Rig vs Laravel Valet
Valet parks *.test sites on your Mac. Rig detects those sites and runs the rest of the stack — it doesn’t replace Valet’s nginx/dnsmasq job.
Who this is for
Mac developers already on Valet who need more than ‘parked site’.
The short answer
Keep Valet for *.test. Add Rig for groups, logs, ports, MCP, and share. Rig intentionally fits beside Valet — not instead of it.
Side by side
| Feature | Rig | Laravel Valet | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Process control + observability | *.test nginx + DNS for PHP sites | |
| Detect Valet URLs / Open site | Yes | Yes | Rig reads what Valet already parks |
| Queue / Horizon / schedule sidecars | Yes | No | |
| Port reclaim + Attention board | Yes | No | |
| AI MCP hub | Yes | No | |
| Minimal CLI footprint | Partial | Yes | Valet is thinner if you only need a site URL |
Choose Rig if
- You already park sites in Valet and hate juggling artisan + vite terminals
- You want Cursor/Claude tied to the live project
Stay with Valet if
- You only need a parked PHP site and you’re happy in Terminal
- You don’t want another desktop app