🚀 DevBox Pro

Run legacy and modern PHP and Node.js apps side by side with isolated runtimes, bundled services, and zero Docker setup.

Maintaining an old PHP 7.4 project while building a new Laravel 11 app on PHP 8.5? Running a Next.js frontend alongside a PHP backend? DevBox Pro is built for exactly that workflow. It lets you run multiple PHP, Node.js, database, and web server versions at the same time, with per-project configuration, automatic local domains, compatibility warnings, and bundled tooling.

DevBox Pro is an Electron desktop app with a React renderer and a Node.js main process. It manages PHP, Node.js, MySQL, MariaDB, Redis, Nginx, Apache, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MinIO, Memcached, Mailpit, phpMyAdmin, Composer, Git, and more from one local interface.

Version 1.0.8: Introduces first-class Production Mode support with OPcache optimization, hardened web server security headers, resilient queue workers, safe in-place binary upgrades, and native Windows Task Scheduler integration for reliable production server deployment on Windows clients.

DevBox Pro provides two operation profiles: Local Mode for active debugging, hot reload, and development agility; and Production Mode for high performance, hardened security, and unattended background service and scheduler reliability.

🆕 What's New in v1.0.8

🚀 Production Mode Support

Dual Environment Profiles: Switch between Local Mode (interactive debugging, detailed errors, single queue worker) and Production Mode (optimized performance, hardened security, multi-worker) globally or per project.
Hierarchical Precedence: Easily set a global deployment mode in Settings while allowing per-project overrides or inheriting global defaults.
Production Environment Variables: Injects APP_ENV=production and NODE_ENV=production across projects, web servers, and background supervisor workers.

⚡ Performance & Caching Optimizations

PHP OPcache & JIT: Automatically enables OPcache (opcache.enable=1, opcache.jit=1255) and suppresses sensitive error output (display_errors=Off) in production.
High-Performance FastCGI: Automatically provisions up to 8 PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN in production for concurrent request handling.
Optimized Database Settings: MySQL production configuration applies skip-name-resolve and expands innodb_buffer_pool_size to 512MB.
Secured Redis: Configures mandatory password protection, a 256MB LRU memory cap (allkeys-lru), and disables high-risk admin commands like FLUSHALL.

🛡️ Hardened Web Server Security

Strict Transport Security (HSTS): Automatically attaches Strict-Transport-Security headers in HTTPS production mode.
Defensive Headers: Injects X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN, X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff, and X-XSS-Protection.
Information Leak Prevention: Sets server_tokens off on Nginx and ServerTokens Prod / ServerSignature Off on Apache, and disables directory indexing (Options -Indexes).

👷 Resilient Supervisor Queue Workers

Production Queue Flags: Pre-configures production workers with --tries=3, --timeout=90, --memory=128, and --max-jobs=1000.
Code 0 Clean Exit Restarts: Handles Laravel's clean job/time retirement (exit code 0) smoothly without treating it as a process death.
Crash-Loop & Exponential Backoff: Prevents CPU spikes and thrashing when misconfigured jobs fail repeatedly.
Independent Multi-Instance Supervision: Full lifecycle isolation for workers configured with numprocs > 1.

⏰ Native Windows Task Scheduler Integration

Windows Task Scheduler Service: Integrates directly with Windows schtasks.exe to trigger php artisan schedule:run every minute on Windows client servers.
Silent Background Execution: Runs via an optimized VBScript launcher through wscript.exe, eliminating disruptive black CMD popups every 60 seconds.
Management & Status Controls: Dedicated scheduler dashboard card in Project Details to view status, inspect execution logs, clear logs, and manually trigger "Run Now".

🔄 Safe In-Place Binary Updates

One-Click In-Place Upgrades: Safely upgrade installed packages (PHP, Node.js, Python, MySQL, MariaDB) in-place without manual file deletion or path reconfiguration.
Automated Configuration Preservation: Preserves customized php.ini directives (e.g., memory_limit, upload_max_filesize), custom PHP extensions in ext/, CA certificates (cacert.pem), and global Node.js npm packages.
Zero File-Lock / EPERM Failures: Automatically detects and stops running background services (including phpMyAdmin and database daemons) and active project workers that hold file locks on Windows DLLs (like libcrypto-3-x64.dll).
Resilient Retry & Auto-Restart: Features a 5-attempt retry loop with exponential backoff and Windows CIM process termination, then automatically brings all temporarily stopped services and projects back online immediately after binary replacement.

