Laravel Forge vs strackt — honest comparison — strackt [ ](/ "Home") [How It Works](/how-it-works) [Pricing](/pricing) [Company](/company) [ How It Works ](/how-it-works) [ Pricing ](/pricing) [ Company ](/company) Comparison ---------- Laravel Forge vs strackt ======================== Laravel Forge provisions your server. strackt manages it. Forge is the canonical Laravel server panel. It's mature, battle-tested, and the right answer for thousands of developers. We're not trying to change that. If you want to set up a server and run it yourself, Forge is what you should pick. This page is for the developers who started with Forge, hit the maintenance treadmill, and started wondering whether someone else could just handle it. Where Laravel Forge wins ------------------------ We start here on purpose. ------------------------- If we can't be honest about what Forge does better, you shouldn't trust the rest of the page. - **Mature and battle-tested.** Forge has been running production Laravel servers since 2014. The edge cases are caught. The integrations are deep. There is a Stack Overflow answer for every question. - **Larger community.** The Laravel community lives on Forge. Almost every Laravel developer has used it or knows someone who runs everything on it. - **Cheaper at very high scale.** Forge is flat-rate per provider connection. Past roughly 20 applications, the per-app math flips in Forge's favor. If you're running 50 apps on one Forge subscription, Forge wins on cost. - **Broader stack support today.** Forge handles PHP frameworks beyond Laravel, plus Node and static sites. strackt is Laravel-focused at launch — that gap closes over time, but it is real today. - **Same Laravel-team pedigree.** Forge ships from Taylor Otwell's team. The Laravel-Forge integration is first-party, and that matters for some buyers. Where strackt fits ------------------ Forge sets up. strackt manages. ------------------------------- A dev lead at a 5–10 person company, running on Forge today. The setup works. They're not in crisis. But they're tired of the maintenance treadmill — the patches, the OS upgrades, the "did this server drift?" anxiety. They want to stop thinking about servers and start thinking about product. - **Forge sets up. strackt manages.** Forge provisions your server and deploys your app. After that, every patch, every OS update, every configuration drift, every recovery is on you. strackt manages the server continuously — security patches applied automatically, configuration enforced declaratively, recovery as a one-click action. - **Configuration drift goes away.** Your strackt server always matches its specification. If something has been changed manually, the next configuration cycle reverts it — or surfaces it for your review. There's no "what's actually running on this box?" anymore. - **Disaster recovery shrinks from hours to seconds.** On Forge, restoring from a broken state usually means a backup restore — minutes if you're lucky, hours if you're not. On strackt, every change creates a checkpoint. Roll back in seconds. Or rebuild from blueprint in minutes — same configuration, clean slate. - **App-centric, not server-centric.** On Forge you open a server to see what is on it. On strackt you open an application to see it running, and the server is a resource we placed it on. Different protagonist. Better for developers who think in apps, not in machines. Side by side ------------ Numbers as of April 2026; verify on the official sites linked next to every Laravel Forge cell. Laravel Forge strackt Primary object Server — open it to see what is on it Application — open it to see it running What it does Provisions and deploys Provisions, deploys, and manages continuously After deployment You maintain strackt maintains Configuration drift Your problem Enforced — server always matches its specification Security updates Manual or scheduled, your responsibility Automatic, applied within 24 hours Disaster recovery Backup restore (hours) Instant rollback (seconds) + rebuild (minutes) Stack detection Manual selection Automatic from your Git repository Pricing $12–39/mo flat ([live](https://forge.laravel.com/pricing)) First app free; €4/app/mo after, plus your VPS Stack support today PHP / Laravel / Node / static Laravel-focused (more frameworks coming) VPS providers DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS, Vultr, Hetzner, custom Any provider, any region Total cost — what you actually pay each month --------------------------------------------- Hetzner CX22 (€4.50/mo) is the VPS baseline for both columns. Laravel Forge pricing as of April 2026; verify on the live link next to the Pricing row above. Laravel Forge strackt 1 app (side project) ~€16.50 ($12 Forge + €4.50 VPS) **€4.50** (free + VPS) 3 apps (small SaaS) ~€23.50 (Forge Hobby + 1 VPS) **€12.50** (€8 + VPS) 8 apps (growing) ~€52.50 (Forge Business + 1 VPS) **€32.50** (€28 + VPS) 20 apps (agency) ~€61.50 (Forge Business + 1 VPS) **€80.50** (€76 + VPS) **Honest read.