🚀 Deploy Laravel on DigitalOcean from A–Z (Complete Guide 2026)

Introduction

If you’re a Laravel developer looking for a reliable, affordable cloud platform, DigitalOcean is one of the best options available. In this guide, you’ll learn how to deploy a Laravel application to production step by step.

Why choose DigitalOcean for Laravel?

Affordable plans starting at $5/month

Full root access to your server

Fast SSD storage and global data centers

Simple UI compared to AWS or GCP

👉 Perfect for startups, freelancers, and developers.

Prerequisites

Before we begin, make sure you have:

A DigitalOcean account

A Laravel project (GitHub or local)

Basic SSH knowledge

A domain (optional)

Step 1: Create a Droplet (VPS)

Log in to DigitalOcean

Click Create Droplet

Choose:

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

Basic plan (1GB RAM is enough to start)

Region: Singapore or Tokyo

Click Create Droplet

Step 2: Connect to your server

ssh root@your_server_ip

Step 3: Install server stack

Install Nginx, PHP, MySQL, and Composer:

apt update && apt upgrade -y
apt install nginx mysql-server php php-fpm php-mysql php-cli php-curl php-mbstring php-xml php-zip composer -y

Step 4: Upload Laravel project

cd /var/www
git clone https://github.com/your-repo.git laravel-app
cd laravel-app
composer install --no-dev

Step 5: Configure environment

cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate

Step 6: Configure Nginx

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/laravel

Add:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com;
    root /var/www/laravel-app/public;

    index index.php index.html;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Step 7: Enable SSL

apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y
certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com

Final Result

Your Laravel app is now live in production 🎉