✨ Features

🐘 Multi-PHP Version Support

PHP 7.4, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 - Run multiple versions side by side
Per-project PHP version selection with compatibility validation
Easy extension management per version with php.ini editor
Pre-configured for optimal performance

🟢 Node.js Project Support

Node.js 16, 18, 20, 22, 24 - Run pure Node.js applications
Per-project Node.js version selection
Automatic proxy through Nginx/Apache for .test domains
Run Express, Next.js, Nuxt, or any Node.js framework

🌐 Web Server Options

Nginx 1.24, 1.26, 1.28 - High-performance, low memory footprint (recommended)
Apache 2.4 - Full .htaccess support, mod_rewrite included
Front-door ownership and automatic proxying between Nginx and Apache
Automatic virtual host creation
HTTP & HTTPS support for every project

📦 Embedded Services

Service	Versions	Description
MySQL	5.7, 8.0, 8.4	Powerful relational database
MariaDB	10.6, 10.11, 11.4	MySQL-compatible, open source
Redis	6.2, 7.2, 7.4	In-memory cache & session storage
PostgreSQL	14, 15, 16, 17	Advanced relational database
MongoDB	6.0, 7.0, 8.0	Document database
Memcached	1.6	Distributed memory caching
MinIO	Latest	S3-compatible object storage
Mailpit	Latest	Email testing with SMTP server
phpMyAdmin	Latest	Web-based database management
Node.js	16, 18, 20, 22, 24 (LTS)	JavaScript runtime for projects & tooling
Python	3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13	Runtime for project tooling and workers
SQLite	3	Embedded database runtime
Composer	Latest	PHP dependency manager

💾 Database Management

Multi-engine support - MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB workflows
Per-version data isolation - Each version has its own data directory
Database import/export with .sql, .gz, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB flows
Progress tracking for import/export operations
phpMyAdmin integration for web-based management
Automatic database creation per project

🔐 SSL & Security

Automatic SSL certificate generation
Wildcard certificate support
One-click certificate trust
.test domain support (e.g., myproject.test)

🌍 Public Internet Sharing

Share a running project publicly with Cloudflare Tunnel or zrok
Per-project Share on Internet toggle with optional auto-start tunnel when the project starts
Works with both Nginx and Apache projects, including mixed front-door proxy setups
Tunnel proxy rewrites redirects, cookies, and absolute local .test URLs so public sessions stay on the tunnel hostname
Cloudflare Quick Tunnels use random *.trycloudflare.com URLs
zrok requires a one-time app-wide enable token in Binary Manager → Tools
Built for previews and reviews, not for production deployment

🎯 Framework Support

Laravel - Full support with Artisan, Queue Workers, Scheduler
Symfony - Console commands, Doctrine integration
WordPress - WP-CLI ready, Multisite support
Custom PHP - Works with any PHP application
Node.js - Express, Next.js, Nuxt, Fastify, or any Node.js app

🔧 Binary Manager & Safe In-Place Updates

Download individual components - Only install what you need
Multi-version management - Keep multiple versions installed side by side
Safe in-place upgrades - Update packages (PHP, Node.js, Python, MySQL, MariaDB) while preserving custom php.ini configs, custom extensions, and npm packages
Zero-lock process management - Automatically stops conflicting project workers and background services (like phpMyAdmin), terminating lingering file locks to prevent EPERM errors on Windows, and auto-restarting them post-update
Import custom binaries - Use your own compiled versions
Remote definitions - Binary metadata and compatibility rules can be updated without shipping a new app build

☁️ Cloud Configuration Updates

Remote binary definitions - New versions available without app update
Compatibility rules sync - Updated version compatibility warnings
One-click update check - Check for new binaries and rules from Settings
Offline fallback - Built-in defaults when offline
Version tracking - Only download when updates are available

💻 Terminal Commands

Direct command access - Use php, npm, node, composer, mysql, mysqldump, and related tools directly from any terminal
Automatic version detection - Detects your project and uses the correct PHP/Node.js version
Works everywhere - VS Code, Windows Terminal, PowerShell, or any terminal emulator
No prefix needed - Just run php artisan migrate instead of complex paths
Prevents version conflicts - No more "wrong PHP version" issues

📊 Logging & Monitoring

Real-time log streaming per project and service
Color-coded log levels (info, warning, error)
Log file rotation and cleanup
Service resource monitoring

🚀 Production Mode & Windows Client Server

Dual Operating Profiles - Switch between Local Mode (interactive debugging, single worker) and Production Mode (optimized performance, hardened security) per project or globally
PHP OPcache & JIT Optimization - Automatically enables OPcache (opcache.enable=1, opcache.jit=1255) and suppresses public error displays (display_errors = Off)
Hardened Web Server Security - Injects HSTS, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, server_tokens off, and disables directory indexing for Nginx and Apache
Resilient Queue Workers - Multi-process worker management with --tries=3, --timeout=90, --memory=128, --max-jobs=1000, clean-exit restarts, and exponential backoff crash protection
Native Windows Task Scheduler - Integrates with Windows schtasks.exe to trigger php artisan schedule:run every minute using a silent runner without flashing CMD windows

⚠️ Production Mode Precautions & Intended Use:

Deployment Scope: Production Mode is designed for internal office/LAN servers, dedicated client Windows PCs, kiosk workstations, or staging environments. It is not a direct replacement for hardened, dedicated Linux cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS, DigitalOcean) for mission-critical, public-facing web applications.

