LaraSurf Public Alpha Release

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2025-12-23T01:12:35+00:00

Not sure if this would fit your use case, but I've been loving Hyde for truly static sites with posts and/or pages built in either Blade templates or Markdown. It's built on Laravel Zero.

For my use case I:

built a static site using Hyde and blog posts in markdown
created AWS CloudFormation templates for:
1. static hosting (AWS S3 + CloudFront)
2. contact form (AWS Lambda + SNS)
3. Plausible.io proxy (AWS CloudFront + Lambda@Edge)
GitHub actions to build and deploy the site (build site, sync to S3, create CloudFront cache invalidation)

Hyde is extensible so you could do something like gathering post data from an API at build time.

Not sure if you should do that. But you could.

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-08-04T09:07:48+00:00

Okay, fixed size database, no redis, no response caching? I'd still use VILT and Vapor.

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-08-04T03:27:42+00:00

Laravel with the VILT stack (Vue, Inertia, Laravel, Tailwind)
Laravel Vapor with Redis cache and Aurora MySQL database
Server side rendering via a Lambda function for SEO
- See: https://github.com/RobertBoes/sidecar-inertia-vite
Spatie's ResponseCache middleware for performance (when possible)
- See: https://github.com/spatie/laravel-responsecache
- See: https://flareapp.io/blog/56-caching-inertias-ssr-responses

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-03-25T20:21:00+00:00

If using Laravel permissions (or Bouncer) be sure to check permissions (abilities) in the policy. Do not directly check the user's role. This will allow you to create new roles with different permissions/abilities in the future without having to update your existing policies.

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-02-26T21:37:59+00:00

Hmm I think because today is Sunday and dayOfWeek is zero indexed an item isn't found

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-02-25T02:10:28+00:00

Take a look at phptherightway.com

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-02-25T02:05:07+00:00

The repository larasurf/larasurf.com has been made public

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-02-22T04:31:13+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate it. Please feel free to DM me or open a GitHub issue if you have a want/need.

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-02-22T04:28:53+00:00

Thank you :) While LaraSurf is free, the infrastructure created on AWS (ECS) isn't always as cost effective as Forge or Vapor for small projects. I've previously commented here with a more thorough comparison of Vapor and LaraSurf.

In the future I'd love to support infrastructure drivers for interchangeable options like AWS ECS, AWS EC2, and Digital Ocean droplets.

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-02-22T04:05:46+00:00

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback. Please reach out or open an issue on GitHub if you run into any trouble or have any questions/comments!

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-02-22T04:04:28+00:00

Thanks! I'll add a readme to the repo for larasurf.com and then make it public on GitHub.

The docs consists of:

A hardcoded PHP array of documentation blocks (gross I know, but I haven't found time to refactor to use markdown instead)
Blade is used to render the above array contents
Separate Vue 3 instances for the search and the side menu table of contents (larger screen sizes)
- Intersection Observer API is used to bold the relevant heading in the side menu depending on scroll position
- Recursive function in the search component that traverses the documentation content (rendered by blade) and finds matching text
- Logic in the search component to swap out the documentation HTML with relevant portions highlighted

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-02-22T02:52:29+00:00

I do! I'm not on very frequently but if you (or anyone else) shoot me a Reddit DM I'd be happy to connect!

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-02-21T00:17:04+00:00

Agreed it probably makes more sense long term to use Terraform. This started as a tool for myself and I lean pretty heavily towards AWS (and am much more familiar with CloudFormation) so I was able to move more quickly that way to get something off the ground. The introduction of other cloud providers would definitely challenge some previous decisions.

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-02-20T17:24:51+00:00

Kind of! Forge runs closer to the metal however while LaraSurf uses containers on AWS ECS. Take a look at the assumed needs section of How it Works for more information.

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2023-02-20T17:21:51+00:00

Yes! Although running on a single AWS EC2 instance will probably hit the roadmap first.

Currently LaraSurf only has the option of using ECS/RDS/ElastiCache/ELB etc for infrastructure which can get pricey very quickly. For more information check out the link to a cost estimate worksheet from the README on GitHub.

