PHP Monitor is a lightweight, native Mac menu bar app that works best when accompanied by Laravel Valet (but it also works without it).
PHP Monitor helps you set up and develop Laravel and Symfony projects. It's also great for WordPress or Drupal sites. In fact, it's a great companion for all kinds of projects, no matter the framework or CMS.
GitHub Stats
3.1k stargazers
77k total downloads
This app is made with ♥ by Nico Verbruggen. It is open source and entirely free to use. Further development of this app is supported by your donations. You are also encouraged to star the repository on GitHub.
Your stars and sponsorships are very much appreciated. Thanks to your support, the app has seen a steady stream of updates with new features and bugfixes over the last three years, and will continue to be supported as long as it makes sense to do so.
With the latest major update, PHP Monitor now lets you easily install and manage extensions for the various different versions of PHP you might be running.
Learn more in the dedicated blog post on my personal website, or explore all of PHP Monitor's features below.
PHP Monitor's source code is, unlike other proprietary products, entirely open source. Also, all features that are part of PHP Monitor are available entirely free of charge, so you don't need to pay for any walled-off features. How great is that?
With the PHP Version Manager, you can easily install, upgrade and remove individual PHP versions without needing to manually type or copy Homebrew commands. The app will also attempt to automatically fix broken PHP versions.
PHP Monitor lives in your menu bar. From here, you can use the bulk of PHP Monitor's functionality, including the global version switcher as well as services status section.
If everything runs fine it'll be obvious, but if things happen to go wrong PHP Monitor will warn you, and help you figure out what to do.
Sometimes you need to edit a configuration file or toggle an extension. But where are those pesky config files located again? From PHP Monitor's menu you can easily find them. Extensions can even be toggled with one click of the button!
Do you have many projects or legacy sites? No worries, the app includes a domain list that you can use to get a quick overview of all domains and proxies you have set up, as well as their PHP version, what type of project they are, and more.
You can easily link or proxy a folder: you can even easily customize the name of the domain and secure this new domain by simply checking a box. This will make these projects accessible as *.test domains on your system.
In addition to offering a global version switcher (which switches the PHP version for all of your projects), this app also includes support for Valet's site isolation feature. This allows you to use a specific version of PHP with a specific domain, all while retaining the globally linked PHP version.
PHP Monitor will help you figure out if your sites are compatible with the currently linked version of PHP. You will receive suggestions when site isolation may be of use for a given domain.
With the new PHP Extension Manager, you can easily install and remove PHP extensions, all using a GUI. It is also super easy to manage your extensions on a per PHP version basis via the Domains window (you can right-click on a site and toggle extensions easily).
The app also comes with an optional (but very fast) built-in updater, which allows you to stay up-to-date with the latest developments and bug fixes, so you can have a seamless PHP switching experience.
Laravel Valet is a lightweight solution that is much leaner than Docker, and PHP Monitor as a companion tool uses equally few system resources. It is light on RAM and its CPU usage is negligible.
No tracking. No bullshit. Nothing to worry about. The only outbound connection PHP Monitor makes is a check to see if a newer version is available, and you can disable it.
PHP Monitor will only ask you to donate once, and should never ask you again... unless you install a fresh copy of the app on a new computer, of course. If you can, please do consider sending me some money!