Code Caching: To maximize performance, opcache.validate_timestamps is set to 0. Modified script files will not take effect immediately; you must restart the project or reload the web server to flush cached bytecode.

Suppressed Error Output: display_errors is turned Off to prevent sensitive credentials from leaking to visitors. Check the project Logs tab in DevBox Pro to diagnose runtime issues.

Operating System Considerations: For continuous unattended hosting on Windows, disable system sleep/hibernation, configure Windows Update active hours, and ensure adequate machine airflow and power supply backup (UPS).

⚙️ Project Configuration

Service version selection per project
Compatibility validation - Warns about incompatible combinations
Binary validation - Checks required binaries before project start
php.ini editor - Customize PHP settings per version

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

Download the latest release for your platform:

Windows: DevBox-Pro-Setup-1.0.8.exe
macOS: DevBox-Pro-1.0.8.dmg

Install the application

Windows installer builds silently install or repair the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable when vcredist/VC_redist.x64.exe is bundled with the release

Download binaries from the Binary Manager:
- Click "Download All" for the full stack, or
- Select individual components as needed

Creating Your First Project

Click "+ New Project" on the Dashboard
Select your project type (Laravel, Symfony, WordPress, Custom PHP, or Node.js)
Choose project folder and PHP/Node.js version
Configure services (MySQL, Redis, etc.)
Set your domain (e.g., myproject.test)
Click Create and you're ready!

Sharing a Project on the Internet

Open the project detail page and enable Share on Internet
Choose Cloudflare Tunnel or zrok as the provider
Optionally enable Auto-start tunnel if the project should publish automatically on startup
Start the project, then click Start Sharing
Use the generated public URL to access the project from outside your local machine

Provider notes: Cloudflare uses disposable random public URLs on trycloudflare.com. zrok requires a one-time app-wide enable step before any project can use it.

Production note: Tunnel sharing is intended for temporary previews, QA, and stakeholder review. Do not use DevBox Pro as a production hosting platform.

Using Terminal Commands

DevBox Pro lets you use php, npm, node, composer, mysql, and mysqldump directly from any terminal with automatic project version detection:

Go to Settings > CLI Tool in DevBox Pro
Enable "Terminal commands"
Restart your terminal or VS Code

Usage examples:

# Navigate to your project folder
cd C:\Projects\my-laravel-app

# Run PHP with project-specific version (auto-detected)
php artisan migrate
php artisan optimize

# Run Composer with correct PHP version
composer install
composer update

# Run Node.js/npm with project version (if enabled)
npm install
npm run dev
npx vite build

# Connect to MySQL/MariaDB using the active database version
mysql -u root
mysql -u root -p mydb < migration.sql
mysqldump -u root mydb > backup.sql

How it works: When you run php, mysql, or npm from a project directory, DevBox Pro automatically uses that project's configured version. Outside a project, it uses your default version set in Settings.

💻 Development Setup

Prerequisites

Node.js 24+
npm
Git

Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/JeffGepiga/DevBoxPro.git
cd DevBoxPro

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start the Electron app with the Vite renderer dev server
npm run dev

# Build the renderer bundle only
npm run build:renderer

# Build platform packages
npm run build:win
npm run build:mac
npm run build:all

The renderer dev server runs at http://localhost:3000.

Testing

DevBox Pro includes unit, integration, and end-to-end coverage.

# Run all tests
npm test

# Run only main process tests
npm run test:main

# Run only renderer process tests
npm run test:renderer

# Run End-to-End (E2E) tests
npm run test:e2e

The test suite covers the main-process managers, the renderer, and Playwright end-to-end scenarios for project creation, binaries, databases, SSL, and settings persistence.

