Herd is the runtime. Rig is the board.

Laravel Herd is a polished PHP runtime on your Mac. Rig is not trying to replace it. Rig is the control plane for everything around that site: Vite, the queue, an API, logs, ports, and an MCP hub so Cursor can see the crash.

If your work is one Laravel site and Herd Pro already covers database and mail, stay there. Rig would be a second window you do not need yet. The comparison page says that in public because lying in a "vs" article is how you lose the people who would have trusted you later.

The split that actually works

Herd (or Valet) owns PHP version switching and the site URL. Rig owns start order, merged logs, port reclaim, artisan sidecars, and the editor link. Many studios run both. That is the intended shape, not a hedge.

A typical morning:

  1. Herd is already serving *.test.
  2. Rig starts Vite, Horizon, and a Node worker as a group.
  3. One log stream. One Attention board when something dies.
  4. Cursor reads get_health instead of asking you which tab died.

Where Herd is better

Per-site PHP versions. A dedicated Laravel runtime. Less ceremony if PHP is the whole job. Rig detects Valet and Herd URLs and opens them; it does not pretend to be nginx.

Where Rig is better

Anything that is not PHP. Unified logs across services. MCP. Live Link for a client on a phone. A second Mac that should boot the same catalog without copying the repo to a cloud box.

Read the matrix, not the slogan

The full feature grid lives on Rig vs Laravel Herd. Valet has its own page: Rig vs Laravel Valet. If you only needed a parked *.test site, Valet is still thinner. If the day is artisan plus Vite plus an agent, you want a board.

https://userig.app/blog/herd-is-the-runtime-rig-is-the-board