How to Deploy Laravel on an Ubuntu VPS: From Zero to Live
Deploying Laravel to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) is a major milestone when your project is ready for real users: you get more stable performance, full control over the server configuration, and a clearer path to scaling compared to shared hosting. For beginners, though, the process can feel overwhelming—installing a web server, PHP, a database, setting file permissions, and enabling SSL. In this tutorial, you’ll deploy Laravel on an Ubuntu VPS from absolute zero until your application is reachable via domain/HTTPS. The focus is a production-ready setup (not just “it loads in the browser”), using safer practices: a non-root user, firewall rules, correct Nginx configuration, clean permissions, and Laravel production optimization. End goal: your Laravel app is online using Nginx + PHP-FPM, connected to a database, and served over HTTPS. Prerequisites Before you start, prepare: Ubuntu VPS 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTS (recommended for 2026) SSH access to the server (IP + username + passwor...