Own Your Stack

The Guide for Small PHP Teams

The complete operations playbook for PHP teams too small for a DevOps hire.

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Own Your Stack book cover

Most PHP deployment advice starts too large

Docker, Kubernetes, GitOps, pipelines, and vendor platforms solve real problems, but they are often introduced before a small team has those problems.

The immediate need is a reliable way to deploy, monitor, back up, and recover the application.

This guide builds that operating model on a commodity VPS and adds heavier tools only when the requirement is clear.

What Makes This Different

Opinionated

You get a default path, plus the thresholds that tell you when to change it.

Complete

From local development to production operations: deploys, monitoring, backups, recovery, and routine maintenance.

Self-Hosted

Your code runs on your servers, free from vendor lock-in, per-seat pricing, and surprise bills.

Anti-Complexity

Every tool has an operating cost. This guide adds tools when they solve a current problem clearly enough to justify that work.

Practical

Configs, scripts, and checklists you can adapt to your own project.

28 Chapters + 8 Appendices

Development Environment

  • PHPStorm Setup
  • SSH Authentication

Server Foundation

  • VPS Initial Setup
  • Nginx Configuration
  • Directory Structure and Permissions
  • MySQL Setup

Deployment

  • Rsync Deployment
  • Database Migrations
  • Zero-Drama Zero-Downtime

Self-Hosted Git and Code Review

  • Gitea Installation
  • Repository Management
  • Pull Requests and Code Review
  • Gitea Actions

Operations

  • VPS Health Monitoring
  • Log Management
  • Application Error Tracking
  • Uptime Monitoring
  • Backup Strategy
  • Disaster Recovery
  • Ongoing Security
  • Intrusion Awareness

Day-to-Day Workflow

  • Local Development Consistency
  • Staging Environment
  • Scheduled Jobs
  • Email Sending
  • Performance Basics
  • Complete Workflow Example
  • What Not to Add

Appendices

  • SSH Config Examples
  • Nginx Config Templates
  • Deploy Script Templates
  • Phorge Configuration Reference
  • Troubleshooting Common Issues
  • GitLab CI/CD with Self-Hosted Runner
  • Phorge Code Review Platform
  • Security Quick Reference

Read chapter 7 free in your browser, or get all three sample chapters as a PDF.

Who This Is For

You should know PHP and be comfortable in a terminal. Prior operations experience helps, but the book explains the workflow as it builds it.

Who This Is NOT For

One-Time Cost, Reusable Skills

Server management platforms like Laravel Forge charge $19/month. GitHub Team is $4/user/month. Those services can be useful, but the costs and operational dependencies add up.

This guide is $59.99 once. The deployment and operations model transfers to future PHP projects you run yourself.

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About the Author

Fanis Hatzidakis has been programming in PHP for over 25 years, working in small teams from junior developer through senior roles to leading development teams. After running higher-complexity deployments, he settled on simpler self-hosted systems where they fit the workload. Those systems have served tens of millions of requests per day.

This guide distills that experience into a practical workflow for teams that need to deploy and operate PHP applications without adopting a larger platform than the project requires.

Get the Guide

  • 447-page DRM-free PDF, yours to keep
  • 28 chapters + 8 appendices of practical deployment knowledge
  • Current stack: PHP 8.3, MySQL 8.0, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
  • Deployment and operations techniques from real small-team systems
$59.99 Get the Guide

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