Best Provider & administrating Server

Forge handles...some of the server administration for you. For security, it's a lot better than nothing, but it also has some weaknesses.

For example, it will set up things like Nginx, PHP, Apache, and so on. It will configure a firewall, so it handles some security.

However, I don't believe it offers automatic security patches / updates. There are more specialised services like ServerPilot that do this, but they don't come with all the other features that Forge offers.

Bear in mind I am saying this as someone who uses ServerPilot and has not used Forge.

You won't need Envoyer, only for high-availability apps you could adopt it.

I'd recommend DigitalOcean for independent programmers / small teams. Its services are usually lower priced than AWS, quality is high. Admin web panel is simple and to the point.

AWS feels bloated by its rich feature set. That being said, you could start out by using the AWS free tier for a year.

Haven't tried Linode.

I'm absolutely loving Laravel Forge. It's geared towards PHP ofcourse, but with some minor tweaks also usable for hosting node applications.

Additionally, Laravel Forge does supply so-called recipes when a Forge-related vulnerability has been found. This way, you can patch your server(s) when it's convenient for you with just a single click. For example, last July a recipe called "Patch HTTPoxy Vulnerability" was published.

@sandervanhooft You really cant compare DigitalOcean with AWS. DigitalOcean & Linode are pretty the same.

@christopher Why not? The EC2 instances are quite similar to DigitalOcean droplets. The free tier is great for experimenting.