I have developed an application using ionic for the frontend and laravel for the backend … now I wish I could see it running on my phone, but I don’t know what I need to buy as hosting and database, which files should I upload etc … any help?
php version: 7.4.1
laravel framework: 8.78.1
phpmyadmin: 5.0.1
mariaDB: 10.4.11
mysql: 7.4.1
2
Answers
I see two questions:
How to try the app on your phone:
When you build an App, you can read here about how to deploy it to your phone by e.g. transferring an APK to your Android phone. To install the APK, you have to enable the developer-features in your phone’s settings.
How to host the Laravel backend (to try it with your app):
You could use your local development environment. E.g. when your laptop with your laravel backend running and your phone are in the same Wifi-Network, you just need to expose the project to the network so that the app on you phone can reach it.
Hosting it on a public server would require you to have a domain. The server has to meet the needs of your project. You have to look for the correct php-version, php extensions, etc (Laravel Docs on Server requirements). For a small project, most shared-hosting servers with ssh-access and MySql database would fit. You could put some more effort by choosing a server from digital ocean, where a droplet is just a few bucks but you have to do all the configuration by yourself.
Hope that helps!
For running it on mobile you could use capacitor with ionic Capacitor