Delt vs Laravel Cloud vs Vapor: The Complete Comparison
Choosing managed Laravel hosting in 2026 means weighing three serious contenders: Delt, Laravel Cloud, and Laravel Vapor. Each takes a fundamentally different approach to deploying your Laravel applications.
This guide compares them on what actually matters: pricing, performance, regions, and developer experience.
TL;DR — Quick Comparison
| Feature | Delt | Laravel Cloud | Laravel Vapor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing Model | Flat monthly ($29/mo) | Base + per-request | Per-resource usage |
| Idle Cost | $0 (Lambda scale-to-zero) | ~$20/mo minimum | ~$15/mo minimum |
| Cold Start | 500ms (Bref) | ~2-5s (container) | 500ms-1s (Lambda) |
| Jakarta/Singapore Region | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ (manual setup) |
| Zero Config | ✅ (git push → live) | ✅ | ❌ (requires vapor.yml) |
| Managed Database | ✅ (included) | ✅ (included) | ❌ (bring your own RDS) |
| Queue Workers | ✅ SQS (Growth+) | ✅ (included) | ✅ SQS |
| Custom Domains | ✅ (Growth+) | ✅ | ✅ |
| Payment Methods | Card, QRIS, GoPay | Card only | Card only |
| Git Providers | GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket | GitHub only | GitHub only |
Pricing Breakdown
Delt Pricing
- Hobby: Free — auto-hibernates after 30 minutes of inactivity
- Growth: $29/mo — always-on, SQS queues, managed PostgreSQL/MySQL, 2GB RAM
- Business: $59/mo — provisioned concurrency (zero cold starts), 4GB RAM, priority support
Key advantage: $0 idle cost. If your app receives no traffic, you pay nothing on Hobby and only the flat fee on Growth/Business. No per-request charges, no bandwidth surprises.
Laravel Cloud Pricing
- Starts at $20/mo per application
- Additional charges for compute time, bandwidth, and database
- Per-request pricing means costs scale unpredictably with traffic spikes
- No free tier for side projects
Laravel Vapor Pricing
- $39/mo for the Vapor subscription (team plan)
- Plus AWS costs: Lambda invocations, RDS, S3, CloudFront, SQS
- Total cost depends heavily on usage — can be $50-200+/mo for a typical app
- Requires AWS account management and billing understanding
Cost Comparison: A Typical Side Project
For a Laravel app receiving 10,000 requests/day:
| Platform | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Delt Growth | $29 (flat) |
| Laravel Cloud | ~$35-50 (base + compute + bandwidth) |
| Laravel Vapor | ~$45-80 (Lambda + RDS + S3 + Vapor subscription) |
For a Laravel app receiving zero traffic (side project, staging):
| Platform | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| Delt Hobby | $0 |
| Delt Growth | $29 (flat) |
| Laravel Cloud | ~$20 (minimum) |
| Laravel Vapor | ~$15-25 (RDS minimum + Vapor subscription) |
Performance: Cold Starts
Cold start time matters for user experience, especially for apps with sporadic traffic.
Delt: 500ms Average Cold Start
Delt uses AWS Lambda with the Bref PHP runtime. The Bref community has optimized PHP cold starts to 500ms-1.6s depending on application size. For Growth/Business plans, provisioned concurrency eliminates cold starts entirely.
Laravel Cloud: 2-5 Second Cold Start
Laravel Cloud uses containers that need to spin up when scaling from zero. This means 2-5 seconds for the first request after idle periods. Always-on instances avoid this but cost more.
Laravel Vapor: 500ms-1s Cold Start
Vapor also uses Lambda, so cold starts are comparable to Delt. However, Vapor requires you to manage your own provisioned concurrency settings through AWS.
Developer Experience
Delt: Zero Configuration
- Connect your GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket repo
- Select a branch
- Choose a region
- Click deploy
That's it. No Dockerfile, no vapor.yml, no serverless.yml. Delt detects your Laravel version, builds the deployment package, and provisions everything automatically.
