you.

Pricing & Plans

The pricing and plans of Laravel Forge and ServerAvatar are almost the same. So, Let's learn feature differences in plans.

Free Plan

ServerAvatar provides a free plan that you can use for 1 server and 1 site, forever.

Starter Plan ($12/month)

Starter plan in ServerAvatar provides 5 server slots, backups and basic monitoring for your servers.

Professional Plan ($29/month)

Professional plan in ServerAvatar allows unlimited servers and multiple team management options.

Additional Plans

Master and Business plans in ServerAvatar has comprehensive log monitoring and white-label capabilities.

Free Trial

Forge provides a trial plan for all the plans for limited time period so that you can understand if it fit your needs.

Hobby Plan ($12/month)

Hobby plan in Laravel forge allows you to manage 1 server. It does not provide backups and monitoring.

Business Plan ($39/month)

Business plan in Laravel Forge allows Unlimited servers, Team management, Database backups and monitoring.

Not Applicable

The equivalent plans with equivalent features are not available in Laravel Forge.

Tech Stacks

Different tech stacks allow you to host different types of applications on your servers. Let's see the tech stack options we have in both the control panels.

LAMP (Apache) Stack

A tech stack built with Apache, PHP and MySQL/MariaDB along with Redis, Git, and other required services.

LEMP (Nginx) Stack

A tech stack built with Nginx, PHP and MySQL/MariaDB along with Redis, Git, and other required services.

OpenLitespeed Stack

OpenLiteSpeed stack in ServerAvatar is specifically good to host super fast WordPress sites.

MERN Stack

A tech stack built for Node.js, MongoDB, Express.js and React. You can host Node.js based apps on this tech stack.

LEMP (Nginx) Stack

A LEMP stack in Laravel Forge comes with all the services configured like ServerAvatar. It additionally provides support for Postgres database server.

Other tech stacks not available

Laravel Forge comes with only one tech stack. You cannot set up your server with any other tech stack.

Server Management

In this section, we will compare the core server management features in both the panels.

Database management

ServerAvatar provides comprehensive Database and user management with fundamentally secure setup and secured remote access out-of-the-box.

System User Management

ServerAvatar provides complete system user management. You can control access to SSH/SFTP as well as provide isolated environments for each site.

Cronjob management

ServerAvatar provides cronjob management with all the required features.

Automatic Disk Cleaning

One-Click or Automatic disk cleaning in ServerAvatar allows you to clean selected log files and temporary files to free up space for sites.

One-Click Server Troubleshooting

ServerAvatar control panel provides one unique feature that helps you find issues in any part of the server very quickly.

Ioncube Support

ServerAvatar provides one-click Ioncube installation to help you deploy sites that require Ioncube support.

Service Management

You can easily monitor (CPU and RAM) used by various services and also restart, stop or reload any service.

Automatic Site Migration

The automatic site migration feature allows you to migrate your sites between servers with a few clicks.

Advanced Log Viewer

ServerAvatar provides an in-built log viewer that allows you to search and filter through logs to help you debug quickly.

Automatic Backups

ServerAvatar provides automatic backups for whole applications, databases or files.

Control Panel Access

Provide control panel access to user with URL, username and password. ServerAvatar account is not required to access the server.

Custom Vhost Configuration

In ServerAvatar, You can add additional configuration to your virtual host files using the file manager.

Database Management

Laravel Forge provides fully capable database management but in comparison with ServerAvatar, it has limitations like remote access, and controlled database access.

System User Management

The system user management in Laravel Forge is limited to providing a isolated environments for projects. However, it does not provide controls to manage it.

Cronjob management

Laravel Forge provides cronjob management with all the required features.

Automatic Disk Cleaner

Laravel Forge does not provide disk cleaner.

One-Click Server Troubleshooting

Laravel Forge does not provide one-click server troubleshooting or similar feature.

Ioncube support

Laravel Forge does not support ioncube out-of-the-box.

Service Management

Laravel Forge does not provide any direct service monitoring or management options.

Automatic Site Cloning

Laravel Forge does not have automatic site cloning feature.

Limited Log Viewer

Laravel Forge has a log viewer with very limited capabilities. It can only display 500 lines of log on panel.

Automatic Backups

Laravel Forge provides automatic backup options for your databases managed by Forge.

Control Panel Access

Control panel access or similar feature is not provided by Laravel Forge.

Custom vhost configuration

Laravel Forge does not allow you to add custom config to your virtual host file.

Application Management

Application management is equally important to manage and maintain your applications after deployment. Let's see different application management features provided by both the control panels.

Application Auto-installers

ServerAvatar provides more than 10 Auto-installers for various popular applications.

Deploy From Git

You can deploy your custom PHP/Node.js applications from Github, Gitlab as well as BitBucket.

Scriptable Deployments

Create and maintain the deployment scripts for your Laravel and custom projects.

Push to Deploy

ServerAvatar provides push-to-deploy functionality along with deployment logs.

Automatic SSL Certificates

The SSL certificates for your sites can be installed with one-click and renewed automatically, for free!

Automatic Staging Area

ServerAvatar provides an automatic staging area for your applications to test or integrate new features.

