It will be a second episode of Laravel Herd and Vagrant. Laravel Herd releases a premium version of Laravel Herd named Herd Pro. We discussed whether we should buy Laravel Herd or stick to the Vagrant. The discussions will give more details about choosing Laravel Herd Pro over Laravel Herd and Vagrant.

A brief introduction to Laravel Herd, Herd Pro, and Vagrant?

Are you familiar with Laravel Herd, Herd Pro, and Vagrant? If not, let me give you a quick rundown! These tools are essential for every Laravel developer out there. With Laravel Herd, you can easily manage your Laravel applications across multiple versions of PHP, while Herd Pro takes that to the next level with additional features and optimizations. And if you're looking for a way to create a standardized development environment, Vagrant has got you covered! It's a powerful tool to create and configure virtual machines for your development. Ready to take your Laravel game to the next level? These tools are a must-try!

Features of Laravel Herd

Laravel Herd has the following features:

1. Multi versions of PHP
2. Nginx
3. DNS
4. NodeJS support

In the pro version of Laravel Herd:

1. Dumps
2. Mail
3. Logs
4. Debugger

Features of Homestead Vagrant

Vagrant has the following features:

1. Multiple versions of PHP
2. Nginx
3. DNS with host-updater
4. NodeJS support (as far as I know, it is different)
5. Mail - Mailhog
6. logs - Nginx Logs
7. Debugger support

Similarities between Herd and Vagrant are already listed, so I would like to point out the differences.

Pros and cons of Laravel Herd (Pro) and Vagrant

First of all, it is lightweight. Lightweight means it is fast. I used Laravel Herd mainly for Drupal rather than Laravel. It is pretty cool enough for handling Drupal sites with ease. I also use it with DBngin for database access. It saves time for testing because it gives me bare metal performance.

Pros come with cons. Laravel Herd is good enough for many use cases, but if you buy the pro, pay for the license. It installs the apps on the host machine, and you will see libraries installed on your machine. Some may run since your machine boots up.

The main pros of Vagrant are it comes with a free, isolated development environment. It solely works on a Linux environment using a virtual machine. Host updater will also let you set hosts on vagrant start and let you set the hostname you want and custom TLD. It is an all-in-one solution with all features installed, and no more external support like DBNgin is needed.

The cons of Vagrant also lie in its pros. Virtualization will consume more computing power while you develop your application, which is a long-running task and battery impact. It takes your attention when you develop apps using an IDE, like PHPstorm.

Virtualization has one big problem. After using time by time, the system needs upgrades. Library additions are easy on Linux, but this will make your virtual machine disks fatter. Initial installation is 6GB space, then 14GB after two months of usage. Vagrant usually takes 14-16GB of space in your working environment.

On a Mac, it becomes further. If you don't have a parallel desktop or use only Virtualbox, you will have problems each time a new OS is released. Virtualbox is a community build, and you have to wait a couple of days, or even months, to get better support from Virtualbox on a new OS. Drupal mostly crash on Vagrant and makes the host machine reboot.

How should you choose them?

You should choose the Herd if you:

1. Develop on fast oriented testing approach
2. Native performance
3. Works on Drupal
4. Need PHP for system
5. can work on the shelf libraries.

You can choose Vagrant if you:

1. Need an isolated environment
2. Custom library requirements
3. Linux Lover

There is no restriction on choosing the better one. I installed both apps on my machine and working very well together. Buy the pro if you only heavily work on Herd today. The only thing Vagrant cannot beat Herd Pro is dump. Ray costs some amount, and you can choose if you want to use it.