Best Laravel Hosting in 2026: Queue Workers, Cron, Redis and Octane
“It runs PHP” is not a Laravel hosting requirement. Every shared host runs PHP, and almost none of them will run a Laravel application properly.
The short answer: for most production Laravel apps, a VPS managed with Laravel Forge ($12/month plus the server) is the best-value route. If you would rather not touch a server at all, Laravel Cloud starts at $5/month plus usage. Shared hosting only suits apps with no queue workers and no scheduled jobs.
Score every host on four things, all confirmed by Laravel’s own documentation:
- A supervisor for queue workers. Laravel’s deployment docs describe queue workers, Reverb and Octane as “long-running services” that must be restarted on deploy. Shared hosting reaps exactly those processes.
-
A working cron. The scheduler needs one entry running
schedule:runevery minute. - Redis. Horizon, Laravel’s queue dashboard, “requires that you use Redis to power your queue.”
- Somewhere to run Octane, if you want it.
Jump to: Queue workers · Memory · Octane · Forge vs Cloud vs managed · Shared hosting · The hosts · FAQ
Hosting for queue workers and Horizon
Queue workers are the line between hosts that work and hosts that don’t. A worker is a process that has to stay alive after you log out, restart when it crashes, and restart again after every deploy.
On a server you control, that means a process supervisor (Supervisor or systemd) running php artisan queue:work. Laravel’s queue docs cover the Supervisor setup, and --tries=3 sets how many times a job may be attempted before it is marked failed.
What each type of host gives you:
| Host type | Queue workers | Horizon | Cron every minute |
|---|---|---|---|
| VPS + Forge | Yes, Forge manages daemons | Yes (Redis installed) | Yes |
| Laravel Cloud | Managed queues; worker clusters on Growth and up | Redis-compatible Valkey cache available | Task scheduler included |
| Managed PHP cloud hosting | Usually, check the plan | If Redis is offered | Usually |
| Shared hosting | No | No | Often limited to 5 or 15 minutes |
After every deploy, restart long-running services. Laravel provides one command for it: php artisan reload. On Laravel Cloud you don’t need it, because the docs say reloading is handled automatically.
If you want Horizon, the host needs Redis, and your queue connection must be set to redis. That rules out any plan without Redis, whatever else it offers.
The app itself is trivial
We built a stock Laravel 13.25 project on PHP 8.3 and measured it:
| What’s running | Memory |
|---|---|
| Laravel serving requests | 58.7 MB |
+ one queue:work worker |
89.7 MB |
A queue worker costs about 31MB. A Laravel app with a worker fits in 90MB, which is roughly 2% of a 4GB box.
This is the same finding as our Django measurements: the framework is not what you’re paying for. Your bill is decided by the database, Redis and how many long-running processes you need.
The exception is Magento, where the dependency stack genuinely is the cost. See our Magento hosting guide.
What about Laravel 13’s own requirements? Laravel 13 needs a minimum of PHP 8.3 and supports PHP 8.3 to 8.5. Laravel’s release table lists bug fixes until Q3 2027 and security fixes until 17 March 2028. Check that your host offers PHP 8.3 or newer before you buy.
Why Octane changes the hosting question
From Laravel’s Octane documentation:
“Octane boots your application once, keeps it in memory, and then feeds it requests at supersonic speeds.”
Traditional PHP is shared hosting’s best friend: a request arrives, PHP boots, responds and dies. Octane inverts that. Your application becomes a resident daemon, like a Node or Python service.
That makes Octane a different deployment model, not a tweak. It disqualifies any host that can’t run a persistent process. Octane supports FrankenPHP, Open Swoole, Swoole and RoadRunner, and Laravel’s deployment docs note FrankenPHP can also serve a Laravel app directly.
The practical rule: if you might want Octane later, buy a VPS or a platform that supports it now. You cannot add it to a shared plan.
We did not measure Octane’s memory use. A resident application server holds your app in memory permanently, so expect more than the 58.7MB above, scaling with worker count rather than request volume.
The three honest routes, with real totals
Route one: Forge on your own server
Laravel Forge provisions and manages the stack on servers from providers like DigitalOcean. Forge’s pricing page, read on 9 November 2026:
| Plan | Cost |
|---|---|
| Hobby | $12/mo, unlimited Laravel VPS servers, 1 external server |
| Growth (recommended) | $19/mo, 5% discount on Laravel VPS |
| Business | $39/mo, 15% discount on Laravel VPS, advanced support |
DigitalOcean’s pricing page lists a 4GB, 2 vCPU droplet at $24/month and an 8GB, 4 vCPU droplet at $48/month. So Forge Hobby on a 4GB droplet is $12 + $24 = $36/month, and on an 8GB droplet it is $60/month. You own the server; Forge owns the tedium.
Route two: Laravel Cloud
Laravel Cloud is the first-party platform. Its pricing page lists three plans:
| Plan | Cost | Notable inclusions |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $5/mo + usage (first month free) | $5 usage credit, scale-to-zero, 1 managed queue per environment |
| Growth | $20/mo + usage | Autoscaling up to 10 replicas, worker clusters, 10 managed queues per environment |
| Business | $200/mo + usage | Scheduled autoscaling, custom roles |
Usage is metered. Flex compute is capped at $6/month for a 512MiB instance and $12/month for 1GiB, billed per second while awake. Databases (MySQL or serverless Postgres), Valkey cache and object storage are billed on top.
The trade-off: you give up the box. Cloud suits teams who want deploys, queues, scheduling and scaling handled for them. A VPS suits teams who want a fixed monthly bill and root access.
Route three: managed PHP hosting
Managed hosts such as Cloudways run the server for you on top of DigitalOcean or AWS. Read the support scope before assuming it covers you. Managed hosting typically manages the server and excludes your application code, which on a Laravel app is everything that breaks. We went through what that boundary means.