File manager

You can quickly access your application files from the web based file manager. Edit, create, extract, anything is possible.

Per Site PHP Version and Settings

You can manage PHP versions and various PHP.ini settings from the control panel for your apps, individually.

Node.js Support

Install and configure your server to host Node.js based applications with one-click.

Supervisord/Queue Management

ServerAvatar allows you to create and manage processes with Supervisor, very efficient and easy for Laravel.

Cloudflare Integration

Cloudflare integration allows you to manage the SSL levels, forced SSL, and many other settings directly from ServerAvatar.

Temporary Domains/Sites

In ServerAvatar, You can quickly spin up a new site without needing your own domain for testing purposes.

One-click Fix File permissions

Facing an irritating file permission error? One-Click fix all file permission issues in ServerAvatar.

Application Auto-installers

Laravel Forge has limited auto-installers with WordPress and PHPMyAdmin.

Deploy from Git

You can deploy your PHP/Laravel applications from Github, Gitlab, BitBucket as well as custom Git servers.

Scriptable Deployments

Create and maintain the deployment scripts for your Laravel and custom projects.

Push to Deploy

Laravel Forge provides push-to-deploy functionality similar to ServerAvatar.

Automatic SSL Certificates

The SSL certificates for your sites can be installed with one-click and renewed automatically, for free!

Automatic Staging Area

Laravel forge does not provide any native staging area feature.

File Manager

Laravel Forge does not provide file manager.

Per Site PHP Version and Settings

You can manage PHP versions and various PHP.ini settings from the control panel for your apps, individually.

Node.js Support

Laravel Forge does not provide node.js support.

Supervisord/Queue Management

Laravel Forge allows you to create and manage processes with Supervisor, very efficient and easy for Laravel.

Cloudflare Integration

Laravel Forge does not have any direct Cloudflare Integration.

Temporary Domains/sites

Laravel Forge does not provide any similar feature.

One-Click Fix file permissions

Laravel Forge does not provide any similar feature.

Security & Monitoring

Monitoring and Security is must for any cloud hosting setup. Both the control panels provide different level of features in this section. Let's see them in detail.

UFW Firewall Management

ServerAvatar's easy to use firewall management allows you to manage ufw status as well as firewall rules.

Isolated Environments

Each application deployed on ServerAvatar has isolated environment to avoid speading infections on server.

Manage SSH Credentials

Manage SSH access as well as credentials for your system users and control access on your infrastructure.

IP WhiteListing and 2FA

Allow log in to your account from white-listed IP addresses only. Further secure your account with 2FA.

Automatic Security Updates

ServerAvatar performs regular security updates on all your servers. You can also set the frequency.

Fail2Ban Management

ServerAvatar provides Fail2Ban management to secure login forms on your applications.

Basic Authentication

Basic authentication allows you to temporarily/permanently enable additional authentication layer on your app.

Server Health Monitoring

Server Health Monitoring in ServerAvatar includes CPU, RAM and Disk usage along with 5 min and 15 min load average.

MySQL/mariadb query monitoring

ServerAvatar allows you to monitor the number of queries executed every 5 minutes on your database server.

Log analysis (access logs)

Explore Request, Error, Bot Traffic, User agent and bandwidth usage information with Insighthub in ServerAvatar.

UFW Firewall Management

Laravel Forge also allows you to manage UFW firewall rules on your server.

Isolated Environments

Each application deployed on ServerAvatar has isolated environment to avoid speading infections on server.

Manage SSH Credentials

Manage SSH access as well as credentials for your system users and control access on your infrastructure.

IP Whitelisting and 2Fa

Laravel Forge provides 2FA but it does not provide IP whitelisting feature.

Automatic Security Updates

Laravel Forge does not provide regular security updates on your server.

Fail2Ban Management

Laravel Forge does not provide Fail2Ban or other similar service.

Basic Authentication

Laravel Forge does not allow you to manage basic authentication from the panel.

Server Health Monitoring

Server Health Monitoring in Laravel Forge includes CPU, RAM and Disk usage only.

MySQL/mariadb query monitoring

Laravel Forge does not provide similar feature.

Log Analysis

Laravel Forge allows integration with Papertrail that allows you to explore your logs.

Team Management & Sharing

Team management features allow you to share access to your infrastructure with your team or clients. Let's see how both the control panels differ in this case.

Manage Multiple Teams

In ServerAvatar, You can create multiple organisations to manage multiple teams.

Control Access with Permissions

ServerAvatar provides detailed permission management to ensure controlled access to the servers.

White-Labelled Control Panels for Clients

In addition, ServerAvatar also allows you to white-label the server control panels and share them with clients.

Manage Multiple Circles

In Laravel Forge, You can create multiple circles to manage multiple teams.

Control Access with Permissions

Laravel Forge also provides detailed permission management to ensure controlled access to servers.

White-Labelled Control Panels for clients

Laravel Forge does not offer you any white-label option as of now.

Deploy your next project on ServerAvatar For Free!

Get started with our free plan which allows you to deploy 1 server and 1 application. You can continue to use it forever without time limit.
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