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we suggest you start with the following:
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v13.18.1 View changelog
Introducing Herd 2.0
The Laravel development environment.
Herd gives you a fast, native PHP and Laravel stack for every project on your machine. Install it once and manage everything in one place without external dependencies.
A demo of Herd on Windows: Edge shows my-next-project.test, a new Laravel app served by Herd. Next to it, Herd lists it with two other recent apps. Each has its own settings: its URL, workspaces with their own domains, its database, queue, cache and broadcasting services, its PHP and Node.js versions, and HTTPS.
85,000+ developers use Herd every day.
From independent developers to engineering teams at some of the world's most famous companies.
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Your local stack. Sorted.
One app for
every project.
Herd installs and runs the infrastructure Laravel expects. You get native performance and one reliable place to control your sites, PHP versions, services, certificates, and configuration.
The complete stack
PHP, nginx, DNS, Node, nvm, Composer, and the Laravel installer. Ready together, without containers or dependency chains.
A demo of Herd's settings on Windows. The PHP settings list PHP 8.6 to 7.4, where every version installs with one click in a few seconds, and PHP 8.5 is installed. The JavaScript settings do the same for Node.js with nvm, where Node.js 24 is installed, and the general settings list the folders whose sub-folders Herd serves as local .test domains.
Project-level control
Secure sites, switch PHP versions, share a herd.yml, and keep every project configured the way it needs to be.
A demo of Herd's Applications window on Windows, with the settings of acme-dashboard.test: its database, queue, cache and broadcasting services, its PHP and Node.js versions, and HTTPS, which are all set per site. After its PHP version is switched to 8.5, herd php -v in the site's folder in PowerShell shows that the site uses PHP 8.5.
Parallel workspaces
Give every branch its own copy of your app, domain, and database. Right from the app or with herd workspace.
A demo of Herd's workspaces on Windows: in PowerShell, herd workspace feature-auth --database=clone creates a copy of acme-dashboard on its own branch, served at feature-auth.acme-dashboard.test with PHP 8.4, HTTPS and a copy of its MySQL database. Herd's Applications window lists it right away as the site's first workspace.
Services on demand
Add MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, and more in a click. Run versions side by side, with the .env values ready to copy.
A demo of Herd's services on Windows: Redis, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB and Meilisearch run side by side, each on its own port, with the environment variables for the .env file of a Laravel app. Add Service installs a second PostgreSQL, version 18, which starts on port 5433 next to PostgreSQL 16.
Agentic development
With Laravel Boost, coding agents use the Herd CLI to analyze dumps and queries, test emails, and enable HTTPS.
A demo of Claude Code with Laravel Boost in the folder of coffee-tracker.test on Windows. Asked why the History page got slow and why the link in the weekly email doesn't work, it runs herd dumps:list --type=query and finds a query for each cup's bean, reads the email with herd mail:latest and finds links to http://localhost, eager loads the beans, secures the site with herd secure and sets APP_URL to https://coffee-tracker.test with herd site:env set.
Herd Pro
Unlock features built for Laravel teams.
Add databases, caches, search engines, local mail, insights, runtime context for your coding agents, and debugging tools from the same app. If your environment gets in the way, email the people who build Herd and get help from a human.
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MySQL
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MariaDB
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MongoDB
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PostgreSQL
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Xdebug
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Typesense
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Redis
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Valkey
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Mail
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Insights
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Tinker
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Explore Herd Pro
Introducing Herd Studio
There when you want it. Invisible when you don't.
Open any Herd site with its live preview, console, logs, terminal, and code context in one place. Your agent can understand the page in front of you without replacing your editor or taking over your workflow.
Use your agent
Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, or the CLI you already trust. Your subscription stays yours.
A demo of Herd Studio in the browser, open on coffee-tracker.test: someone asks the agent in the chat to add a daily caffeine limit with a progress bar. The agent explores the app, edits its view, and the live preview next to the chat shows the new progress bar as soon as the edit lands.
A simpler way in
New developers can start with the built-in coding UI while experienced teams keep the workflow they already have.
A demo of the "Edit with Herd" badge that Herd adds to the bottom right corner of every page of a site. Its panel shows the site's dev stack, php artisan dev, with the queue, the logs and Vite running, and opens a new chat, a terminal or Herd Studio.
Give it real context
Point at an element, attach an annotation, and include console errors without copying them between apps.
A demo of Herd Studio in the browser, open on coffee-tracker.test: in the live preview, someone picks the Log a cup button with the element picker and circles the week's chart with the pen. Both go with their prompt to the agent, which turns the chart into a line chart in the button's color, and the preview shows it as soon as the edit lands.
Edit text in place
Click any text in the preview and type what it should say. Your agent finds it in your views and changes it there.
A demo of Herd Studio in the browser, open on coffee-tracker.test: in the live preview, someone edits texts right on the page with the text tool, Log a cup to Log a coffee and Last 7 days to This week, and applies the changes. They go to the agent, which changes the texts in the view that renders them.
Review every change
See every file your agent touched with its diff, line by line, before any of it is committed.
