Deploy Your Laravel Demo for Free — Domain, MySQL & Hosting at $0

If you've built a Laravel project and need a live demo link — for a portfolio, a client presentation, or just to share with friends — spinning up a VPS just to host a demo feels like overkill. InfinityFree gives you: 🌐 A free subdomain ( yourapp.great-site.net or .epizy.com ) 🗄️ A free MySQL database ☁️ PHP hosting All for $0 . The catch? It's not a typical shared host. There are real restrictions that break a standard Laravel deployment out of the box. This post documents exactly what breaks and how to fix every single one of them — based on a real deployment I did for a Laravel social media app. ⚠️ Know the Limitations First Before you start, understand what you're working with: Feature Available? Free subdomain ✅ Yes Free MySQL database ✅ Yes PHP support ✅ Yes File Manager (browser-based) ✅ Yes SSH access ❌ No php artisan commands ❌ No Symlinks ( storage:link ) ❌ No open_basedir restriction ❌ PHP only reads inside htdocs/ Composer on server ❌ No 🔴 The open_basedir restriction is the