Laradock alternative

Laradock solved a real problem: every service a PHP project might want, prebuilt, behind one docker-compose.yml. The cost is the shape it leaves behind. A laradock/ submodule inside the repo, a Compose file and an .env to keep in sync, a workspace container you have to shell into before you can run artisan or composer, images that build from source the first time, and one full stack per project when you have four projects open.

Lerd keeps the useful half and drops the rest. One shared nginx, one PHP-FPM per version and one instance of each service, all as rootless Podman containers under your own user. Every project gets a .test domain and a trusted certificate automatically. Nothing is committed to the repo, nothing is built from source, and composer and artisan run from your own shell.

curl -fsSL https://lerd.sh/install.sh | bash
cd ~/code/myapp
lerd link

Your project is live at https://myapp.test. No Compose file, no workspace container, no port to remember.

Every Laradock habit, and the Lerd equivalent

What you did in Laradock	The same thing in Lerd
docker compose up -d nginx mysql redis before you can work	lerd start once, then everything is up for every project
docker compose exec workspace bash to reach PHP tooling	lerd php, lerd composer, lerd artisan, run from your own shell in the project directory
Edit laradock/.env, set PHP_VERSION, rebuild the image	lerd isolate 8.4, or let it read composer.json, no rebuild
A laradock/nginx/sites/*.conf per project, plus /etc/hosts entries	An nginx vhost generated on lerd link, and the .test hostname registered for you
Self-signed cert wired in by hand, or plain HTTP	lerd secure, a real mkcert certificate trusted by your system and browsers
Uncomment a service in docker-compose.yml and rebuild	lerd service start mongodb, shared across every site
APP_CODE_PATH_HOST pointing at a sibling project directory	Projects live wherever you keep them, there is no parent folder to respect
docker compose logs -f php-fpm	A log viewer in the dashboard, or lerd logs
Queue and scheduler as extra Compose services	lerd worker start queue / schedule, as systemd user services with self-healing
laradock/ submodule committed to the repo	.lerd.yaml, optional, a handful of lines
Docker Desktop, or Docker Engine plus a daemon running as root	Rootless Podman, no daemon, no root

Lerd vs Laradock

	Lerd	Laradock
Platforms	Linux (systemd), macOS, Windows via WSL2 (beta)	Linux, macOS, Windows
License	Open source (MIT)	Open source (MIT)
Container runtime	Rootless Podman, no daemon	Docker, with a root daemon or Docker Desktop
Architecture	One shared nginx, PHP-FPM and service layer across every site	A per-project Compose stack, one container per service
RAM with 5 projects running	~200 MB	Several GB, five full stacks
First run	Pulls prebuilt images, minutes	Builds images from source, often much longer
PHP versions	7.4, 8.0 to 8.5, per project, no rebuild	Set in laradock/.env, rebuild the image to change
.test domains	Automatic, through a dnsmasq container	Manual /etc/hosts entries plus a site conf per project
HTTPS	lerd secure, trusted mkcert certificate	Bring your own certificate and wire it into the nginx conf
Running tooling	lerd artisan, lerd composer, lerd node from your own shell	docker compose exec workspace first
Files in the repo	None required, .lerd.yaml optional	laradock/ submodule, docker-compose.yml, its own .env
Works on a client repo you cannot modify	Yes, just lerd link	Only if you can add Laradock to it
Per-project service versions	No, services are shared and versioned globally	Yes, each project pins its own
Dashboard	Web UI at 127.0.0.1:7073, system tray, terminal dashboard	CLI, plus whatever Docker Desktop shows
AI / MCP	Built-in MCP server for Claude Code, Cursor, Junie and Windsurf	Not built in

Choose Laradock when: two projects genuinely need different major versions of the same database at the same time, your team already standardised on it, or you want the environment fully described inside the repo.

Choose Lerd when: you work across several projects at once and do not want a stack per repo, you are tired of rebuilding images to change a PHP version, you want .test URLs and HTTPS without wiring them, or you want to work on repos you cannot add files to.

Moving a Laradock project to Lerd

There is no automated importer for Laradock the way there is for Laravel Sail, because Laradock stacks vary too much to migrate blind. The manual path is five commands.

1. Dump the database while Laradock is still up. From the laradock/ directory:

docker compose up -d mysql
docker compose exec mysql mysqldump -u root -proot myapp > ~/myapp.sql

For PostgreSQL:

docker compose exec postgres pg_dump -U default myapp > ~/myapp.sql

Use whatever credentials your laradock/.env actually sets, they are commonly root / root for MySQL and default / secret for PostgreSQL.

2. Move the project out of the Laradock layout. Laradock expects the project to sit beside the laradock/ checkout, pointed at by APP_CODE_PATH_HOST. Lerd has no such requirement, so the project directory can go anywhere, for example ~/code/myapp.

3. Install Lerd and start it.

curl -fsSL https://lerd.sh/install.sh | bash
lerd start

4. Link the project.

cd ~/code/myapp
lerd link

Lerd detects the framework, picks the PHP version from composer.json, writes the nginx vhost, registers myapp.test and provisions the certificate. Use lerd init instead if you want to choose the PHP version, HTTPS and services through a wizard and save the answers to .lerd.yaml.

5. Start the services and restore the dump.

lerd service start mysql
lerd env
lerd db:import ~/myapp.sql

lerd env rewrites the DB_*, REDIS_* and MAIL_* entries in .env to match the services Lerd is running, so the connection values line up without you editing them. The original file is saved as .env.before_lerd the first time, and lerd env:restore puts it back if you want to return to Laradock.

6. Delete the Laradock leftovers. The laradock/ submodule, the Compose file and its .env no longer do anything. Laradock's persistent data lives outside the repo in ~/.laradock/data, so remove that too once you have confirmed the import.

Full detail lives in the quick start and the site management guide.

What is genuinely different

These are the places where the mental model changes, worth knowing before you commit to the move:

• Services are shared, not per project. One MySQL, one Redis, one Mailpit across every site. That is where the memory saving comes from, and it is also the one thing Laradock does that Lerd does not: pinning a different MySQL major version per project.
• No workspace container. PHP tooling runs through lerd php, lerd composer and lerd artisan, which execute in the project's PHP container but from your own shell, in your own directory, with your own files. There is nothing to exec into first.
• The environment is not in the repo. Instead of a committed Compose file, you commit an optional .lerd.yaml describing the PHP version, Node version, services and workers. A teammate with Lerd installed gets the same environment from it; a teammate without Lerd is unaffected, since nothing else in the project changed.
• Nginx, not Apache. If a project leaned on Laradock's Apache container and .htaccess rules, translate them into an nginx override.
• One sudo at install time. Only to point the system resolver at the .test domains. Everything after that runs as your own user.

Frequently asked questions

Why is Laradock so slow to start? It builds its images from source on first run, and each project brings a full stack. Lerd pulls prebuilt images once and shares one nginx, one PHP-FPM per version and one copy of each service across every site.

Can I keep Docker installed? Yes. Lerd uses rootless Podman with no daemon, so the two do not conflict. Keep Laradock running on the projects you have not moved yet.

Do I need to change my project's code? No. Lerd reads projects where they are. The only file it touches is .env, and only when you run lerd env, which backs up the original first.

What about Xdebug and profiling? Both are built in. See the profiler, the dump viewer and the query viewer.

Is Lerd free for commercial work? Yes. MIT licensed, with no paid tier and no licence popup.

Next steps

• Requirements and installation
• Quick start, a project served in two commands
• Full comparison against Laravel Herd, Sail, DDEV and Lando
• Importing from Laravel Sail, if you also have Sail projects