A demo of the Changes view of Herd Studio, with the four files that the agent changed in coffee-tracker and how many lines it added and removed in each. Someone opens today.blade.php, whose diff shows the new progress bar and the changed texts line by line.
Commit and deploy
Let your agent commit and push the changes, then deploy them to Laravel Cloud from the same tab.
A demo of the Changes view of Herd Studio: someone picks Commit & push, and the agent commits the changes and pushes them. Then Deploy deploys the app to Laravel Cloud, through its prepare, build and release stages, until it's live.
From the community
Don't take our word for it.
Here’s what developers are saying.
Caleb Porzio
Creator of Livewire and Alpine.js
Herd is one of those pieces of software that makes you think “How did we manage without this for so many years”. It's golden.
Simon Hamp
Founder of Laradir
Herd has saved me from Brew and Docker hell.
Andreas Herss
Co-owner of Tickethero
Herd has simplified the way we do local development, how have we managed without for so many years? Herd pro is a no brainer.
Joe Kneeland
Founder of SiteBuilderStudio
Herd is the smoothest, best looking, smartest, and most charming of all the options. Worth every penny for pro. Herd is the way.
Michi Hoffmann
Senior Software Engineer at Sentry
Instead of waiting on brew to download half of the internet to setup PHP, it only takes a few seconds using Herd.
Gilbert Pellegrom
CTO of Lemon Squeezy
Herd is by far the easiest way to run PHP/Laravel sites on your Mac that I've tried. It's fast, has a great UI, the debugging experience is top-notch, and the team behind it are excellent.
Alex Garrett-Smith
Founder of Codecourse
Herd Pro makes local development so easy, I don't even think about it anymore. I'm never switching back.
Sascha Gysel
Co-Founder of Trenda
Herd allows our startup to spend more time on working on our product for our clients, instead of fiddling with setting up a dev environment. Brilliant 🚀
Eric L. Barnes
Owner of Laravel News
Herd is the best thing for PHP since Laravel.
Nuno Maduro
Laravel Core Team Member
Probably my biggest regret in life is not starting to use Herd sooner.
János Horváth
CTO of BrokerChooser
Our Development Team uses Herd (Pro) and onboarding or adding new services is the smoothest it's ever been.
Stephen Bateman
Founder of SellTickets.org
Herd is our whole team's default tool for local development. It's hard to imagine writing code without it. It improved our experience of Valet and replaced our need for Docker.
Simple pricing. Solo or teams.
Your stack.
Your kind of plan.
Start free with the complete local environment and Herd Studio. Add Pro for managed services, deeper debugging, and a direct line to the team behind Herd.
Herd
Everything you need to build locally
Free
No license needed
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PHP, nginx, DNS, Node
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Sites and per-project configuration
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Herd Studio
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Use your preferred coding agent
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PHP Profiler
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Community support
Free to download. Ready to build.
DownloadHerd Pro
The complete setup, zero hassle
$99
Per year
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Everything in Free
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MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, and more
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Mail, Insights, and Tinker
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Runtime context for coding agents
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Xdebug detection
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Email support from the Herd team
Stop configuring. Start shipping.
Get Herd ProHerd for Teams
One setup for your whole team
$299
Per year · 10 licenses
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10 Herd Pro licenses
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License management portal
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Shared project configuration
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Priority email support
Onboard faster. Ship together.
Get Pro for your teamLocal taxes may apply. Herd Pro includes a 14 days money-back guarantee.
FAQs
Still have questions
about Herd?
Users of the free version can create issues in the community repository. Herd Pro users and teams can also contact us at [email protected] but we recommend checking the community repository or the docs first.
However you like – using one is entirely optional. Herd Studio is there when you want it and invisible when you don't – Herd works exactly the same without it. If you do use it, Herd Studio works with Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, or any CLI you already trust, and your subscription stays yours. Your agent can also control Herd directly via the CLI.
You can activate every Herd Pro license key on two devices at the same time. If you get a new device, you can simply disable old activations in the license management portal and activate them on the new device. Every Herd Team license key comes with one activation. You can reset license keys and assign them to other team members at any time.
If your team is bigger than 10 developers, they are usually grouped into more than one team. Please buy multiple team licenses, you can manage them all in one account.
No, there isn't. However, the official documentation will get you a long way in understanding all additional features. All purchases are also covered by a 14-day refund policy.
You will receive an email with a renewal link 30 days before your license expires, or you can enable auto-renewal and we will renew your license automatically before it expires. If you decide not to renew, Herd automatically downgrades to the free version. Please make sure to backup your databases before your license expires. If you upgrade to Herd Pro again, all your data will be available again – we don't delete it during a downgrade.
Not… yet. We're working on bringing Herd to Linux, but it's not ready to ship just yet. Stay tuned.
Laravel development. Perfected.
One native app for your stack, every project, and the workflow you already trust.
The best tools for Laravel.
Working together.
Polyscope. Agentic dev for Laravel. Run agents in parallel, drive them from your phone or automate via API.
Explore Polyscope
Expose. Local sites, public in seconds. Test webhooks, share instantly. Native in Herd and free to start.
Try Expose