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Hey guys, I'm new to Laravel, and I'm just curious about the php artisan serve - Does it fully simulate a server? Can I use it for development? And does it have any development downsides? Why is homestead forced instead of it?
I tried setting up homestead, but I had some issues with my Windows, so now I'm looking for an alternative. I also tried setting up WAMP and MAMP - MAMP refused any cooperation (because of some Windows port problems), while WAMP currently serves me only as a PHP holder and grants access to database via PHPMyAdmin, since it also has some issues, with site's internal links.
But non of that matters, since I'm using the artisan serve, and so far I didn't see a reason not to. I don't have a problem typing it in console all the time, if that's the main issue?
Homestead is preferred because you can setup a similar environment as your production server and if you're using more than one computer or more than one person, you can share the configuration.
I've been using WAMP and XAMPP on Windows 7/8/10 for a long time and it works fine for simpler projects. But on more complex project I ran into problems and decided to switch to Homestead, which I use now and enjoy. I'm also doesn't hurt that I get to learn a little Linux as a bonus.
@Dorćolac it is never to be used in production.
@usama.ashraf why it should not be used in production ? What are the backdrops ?
I'm pretty sure it's just a wrapper around php -S
As far as I know, its single threaded, meaning it can only handle a single request at a time. Fine for testing, very problematic for production.
More info on what it uses http://php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.webserver.php
I've had big problems with Homestead on my Windows machine. As server admin is the most tedious thing in the world and makes me want to hang myself I went and used https://laragon.org/. Very easy to set up and use (your experience may differ).
@topvillas I can't thank you enough for this, it's perfect! Setup is as easy as WAMP setup, and environment is as close as it gets to Homestead! Setting Homestead on Windows is too much of a headache, too many system collisions, I lost days trying to set it up, but couldn't manage to do it on Win10. So, I just switched to Laragon, I'm curios if it has any down sides?
php artisan serve is indeed just a wrapper around php -S .. it's for a quick test of things without having to set up a full web stack, decidely not for production use.
@Dorćolac I haven't found any yet but I haven't done anything too strenuous.
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