** strackt is cheaper at every scale below ~20 apps. Past that, Forge wins on raw price — but you are still maintaining everything yourself. strackt’s per-app price includes continuous management, automatic patching, instant rollback, configuration enforcement, and proactive monitoring. None of those are Forge bullets. If your math has you at 50 apps and you are happy on the maintenance treadmill, Forge is genuinely cheaper. If you are at 50 apps and your team would rather ship features than babysit servers, strackt is still the better trade. When Laravel Forge is the right pick ------------------------------------ We mean this. ------------- - You want full control of the server day to day, and you enjoy that work. - You're past 20+ applications and your team has the maintenance bandwidth. - You need framework / stack support strackt does not ship today (non-Laravel PHP frameworks, Node-only services, static-only deployments). - You're already on Forge, the setup works, and you don't want to migrate. Any of those — pick Forge. We're not trying to change your mind. When strackt is the right pick ------------------------------ You started with Forge. The maintenance is starting to add up. -------------------------------------------------------------- - You started with Forge, the maintenance is eating into product time, and you're looking for the next step. - You want someone else to handle patches, drift, and recovery — without giving up your VPS or your provider relationship. - Configuration enforcement matters: your servers should always match their specification. - A €4-VPS-plus-flat-rate-management bill is more predictable than a usage-based platform. - You'd rather ship features than reconcile infrastructure. Can I migrate from Laravel Forge to strackt without downtime? Yes. strackt does a live migration: we set up your application on the target VPS, sync state, and cut traffic over once the new server is verified. Your DNS doesn't have to change in the middle. Does strackt support non-Laravel applications? Not at launch. Today we're Laravel-focused — that's where the platform is most polished, and where our auto-detection is most accurate. Other PHP frameworks and Node are on the roadmap; we'll say so explicitly when they ship. What happens to my server if I leave strackt? Your server keeps running. You own it, your provider relationship is yours, and the configuration that ran on it is yours too. Take it elsewhere or run it yourself. Nothing locks you to strackt except the experience. Can I still SSH into my server? Yes. You always can. We don't take that away. What does "manage continuously" actually mean? Security patches applied within 24 hours. Configuration enforced — your server always matches its specification, no drift. Proactive monitoring with developer-language alerts (not raw metric thresholds). Instant rollback and blueprint rebuild as first-class operations. Same Laravel server. Less of your time. --------------------------------------- If Forge has gotten you this far and the maintenance is starting to add up, strackt is the next step. Same VPS, same provider, same SSH. We just take care of what comes next. Join the Waitlist Join You're on the list! [What to expect](/early-access) Early access opens mid-2026. Invite-based, small cohort, hands-on onboarding. Get started ----------- Your servers. Your provider. Your data. Our problem. Deploy your first app in minutes. Early access opens mid-2026. Join the Waitlist Join You're on the list! ### Product - [How It Works](/how-it-works) - [Pricing](/pricing) - [ELI5](/what-is-strackt) - API ### Company - [Blog](/blog) - [Company](/company) ### Support - Documentation - [Feature Requests](https://strackt.featurebase.app/) - Support ### Legal - [Terms of service](/terms-of-service) - [Security](/security) - [Privacy policy](/privacy-policy) © 2026 Madonie Holding. [ ](https://x.com/stracktio) We don't stack cookies. 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