1. Rocketeers vs Laravel Forge
2. Who each tool is for
3. Feature comparison
4. When Laravel Forge is the better choice
5. When Rocketeers fits better
6. FAQ

#Rocketeers vs Laravel Forge

Laravel Forge is the default answer for PHP server management, and it earned that. Built by the Laravel team, it has provisioned close to a million servers over more than a decade. Rocketeers is a new take on the same problem — self hosting made effortless, on your own cloud accounts — launching in 2026.

One thing up front: Forge is a shipped, battle-tested product you can sign up for today. Rocketeers is pre-launch. This page compares Forge as it exists (as of July 2026) with what Rocketeers is building, so you can decide whether to join the waitlist or just use Forge now. Both are honest options.

#Who each tool is for

Laravel Forge is for developers who want servers and deployments handled without DevOps overhead — especially anyone in the Laravel ecosystem. It provisions a full stack (Nginx, PHP, MySQL/Postgres, Redis) on your cloud of choice, or spins up a Laravel VPS through Forge itself in seconds. It supports Laravel, vanilla PHP, WordPress, Statamic, Node.js, Nuxt, and Next.js.

Rocketeers is being built for developers and agencies who run many sites for many clients on their own infrastructure. Same bring-your-own-cloud philosophy, but with the agency workflow at the core: everything — servers, sites, domains, DNS, email, backups — organized by project and client, in one place.

#Feature comparison

Forge details verified from laravel.com as of July 2026. Rocketeers column reflects planned capabilities at launch (2026).

	Laravel Forge (shipped)	Rocketeers (planned, launching 2026)
Bring your own cloud	DigitalOcean, AWS, Hetzner, and others; custom servers	Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS EC2
First-party hosting	Laravel VPS (instant provisioning, billed via Forge)	No — strictly your own cloud accounts
Zero-downtime deployments	Yes, included on all plans (single server)	Yes — atomic, zero-downtime deploys
Multiple PHP versions per server	Yes	Yes
Client/project organization	Teams, orgs, role-based access	Sites, servers, and domains organized by project and client
DNS management	Domain & SSL management, hosted on-forge.com domains	Cloudflare and DNSimple integration
Domain registration	No (external registrar needed)	Namecheap integration
Backups	Database backups	Backblaze, Bunny, and S3-compatible storage
Email provider integration	Not a core feature	Mailgun, Postmark, Resend
Notifications	Notification center; Slack et al.	Slack, Discord, Telegram, MS Teams
Monitoring	Server monitoring, health checks, heartbeats	Uptime monitoring, metrics, alerts
Security	Automated SSL, security updates	Hardened defaults, firewalls, automatic SSL
Pricing	Flat-rate: Hobby $12/mo, Growth $19/mo, Business $39/mo	Not announced yet

Note the Hobby plan nuance: at $12/mo you get unlimited Laravel VPS servers but only one external bring-your-own-cloud server. If you manage your own Hetzner or DigitalOcean fleet, you effectively need Growth ($19/mo) or up.

#When Laravel Forge is the better choice

No hedging here — Forge is the right call in a lot of situations:

• You need something today. Forge exists, works, and has ten-plus years of production mileage. Rocketeers hasn't launched.
• You're deep in the Laravel ecosystem. Forge is built by the Laravel team and integrates tightly with the rest of the stack, including Laravel Nightwatch for monitoring.
• You want instant provisioning without a cloud account. Laravel VPS gives you a production-ready server in under 10 seconds, billed through Forge, with a shared web terminal for real-time collaboration.
• You value a proven track record. 970k servers, 3M sites, 56.9M deployments. Companies like Transistor.fm and Mumsnet run on it. That history counts for something when it's your clients' uptime.

#When Rocketeers fits better

Rocketeers is being built around gaps we kept hitting as an agency running client sites on Forge-style tooling:

• You organize work by client, not by server. In Rocketeers, projects and clients are the primary structure. Servers, sites, and domains hang off them — so "everything for client X" is one view, not a mental mapping exercise.
• You want domains handled end to end. Register through Namecheap, manage DNS through Cloudflare or DNSimple, point it at a site — without leaving the panel. Forge manages DNS records and SSL but doesn't register domains.
• Your whole stack should live in one place. Backups to Backblaze, Bunny, or any S3-compatible storage; transactional email via Mailgun, Postmark, or Resend; alerts to Slack, Discord, Telegram, or MS Teams. Fewer tabs, fewer dashboards.
• You're strictly bring-your-own-cloud. No first-party hosting upsell. Rocketeers manages servers on your Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, or AWS accounts — you keep the provider relationship and the root access.

To be clear: these are planned capabilities. We'll earn the comparison at launch.

#FAQ

Is Rocketeers available now? No. Rocketeers launches in 2026. You can join the waitlist today and you'll get one email when it goes live. Until then, Forge is a solid choice we're happy to recommend.

How much will Rocketeers cost? Pricing hasn't been announced. For reference, Forge charges flat rates of $12–$39/mo (as of July 2026), and you always pay your cloud provider separately with either tool.

Does Laravel Forge do zero-downtime deployments? Yes — as of July 2026, all new Forge subscriptions include zero-downtime deployments for a single server (the old Envoyer functionality, folded in). Multi-server zero-downtime deploys still require Envoyer. Rocketeers plans atomic zero-downtime deployments as a core feature.

Can I use either tool without Laravel? Yes. Forge supports vanilla PHP, WordPress, Statamic, Node.js, Nuxt, and Next.js. Rocketeers targets PHP sites broadly, with multiple PHP versions per server.

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Running client sites on your own cloud and want deployment, DNS, domains, and backups in one panel? Join the Rocketeers waitlist at rocketee.rs — no spam, one email when we launch.