Flox vs Laravel Herd
Flox
flox.devLaravel Herd
herd.laravel.comSide by side
| Figure | Flox | Laravel Herd |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $20/mo | $8.25/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 3 | 3 |
| Spec score · Development Environment Managers | 8.6 (#5) | 7.9 (#19) |
| Spec score · Development Environment Management Tools | 8.5 (#5) | 7.9 (#12) |
| Purpose | Flox provides reproducible software environments containing the tools and frameworks developers need across the software lifecycle. | Herd is a native Laravel and PHP development environment for Windows and macOS. |
Plans
In their own words
Flox
Flox gives developers a way to define reproducible software environments, including project packages, variables, and shell hooks, with configuration managed as code. It presents these environments as working across macOS, Linux, and WSL2. Its Nixpkgs-powered catalog contains more than 190,000 packages. FloxHub supports syncing and sharing environments, with package lists, earlier versions, and change logs available for review. GitHub Actions can install Flox and activate environments in CI workflows, while a VS Code extension supports package management, activation, and running services; the extension is also compatible with Cursor. Flox Skills are described as helping Claude Code, Codex, and skills.sh agents create environments, services, and builds and onboard repositories. Flox says environments include signed, hash-pinned software bills of materials and build provenance. The free Personal plan includes three private FloxHub environments and five private packages. Team costs $20/user/mo; Enterprise pricing is custom.
Laravel Herd
Laravel Herd has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.