Local PHP development that just works. Run
lerd linkand your project is live atproject.testwith HTTPS. No Docker, no sudo, no system pollution.
Open-source, Herd-like local PHP development for Linux and macOS, with Windows via WSL2 (beta). Nginx, PHP-FPM, and your services run as rootless Podman containers, fronted by a built-in Web UI, a btop-style terminal dashboard, a full CLI, and an MCP server so your AI assistant can drive the whole thing from chat.
curl -fsSL https://lerd.sh/install.sh | bashWorks with Laravel, Symfony, WordPress, Drupal, CakePHP, Statamic, and any custom PHP framework.
| Lerd | DDEV | Lando | Laravel Herd | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Podman-native | ✅ | 🟡 | ❌ | ❌ |
| Rootless | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Web UI | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Terminal dashboard | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Linux | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| macOS | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Windows (WSL2) | 🧪 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| MCP server | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
- 🌐 Automatic
.testdomains with one-command TLS, or opt out and use*.localhostwith no system resolver tweak - 🐘 Per-project PHP (8.1 to 8.5) switched with one click, plus a per-site FrankenPHP runtime with Laravel Octane and Symfony Runtime
- 🖥️ Built-in Web UI with live dashboards, a Cmd+K command palette, in-browser editing of nginx,
php.ini, and.env, and fourteen languages - 🛰️ Debug window that streams every
dump()anddd()to the dashboard, plus SQL with N+1 and slow-query detection, mail, jobs, events, and outgoing HTTP, on Laravel and Symfony - 🔥 SPX profiler — one click turns every request into a flame graph, no FPM restart and no code changes
- 🩺 Site doctor with framework-agnostic health checks and one-click fixes, in the UI, the TUI, the CLI, and MCP
- 🗄️ One-click services: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, Meilisearch, Mailpit, and more, each a versioned YAML preset you can update, migrate, or reset in place
- 🌳 First-class git worktrees with auto-detected branch domains, per-worktree PHP and Node versions, and optional database isolation
- 🤖 MCP server so Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, and other assistants scaffold projects, run migrations, and manage services from chat
- 🔒 Rootless and daemonless, Podman-native, no Docker required, dual-stack IPv4 and IPv6
lerd-env is the home for Lerd's community and distribution repos.
- lerd, the main project: the CLI, the Web UI, the MCP server, and everything else.
- frameworks, the community framework
store. Every
lerd linkpulls a matching definition from here, so a new PHP framework gains full support by editing YAML, no Lerd release required. - services, the community service-preset store. Databases, caches, search engines, and admin dashboards, all as versioned YAML that ships without a binary release.
- lerd-nixos, the NixOS flake. Packages
the binary and ships the
configuration.nixblocks the stack needs to run Lerd declaratively.
Read the docs at lerd.sh, join the community on Discord and r/lerd, and open a pull request. Adding a framework to the store is the easiest place to start.