Project Structure

DevBoxPro/
├── src/
│   ├── main/                    # Electron main process
│   │   ├── services/
│   │   │   ├── BinaryDownloadManager.js  # Thin facade for binary downloads and extraction
│   │   │   ├── CliManager.js             # Thin facade for terminal integration
│   │   │   ├── CompatibilityManager.js   # Thin facade for compatibility rules and updates
│   │   │   ├── DatabaseManager.js        # Thin facade for multi-engine DB operations
│   │   │   ├── GitManager.js             # Thin facade for Git clone and SSH workflows
│   │   │   ├── ProjectManager.js         # Thin facade for project lifecycle and vhosts
│   │   │   ├── ServiceManager.js         # Thin facade for service lifecycle and config generation
│   │   │   ├── SupervisorManager.js      # Thin facade for worker and process supervision
│   │   │   ├── binary/                   # Binary manager mixins
│   │   │   ├── cli/                      # CLI manager mixins
│   │   │   ├── compatibility/            # Compatibility manager mixins
│   │   │   ├── database/                 # Database manager mixins
│   │   │   ├── git/                      # Git manager mixins
│   │   │   ├── project/                  # Project manager mixins
│   │   │   ├── service/                  # Service manager mixins
│   │   │   ├── supervisor/               # Supervisor manager mixins
│   │   │   └── ...
│   │   ├── ipc/
│   │   │   └── handlers.js      # IPC communication
│   │   ├── utils/
│   │   │   ├── ConfigStore.js   # Configuration storage
│   │   │   ├── PortUtils.js     # Port probing and process lookup
│   │   │   └── SpawnUtils.js    # Safer child-process helpers
│   │   ├── preload.js           # Preload script
│   │   └── main.js              # Main entry
│   │
│   └── renderer/                # React frontend
│       ├── src/
│       │   ├── components/      # Reusable components
│       │   │   ├── Sidebar.jsx
│       │   │   ├── PhpIniEditor.jsx
│       │   │   ├── XTerminal.jsx
│       │   │   └── ...
│       │   ├── pages/           # Page components
│       │   │   ├── Dashboard.jsx
│       │   │   ├── Projects.jsx
│       │   │   ├── ProjectDetail.jsx
│       │   │   ├── Databases.jsx
│       │   │   ├── Services.jsx
│       │   │   ├── BinaryManager.jsx
│       │   │   ├── Settings.jsx
│       │   │   └── ...
│       │   ├── context/         # React context
│       │   │   └── AppContext.jsx
│       │   └── App.jsx          # Root component
│       └── index.html
│
├── resources/                   # App resources (icons, configs)
├── config/                      # Remote configuration files
│   ├── binaries.json            # Binary download definitions
│   ├── compatibility.json       # Version compatibility rules
│   └── README.md                # Config contribution guide
├── screenshots/                 # App screenshots
├── build/                       # Build resources
├── electron-builder.config.js   # Electron builder config
├── package.json
└── README.MD

⚙️ Configuration

Default Ports

Service	Default Port
PHP Projects	8000+ (auto-assigned)
MySQL	3306
MariaDB	3310
Redis	6379
PostgreSQL	5432
MongoDB	27017
Memcached	11211
MinIO API	9000
MinIO Console	9001
Mailpit SMTP	1025
Mailpit Web	8025
phpMyAdmin	8080
Nginx HTTP	80
Nginx HTTPS	443
Apache HTTP	8081 when Apache is not the front-door server
Apache HTTPS	8444 when Apache is not the front-door server

Web server ownership is dynamic. The first active web server can claim ports 80 and 443, while the other is assigned alternate ports and proxied automatically.

Environment Variables

Projects can use .env files with these pre-configured variables:

APP_ENV=local
APP_DEBUG=true
APP_URL=http://myproject.test

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=myproject
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

CACHE_DRIVER=redis
SESSION_DRIVER=redis
QUEUE_CONNECTION=redis

REDIS_HOST=127.0.0.1
REDIS_PASSWORD=null
REDIS_PORT=6379

MAIL_MAILER=smtp
MAIL_HOST=127.0.0.1
MAIL_PORT=1025

🛠️ Technologies

Electron 40 - Cross-platform desktop framework
React 19 - UI library
Vite 7 - Build and dev server
TailwindCSS 4 - Styling pipeline
Vitest - Unit and integration testing
Playwright - End-to-end testing
electron-builder - Distribution packaging

📋 Roadmap

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

Fork the repository
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

💬 Support

📧 Email: jeffreygepiga27@gmail.com
🐛 Issues: GitHub Issues
💬 Discussions: GitHub Discussions

Made with ❤️ for PHP & Node.js developers

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.github		.github
build		build
config		config
docs		docs
resources		resources
screenshots		screenshots
scripts		scripts
src		src
tests		tests
vcredist		vcredist
.eslintrc.cjs		.eslintrc.cjs
.gitignore		.gitignore
.npmrc		.npmrc
.nvmrc		.nvmrc
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.MD		README.MD
RELEASE.md		RELEASE.md
electron-builder.config.js		electron-builder.config.js
jsconfig.json		jsconfig.json
logo.ico		logo.ico
logo.png		logo.png
logo.svg		logo.svg
occupy-port-80.js		occupy-port-80.js
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json
playwright.config.js		playwright.config.js
test-updates-badge.js		test-updates-badge.js
vitest.config.js		vitest.config.js

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