Laravel Cloud: Low Configuration
Laravel Cloud offers a similar streamlined experience with a web dashboard. Connect GitHub, select a repo, and deploy. It's well-integrated with the Laravel ecosystem but limited to GitHub only.
Laravel Vapor: Configuration Required
Vapor requires a vapor.yml configuration file, an AWS account, and understanding of AWS services. You manage your own RDS instances, S3 buckets, and CloudFront distributions. More control, but more complexity.
# vapor.yml — required for Vapor
id: 12345
name: my-app
environments:
production:
memory: 1024
cli-memory: 512
runtime: php-8.3
database: my-rds-instance
cache: my-elasticache
Region Availability
| Region | Delt | Laravel Cloud | Vapor |
|---|---|---|---|
| US East (Virginia) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| EU West (Ireland) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Singapore | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Jakarta | 🔜 (coming) | ❌ | ✅ (manual) |
| Sydney | 🔜 | ✅ | ✅ |
For Southeast Asian developers: Delt is the only managed platform with native Singapore region support and upcoming Jakarta region — without requiring you to manage AWS infrastructure yourself.
When to Choose Each Platform
Choose Delt If:
- You want $0 idle cost for side projects and staging environments
- You need Southeast Asian regions (Singapore/Jakarta) with managed infrastructure
- You prefer flat, predictable pricing without per-request charges
- You use GitLab or Bitbucket (not just GitHub)
- You want QRIS/GoPay payment (Indonesian developers)
- You're a solo developer or small team who wants zero DevOps overhead
Choose Laravel Cloud If:
- You want the official Laravel team managing your infrastructure
- You need tight integration with Laravel ecosystem tools
- You prefer a container-based runtime over serverless
- Budget predictability is less important than ecosystem integration
- You're already invested in the Laravel Cloud ecosystem
Choose Laravel Vapor If:
- You need full AWS control and customization
- You have AWS expertise on your team
- You need complex infrastructure (multiple databases, custom VPCs, specific AWS services)
- You want to own your infrastructure while using serverless
- Budget is flexible and you prefer pay-per-use over flat pricing
FAQ
Is Delt cheaper than Laravel Cloud?
Yes, for most use cases. Delt's flat $29/mo Growth plan includes managed database, queue workers, and SSL — with no per-request charges. Laravel Cloud starts at $20/mo but adds compute and bandwidth costs that typically bring the total to $35-50/mo for a similar setup. For idle projects, Delt's Hobby tier is completely free vs Laravel Cloud's ~$20/mo minimum.
Does Delt support custom domains?
Yes. Custom domains with automatic SSL are available on Growth ($29/mo) and Business ($59/mo) plans. Simply add your domain in the dashboard and point your DNS — SSL is provisioned automatically via Cloudflare.
What regions does Delt support?
Delt currently supports Singapore (ap-southeast-1) and US East (us-east-1), with EU West and Jakarta regions coming soon. This makes Delt the only zero-config managed Laravel platform with native Southeast Asian deployment.
Can I migrate from Laravel Cloud or Vapor to Delt?
Yes. Since Delt deploys standard Laravel applications, migration is straightforward: connect your existing repo, set your environment variables, and deploy. No code changes required. Delt supports Laravel 10, 11, and 12.
Does Delt support queue workers?
Yes. Growth and Business plans include managed queue workers powered by AWS SQS. Your Laravel jobs dispatch to SQS automatically — no configuration needed. Delt handles worker scaling and retry logic.
Conclusion
The best managed Laravel hosting depends on your priorities:
- Lowest cost + zero config: Delt ($0 idle, flat $29/mo active)
- Official Laravel ecosystem: Laravel Cloud ($20/mo + usage)
- Full AWS control: Vapor ($39/mo + AWS costs)
For developers who want managed simplicity with predictable costs and $0 idle — especially those in Southeast Asia — Delt offers the best value proposition in 2026.
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