# Deploying a site to Laravel Forge

> Learn how to deploy a Laravel app with Laravel Forge and DigitalOcean: create a server, connect GitHub, set env vars, and run the deploy script.

Author: [Flavio Copes](https://flaviocopes.com/about/) | Published: 2023-06-23 | Topics: [Laravel](https://flaviocopes.com/tags/laravel/) | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/

It’s all fun and all, but now we want to deploy the application on a real server, on the Internet, so people can use it.

There are many different ways to deploy a Laravel application. 

Probably the best one is using [Laravel Forge](https://forge.laravel.com/), the official deployment platform, combined with DigitalOcean.

When it comes to servers, and unless you like managing servers and you’re actually an expert, I am a fan of investing some money and saving time instead.

Forge in particular is official, made by the core team of Laravel, lots and lots of people use it (they claim over 500,000 sites are powered by Forge), and we can trust that to work as expected.

Forge does not provide a server to you. But it’s a service that connects to DigitalOcean and other VPS - virtual private server - providers like Hetzner, AWS, Vultr and more and it creates a server for you on that platform.

You could directly use a VPS, of course. Follow a tutorial, set everything up, invest hours into basically doing what Forge can do with a few simple steps. It’s a matter of convenience.

And in the long run, Forge can upgrade PHP for example with a simple click. If that’s left to you to manage, it’s more complicated.

Anyway, pick your poison. Spend time and effort, or spend some money and focus on your app.

How much money? Not much, $12/month. And it has a free trial.

Go to [https://forge.laravel.com/](https://forge.laravel.com/) and click the “Start a free trial” button:

![Laravel Forge homepage with Start a free trial button highlighted](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/1.webp)

Once you’re in, click “Connect to [GitHub](https://flaviocopes.com/github/)” to connect Forge to GitHub so it can pull your code:

![Forge dashboard with Connect to GitHub button](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/2.webp)

![GitHub authorization screen for Laravel Forge](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/3.webp)

Now it’s time to connect to a server provider.

![Server provider selection screen with DigitalOcean option](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/4.webp)

I pick DigitalOcean.

If you’re unsure, DigitalOcean gives you free credits, so you can try it out.

I click the link to create an API token and I generate one

![DigitalOcean API token creation page](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/5.webp)

![Generated DigitalOcean API token ready to copy](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/6.webp)

and finally I copy the code to Forge.

I now have access to the servers dashboard

![Laravel Forge servers dashboard with connected DigitalOcean](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/7.webp)

Here’s where you need to create the subscription. I picked the Hobby plan for $12/m, with a free trial of 5 days:

![Laravel Forge subscription plans with Hobby plan highlighted](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/8.webp)

Now back to the servers page, I can create a new server:

![Create new server button on Laravel Forge servers page](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/9.webp)

Here you can change the type of server you want to create. Pick “App Server” as it contains all you’re going to need.

Pick a region near you, and pick a modest server size, so you can save on server costs until someone actually uses your app (you can always upgrade the server later via the DigitalOcean panel)

In **Advanced Settings** you can configure more details such as the Operating System, Database and PHP version:

![Advanced server settings showing OS, database and PHP version options](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/10.webp)

I picked Postgres because I like that more, but it’s just a preference.

Click **Create Server** and the installation process starts:

![Server installation progress screen showing setup in progress](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/11.webp)

It will take some minutes, after which you’ll have your server up and running.

A server perfectly configured to run Laravel, already set up with the Nginx server, database, and much more.

Once it’s done, here is the control panel of your server. On the left, there’s a menu that gives you access to specific menus.

![Laravel Forge server control panel with left navigation menu](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/12.webp)

For example you have access to server logs through “Logs”:

![Server logs page showing various log files](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/13.webp)

You can see the scheduled jobs in “Scheduler”:

![Scheduler page for managing scheduled jobs](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/14.webp)

…and lots more.

Back to the Sites menu.

You can restart the entire server, or specific services, throught the **Restart** drop down menu:

![Restart dropdown menu showing server and service restart options](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/15.webp)

which is very handy, and you can deploy new sites on this server.

Each server can host multiple different sites.

There is a default one already set up, and if you copy and paste the public IP address of the server in your browser, you’ll see it working:

![Default Laravel Forge site showing welcome page in browser](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/16.webp)

Now let’s deploy the application on this site.

Ideally what you want to do is, you create a new site with a domain / subdomain assigned.

But it’s starting to become complicated for this handbook, so we’ll just use the default site which works on the IP address instead.

Click the default site in the dashboard and you’ll see the site panel:

![Site panel showing configuration options for the default site](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/17.webp)

We have the site in GitHub, so click “[Git](https://flaviocopes.com/git/) Repository”:

![Git Repository configuration form with repository name and branch fields](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/18.webp)

Now type the name of the repository you want to deploy prefixed with the GitHub account name, in my case `flaviocopes/second`,  select the branch (usually `main`) and click **Install Repository**.

After a while it’s done!

![Success message showing repository installation completed](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/19.webp)

But if you go to the IP address again, there’s an error:

![Browser showing 500 error page when visiting the deployed site](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/20.webp)

Mmmm! We don’t see more details because now the site is in a production environment, and we don’t show detailed logs to users. 

To figure out the problem let’s go back to the panel, open Logs and you’ll see the error is related to connecting to the database.

![Error logs showing database connection failure](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/21.webp)

If you look closely in the GitHub repository you will see the `.env` file was not pushed to GitHub, and this is correct because you don’t want to store the environment variables in Git.

In the Forge site config click the **Environment** tab, this is where you will edit your environment variables:

![Environment tab showing environment variables configuration](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/22.webp)

Comment the DB_* fields and add

```sql
DB_CONNECTION=sqlite
```

![Environment variables editor with DB_CONNECTION set to sqlite](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/23.webp)

Click **Save** and then **Deploy Now**.

![Deploy Now button to trigger manual deployment](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/24.webp)

If you go to the deployments menu you can inspect the deployment output, which is handy:

![Deployments page showing deployment history and output logs](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/25.webp)

If the build fails, you’ll get an alert and also an email, pretty nice.

The build seems to work fine but if you reload the browser we have another error now. Something about Vite. 

Remember we ran `npm run dev` to start Vite in development? 

Now we have to run `npm run build`, after running `npm install`.

We need to update our Deploy Script from the **App** tab, adding this at the end:

```sql
npm install
npm run build
```

![Deploy script editor with npm install and npm run build commands added](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/26.webp)

Then click **Update** and **Deploy Now**.

Now it works!

![Successfully deployed Laravel application running in browser](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/27.webp)

Also try registering in, it will work as expected and we’ll be able to add and edit data:

![Laravel application with user registration form working correctly](https://flaviocopes.com/images/deploying-a-site-to-laravel-forge/28.webp)

Nice! We’re done with deployments and Forge.

We could spend more time on this topic, but there’s so much more to explore.

We’ve seen how to create a Web Application, as simple as it could be, just a form that stores a field into a database, but complete with ready-made authentication provided by the Breeze starter kit.

We’ve seen basic routing, and models, views and controllers interact to store and retrieve data through the Eloquent ORM.

Let’s now move to other aspects of Laravel.