I tried Laravel Cloud (including preview environments). Drift Deploy is for teams who stay on Forge
A few days ago I posted asking if people still start new projects on Forge or have mostly moved to Cloud.
I also tried Cloud myself. It’s easy to get a Laravel app running, and its Preview Environments feature is simple to set up. If you want zero server work, that’s a strong option.
The replies were still full of Forge (and Ploi / VPS) for the usual reasons: cost, control, custom processes, and clients who don’t want AWS.
That’s where I still live for some work. I use Forge when I need a real URL for a pull request or a demo for a stakeholder/client.
For years I did that with Laravel Harbor. It still works: a CLI that talks to Forge from GitHub Actions, spins up a site for a branch, and tears it down when the PR is done.
The part that got old was doing that setup again for every app. Copy the provision + teardown workflows into the repo. Add the Forge token and server ID as secrets. Tweak domain, PHP version, env, and deploy script flags for that project. Then remember to keep those YAML files in sync when Harbor or the workflow changed. Fine for one app. Painful once you have a few Laravel repos on the same Forge server.
So I built Drift Deploy: connect GitHub + Forge once, then any Laravel app can get a preview URL on the server you already have.
- Label a PR → preview goes up
- Remove the label or merge → it comes down
- No GitHub Actions per project
Not a Cloud-previews competitor. Cloud already has that. This is for people staying on Forge.
Early. Free for 2 projects. Paid later if the feedback says it’s worth it.