Deploying Laravel 12: From Local Development to Production for Beginners

Laravel is one of the most powerful PHP frameworks, and Laravel 12 brings some exciting features and improvements. But building your Laravel application is only half the journey. The next step is getting it live so the world can use it!

In this blog, we’ll walk through step-by-step how to deploy your Laravel 12 application from your local development environment to a live production server. This guide is designed for beginners, so even if you’ve never deployed a Laravel app before, you’ll be able to follow along.

🛠️ What You Need Before You Start

Before jumping in, make sure you have:

1. A Laravel 12 application running locally
2. A live server (VPS or shared hosting) – we recommend DigitalOcean, Linode, or Laravel Forge for beginners
3. A domain name (optional but recommended)
4. Basic knowledge of SSH, FTP, or a control panel like cPanel

🧪 Step 1: Build and Test Your App Locally

Make sure your app is fully functional on your local system.

✅ Use .env for local config
✅ Run php artisan serve to test
✅ Check that your database, routes, and views work
✅ Run php artisan migrate and php artisan db:seed to test migrations and dummy data

🧳 Step 2: Prepare for Deployment

Laravel uses environment-specific settings, so let’s prepare:

2.1 Set APP_ENV to production

In your .env file (on the server), set:

APP_ENV=production
APP_DEBUG=false

2.2 Set up Git or ZIP your app

You can either:

• Push your code to GitHub/GitLab, then pull it on the server
• Or ZIP your project and upload it via FTP or control panel

🌐 Step 3: Choose a Hosting Option

Option 1: Shared Hosting (e.g., Namecheap, Hostinger)

• Use cPanel or FTP to upload your files
• Set public folder as your root directory
• Move files from /public to root or configure .htaccess

Option 2: VPS or Cloud Hosting (e.g., DigitalOcean)

Recommended for better performance and control.

• SSH into your server
• Install PHP, MySQL, Composer, and NGINX/Apache
• Create a directory for your app (e.g., /var/www/laravel-app)
• Clone or upload your Laravel app into this folder

🔧 Step 4: Server Configuration

4.1 Set correct permissions

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/laravel-app
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/laravel-app

Make sure the storage and bootstrap/cache folders are writable:

sudo chmod -R 775 storage
sudo chmod -R 775 bootstrap/cache

4.2 Set up a Virtual Host (Apache example)

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName yourdomain.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/laravel-app/public

    <Directory /var/www/laravel-app/public>
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Enable .htaccess if using Apache.

⚙️ Step 5: Final Laravel Setup on the Server

Run the following commands inside your app directory:

composer install
php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate --force
php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache

--force will skip the confirmation prompts, useful for production.

🔒 Step 6: Set File Permissions & Environment

• Ensure .env is correctly configured with your production database, mail, and other credentials.
• Do not upload your local .env file. Create a new one on the server and configure it properly.

🧼 Step 7: Remove Development Files (optional)

For security:

• Delete .env.example, .git, and any test routes
• Remove unnecessary logs from storage/logs

📶 Step 8: Connect Your Domain

If using a VPS:

• Point your domain’s A record to your server IP
• Wait for DNS to propagate
• Use Let’s Encrypt to install an SSL certificate (https)

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache
sudo certbot --apache

🚀 You're Live!

Visit your domain, and your Laravel 12 app should now be online!

✅ Bonus Tips for Production

1. Use a process monitor like Supervisor for queues:

sudo apt install supervisor

2. Enable caching for better performance:

php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache

3. Set up daily backups of your database

4. Monitor logs with tools like Laravel Telescope or external services

🧠 Conclusion

Deploying Laravel 12 may sound overwhelming at first, but once you understand the steps, it becomes a repeatable and smooth process. Whether you’re using shared hosting or a full-blown VPS, this guide gives you the essential building blocks to get your app from local to live.

Keep experimenting, keep deploying, and soon this process will feel second nature.