EnvKit: A Local Development Stack for Laravel on Windows and macOS
Last updated on by Yannick Lyn Fatt
EnvKit is a desktop application that bundles the pieces of a local PHP development stack into a single control panel for Windows and macOS. It is currently in beta.
Instead of installing and configuring a web server, PHP, and databases separately, EnvKit runs them all behind a single app and manages per-site configuration for you. The maintainers position it as an alternative to Laragon and XAMPP, and it can import existing Laragon projects without changes.
EnvKit covers similar ground to Laravel Herd, the local environment built by Beyond Code in partnership with Laravel. The differences are mostly scope and cost. EnvKit is free with every feature included, offers a choice of Nginx or Apache, and bundles MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Redis with admin UIs. Herd keeps its database and mail services, dump window, and log viewer in a paid Pro tier ($99 per year), runs as a native app rather than Electron, and supports both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs. Herd is also an established product, while EnvKit is still in beta.
What's Included
EnvKit bundles the services a typical Laravel project needs:
- Web servers: nginx or Apache, configured per site
- PHP: versions from 7.4 through the latest, isolated per project, with Xdebug available on demand
- Databases: MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Redis
- Email: Mailpit for catching outgoing mail locally
- Node.js: dev servers for React, Next.js, and other frameworks with hot reload
- HTTPS: trusted
.testdomains issued by a locally trusted certificate authority - Admin UIs: phpMyAdmin, pgweb, and mongo-express
For Laravel specifically, EnvKit includes Laravel Reverb for WebSockets, cron job management, and live inspection of dumps, queries, and job queues.
AI Integration
EnvKit includes a built-in MCP server, so an AI assistant in your editor can read the stack state and run diagnostics without you switching to the app. The maintainers pitch this as automatic troubleshooting of common configuration problems.
Getting Started
On macOS, EnvKit supports macOS 12 Monterey or later on Apple Silicon. The install script downloads the latest signed build and drops EnvKit.app into your Applications folder:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Env-Kit/envkit-releases/main/install.sh | bashOn Windows 10 or 11, download the EnvKit-Setup-*.exe installer from the releases page and run it. Both platforms auto-update.
Pricing and Licensing
EnvKit is free to use, with no account or sign-up required. It is not open source; the app is proprietary and released under an all-rights-reserved license. The latest release at the time of writing is v0.31.0-beta.39, published on July 2, 2026.
You can learn more on the EnvKit website or find installers and release notes on GitHub.
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