The honest comparison: Forge automates your server, Laravel Cloud removes it, managed hosting maintains it. None of them debugs your queue job.
Where shared hosting fails, concretely
No supervisor. You can’t keep queue:work alive. Some people run queue:work --once from cron, which functions but is not a queue system.
Cron at the wrong resolution. Laravel’s scheduler assumes an every-minute cron entry. Plans with five- or fifteen-minute minimums silently break everyMinute() tasks.
No Redis. You fall back to the database queue driver, which works but puts queue load on the database you’re already straining, and rules out Horizon.
No Octane, ever. Covered above.
The one-line test: if you can’t SSH in and run something under systemd or Supervisor that survives logout, you can’t run Laravel properly. It is the same boundary that rules out Docker on shared plans.
The hosts
DigitalOcean is the canonical Forge target. A 4GB droplet is $24/month and an 8GB droplet is $48/month, which with Forge Hobby gives the $36 and $60 totals above. This combination is our default recommendation for serious Laravel teams.
Hostinger has the cheapest VPS here that runs the full stack. Its pricing page lists KVM 1 (4GB RAM) at $6.49/month promotional, renewing at $11.99, and KVM 2 (8GB RAM) at $8.79 promotional, renewing at $14.99, on 24-month terms. Buy 8GB if MySQL and Redis share the box. See whether Hostinger is legit before committing.
Cloudways is the lowest-effort managed option if you want someone else patching the server. Confirm Redis and Supervisor availability on your plan, and read its support exclusions first.
Hetzner has the most RAM and cores per euro, which matters once MySQL, Redis, Horizon and several workers share a box. Forge supports custom servers. Read our Hetzner reliability notes first, especially on backups for attached Volumes.
Laravel Forge and Laravel Cloud are not affiliate links in this article.
What we’d buy
An 8GB VPS with Forge on top, running Nginx, MySQL, Redis, Horizon and your workers on one box. Your app’s 90MB leaves the rest for the database, and the $12 Forge tier removes the work that makes people pay for managed hosting in the first place.
Choose Laravel Cloud instead if nobody on your team wants to own a server and your traffic is spiky enough that scale-to-zero saves money.
Split the database out when recovery matters more than money, not before.
How we checked this
The memory figures are ours, measured on 18 August 2026. We built a container with PHP 8.3.33 and created a stock project with composer create-project laravel/laravel, which installed Laravel Framework 13.25.0. We served it with php artisan serve, sent 30 requests, then started a queue:work worker in the same container and re-measured with docker stats.
Read those numbers as a floor, not a forecast. A stock Laravel project has no packages and no application code, and artisan serve is PHP’s development server rather than php-fpm and Nginx. The measurement shows the shape, not what your production server needs. Measure your own app the same way.
We did not measure Octane, FrankenPHP, Swoole or RoadRunner. The description of what Octane does is quoted from Laravel’s documentation.
Everything else was read live on 9 November 2026: Laravel’s deployment, queue, scheduling, Horizon, Octane and release-notes pages on laravel.com; Forge’s pricing page; Laravel Cloud’s pricing page; DigitalOcean’s Droplet pricing page; and Hostinger’s VPS page. The $36 and $60 totals are our arithmetic on Forge Hobby plus the DigitalOcean droplet price.
What we did not do: deploy Laravel to any host, run Horizon on a real server, use Forge or Laravel Cloud, or benchmark anything beyond the memory test above. The host section ranks on product class and published pricing, not on a deployment we performed. We have not verified Cloudways or Hetzner prices today, so none are quoted.
The host links above (other than Forge and Laravel Cloud) are affiliate links.
FAQ
What’s the best hosting for Laravel?
A VPS with root access, because Laravel needs supervised queue workers, a per-minute cron and Redis. Forge Hobby ($12/month) on a $24 DigitalOcean 4GB droplet is the default for serious apps, $36 in total. Laravel Cloud is the alternative if you don’t want to manage a server.
Which hosting supports Laravel queue workers?
Any VPS where you can run Supervisor or systemd, Forge-managed servers, and Laravel Cloud, which has managed queues on every plan and worker clusters from Growth ($20/month plus usage). Shared hosting does not.
Can I run Laravel Horizon on shared hosting?
No. Horizon requires Redis to power your queue and needs a long-running process, which shared hosting doesn’t provide.
Can I run Laravel on shared hosting?
The web requests, often yes. The rest, usually not: no supervisor for queue workers, cron frequently limited to five- or fifteen-minute intervals, no Redis, and no Octane.
What PHP version does Laravel 13 need?
PHP 8.3 minimum, with support for 8.3 to 8.5. Laravel’s release table lists security fixes until 17 March 2028.
How much RAM does Laravel need?
We measured a stock Laravel 13 project at 58.7MB serving requests and 89.7MB with a queue worker. Real apps use more, but the framework isn’t your constraint. The database usually is.
What is Laravel Octane and do I need it?
It boots your app once and keeps it in memory, serving requests from a resident process. You don’t need it, but wanting it later means buying a VPS or platform that supports it now.
How much does Laravel Forge cost?
$12/month for Hobby, $19 for Growth and $39 for Business. That’s on top of whatever the server costs.
How much does Laravel Cloud cost?
Starter is $5/month plus usage with the first month free, Growth is $20/month plus usage and Business is $200/month plus usage. Compute, databases and cache are billed on usage.
Is managed Laravel hosting worth it over Forge?
Managed hosting manages the server and typically excludes your application code from support. Forge automates the server and leaves you in control. Neither will debug your queue job.
Do I need Redis for Laravel queues?
Not strictly, because the database driver works. But Horizon requires Redis, and the database driver puts queue load onto the database you’re already using.
