Guide · Last updated: November 2026
Laragon has needed a licence since version 7. You can still use it without paying, but only for non-commercial work, and client projects count as commercial. Here is what each licence costs, what "commercial" means in Laragon's own terms, and what your options are if you'd rather not pay.
If you use Laragon for paid work and you like it, the licence is cheap compared with an hour of billable time, and it pays the one person who builds it. If you'd rather not pay, there are free tools that allow commercial use. Both are covered below.
From laragon.org/pricing, checked on 2 November 2026:
| Licence | Price | Client work? | Updates included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unlicensed | Free | No | No auto-update |
| Non-Commercial Standard | $10 one-off (2 devices: $20) | No | 1 year |
| Non-Commercial Extended | $30 one-off (2 devices: $40) | No | 5 years |
| 1-year | $49 a year (2 devices: $69) | Yes | While subscribed |
| Lifetime | $149 one-off (2 devices: $199) | Yes | 5 years |
| Team | $149 a year for 5 devices, $399 for 15 | Yes | While subscribed |
"Lifetime" licences keep working for good, but include updates, major versions included, for five years. Prices are in US dollars, and Laragon can change them. Check the pricing page before you buy.
Laragon's End-User License Agreement (last updated 9 February 2026) is direct about this:
In practice:
Nothing is locked. Laragon's free licence policy says you get every feature. What changes:
The reminder is what most people notice. Laragon's GitHub has a long discussion and several issues about it. The maintainer's side is also on record: in October 2025 he wrote that around 99% of users run Laragon without a licence. The reminder is how a tool built by one person pays for itself.
If Laragon works for you and you do client work, this is usually the right answer. $49 a year is small next to the hours it saves, and you keep the setup you know.
Laragon 7 was the first version to need a licence. Its release notes say: "Starting from this version, a license is required." Laragon 6.0 is still on GitHub and still works, but it was released in September 2022 and has had no updates since. What that means in practice:
bin\php folder yourself, but nothing else around it updates with it, and checking that it runs is up to you.It's fine for keeping one old project alive. For new work, or anything on PHP 8.3 and up, it's a poor base.
To be fair about ForgeKit: it is Windows-only and closed source, and it is younger and smaller than Laragon. For pricing, licences and how each tool handles PHP versions in more detail, see the full comparison of local PHP environments for Windows.
C:\laragon\www. You add each site in ForgeKit and point it at its existing folder.mysqldump) and import them into ForgeKit's MySQL or MariaDB.Only for non-commercial use. Since Laragon 7 a licence is required for commercial use. You can run it unlicensed for personal, learning or hobby projects, with a licence popup when it starts.
No. Laragon's End-User License Agreement defines commercial use as any use 'for or in connection with commercial advantage or monetary compensation', and says unlicensed use is non-commercial only. Client work needs the 1-year, Lifetime or Team licence.
$49 a year or $149 one-off for one device ($69 and $199 for two), or a Team licence at $149 a year for 5 devices. Prices from laragon.org/pricing, November 2026.
Every feature still works. A licence popup appears when Laragon or its services start, the unlicensed tier doesn't auto-update, and Laragon asks you to exit it when you're not using it.
Laragon 7 was the first version to require a licence, and Laragon 6.0 is still on GitHub. But it dates from September 2022 and gets no updates: it ships PHP 8.1 and MySQL 8.0 (both now out of support), newer PHP versions have to be added by hand, and it lacks later features such as automatic backups and one-click HTTPS.
XAMPP and WampServer are free but more manual. Laravel Herd's free tier covers PHP and nginx, with databases behind Herd Pro. ForgeKit is free including for commercial work, and runs several PHP versions, web servers and databases side by side.
ForgeKit is free, including for commercial projects, with no licence and no reminder. It runs several PHP versions side by side, each site on the one it needs, with every config and log visible.