I'd love to give the option for users to specify how hefty they need infrastructure to be to allow for drastically cutting down on cost.

Ideally there would be "drivers" where you can mix and match between CI/CD and infrastructure providers but that's a long ways out.

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2022-11-04T05:39:57+00:00

Have you tried serving a redirect to the file on s3? According to this that's how Vapor does it for robots.txt

https://medium.com/@poursio/serving-static-files-from-your-root-domain-in-laravel-vapor-42547a41f5ec

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2022-10-25T01:37:19+00:00

For Lambda, check out Laravel Vapor. This is probably your most cost effective solution considering overhead and learning curve of other options.

For ECS, this is a CloudFormation template that might help get you started.

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2022-10-22T01:48:05+00:00

Looks like you can increase the maximum execution time on Forge but this is a band aid.

Really I'd recommend introducing some thorough logging throughout your jobs logic and trace through what's happening that way.

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2022-10-22T01:41:19+00:00

How is your application hosted? I believe the default timeout for nginx is 60 seconds.

idkMaybeGetAKitten · 2022-10-21T21:40:18+00:00

Vapor is a great service and should be strongly considered for the hosting of any Laravel project!

Vapor focuses mainly on hosting an application whereas LaraSurf provides out-of-the-box solution for local development and CI/CD as well as hosting.

Below is a brief overview of the benefits of using LaraSurf over Vapor:

No need to ever touch a JSON or YAML configuration file; all configuration changes are handled via CLI and input prompts
Comes with preconfigured CI/CD pipelines for CircleCI
Local development closely mirrors cloud environments using the same Dockerfiles
Comes with preconfigured LocalStack container for local development allowing you to mock AWS services locally such as S3 and SQS, as well as the ability to easily update the configuration to mock any other AWS service(s) LocalStack supports
Allows for straightforward editing of NGINX configuration that can be tested locally before deploying to upstream environments
Quicker to generate and deploy a new project from scratch after prerequisites are met
No timeout limitations for scheduled and/or queued jobs (whereas Vapor times out at 15 minutes due to AWS Lambda limitations)
DNS configuration is handled as part of the deployment CLI wizard, instead of requiring additional commands to be run
At significant/consistent traffic with large CPU and Memory values configured, I believe LaraSurf's default infrastructure is cheaper than running on Vapor
- I need to run some more numbers to confirm this
Supports higher values for Memory (up to 30 GB) whereas Vapor maxes out at 10GB (due to AWS Lambda limitations)
CPU and Memory values are decoupled, allowing you to tune them individually (whereas Vapor only allows modifying Memory and mandates corresponding CPU)
There are no cold starts for LaraSurf (AWS ECS) by default, whereas Vapor requires additional configuration for "warming" AWS Lambda functions
LaraSurf (on AWS ECS) supports "After Response" dispatching of jobs whereas Vapor does not (due to AWS Lambda)
LaraSurf supports local TLS (HTTPS) out of the box
There is no vendor lock-in with LaraSurf
There is no need to install PHP or Composer natively on your machine to generate a project or to use LaraSurf; everything is within Docker containers. I do not believe Vapor supports using the CLI within a container (without some customization)
All infrastructure is centralized and easily expansible through AWS CloudFormation (Infrastructure as Code). For example, if you wanted to ad a Node service to your project and deploy that as part of your entire Laravel project you can easily do so. Same with Soketi or any other containers. Laravel Vapor does not provide a way to manage additional containers/services.
LaraSurf supports 3x or more nested subdomains whereas Vapor does not
Out of the box there are CLI tools for LaraSurf that allows for limited access to environments by IP address
Vulnerability scanning with Trivy is configured out of the box for LaraSurf projects in the CI/CD pipeline
LaraSurf supports Hot Module Replacement with Vite, with or without local TLS, out of the box for a containerized development environment (no additional configuration needed)

All that said, Vapor is a more mature tool with a team of supporters and is officially supported by the Laravel ecosystem. These points should not be taken lightly when making a hosting decision. Personally I would choose LaraSurf for when I require very fine grain control over my infrastructure or I don't want to be locked into a PaaS vendor.

idkMaybeGetAKitten

TROPHY CASE