valet.sh

What it is

valet.sh is a local development environment management tool for macOS and Ubuntu. Its goal is to spare software developers from repeatedly installing and configuring dependencies such as PHP, MySQL, and Elasticsearch by hand. Built on bash and Ansible, it provides a stable, high-performance development environment through a unified set of terminal commands, and explicitly states that it is fully open source and hosted on GitHub.

Core capabilities

Its focus is not containerized isolation, but installing and managing multiple service versions side by side on the local machine. PHP versions range from 5.6 to 8.5; MySQL covers 5.7, 8.0, and 8.4; MariaDB covers 10.4 to 11.4; Elasticsearch supports 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8; and OpenSearch supports 1, 2, and 3. Different versions use different ports, and services can be started, stopped, enabled, disabled, and set as defaults via valet.sh service enable/disable. Nginx supports local domain configuration, and a development CA is created during installation. valet.sh link generates certificates for sites covering both the domain and its subdomains. NodeJS version management supports nvm and volta, while debugging includes the ability to switch between Xdebug 2 and 3. Mailpit, RabbitMQ, Redis, Valkey, and other tools are also included in the default service ecosystem.

Pricing and open source

The documentation does not mention paid plans, subscriptions, or an enterprise edition; it only states that the project is fully open source. From a value-for-money perspective, this makes it friendly to individual developers and small teams. However, it is also worth noting that the documentation does not indicate any commercial SLA, paid support, or hosted service.

Pros and cons

Its strengths are broad coverage of common PHP web development dependencies, with ports, default accounts, service names, and command examples documented in concrete detail. It is well suited to scenarios that require compatibility testing across multiple versions. The downside is that specific services cannot be skipped during installation and can only be disabled afterward, which may lead to extra resource and disk usage. Some component update mechanisms are also relatively rough; for example, reinstalling Elasticsearch on Ubuntu may cause data loss. The overall ecosystem is also clearly oriented toward PHP/Magento, so its value is limited for non-PHP technology stacks.

Who it is for and access from China

It is suitable for PHP and Magento developers, backend developers who rely on multiple versions of MySQL/Elasticsearch, and users who prefer native local services over Docker Compose. The documentation does not provide information about access from China. Availability of GitHub and related package sources may affect the installation experience and should be tested in practice. If network restrictions are an issue, alternatives such as Docker Compose, DDEV, Lando, Laravel Valet, and MAMP can be considered.