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distribute-as-a-single-executable-binary.md

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title Distribute as a single executable binary
description Build a standalone executable binary to distribute your project without requiring PHP or dependencies on target systems

Distribute as a single executable binary

Your Laravel Zero project can be bundled into a standalone executable binary that runs on target systems without requiring PHP, Composer, or any other dependencies to be pre-installed.

We use PHPacker to create self-contained binaries from your PHAR archives.

Installation

First, add PHPacker as a development dependency:

composer require phpacker/phpacker --dev

Building

Before creating the binary, you need to build your PHAR archive. The build name must have the .phar extension:

php <your-app-name> app:build <your-build-name>.phar

Once your PHAR archive is ready in the builds folder, create binaries for all supported platforms:

./vendor/bin/phpacker build --src=./builds/<your-build-name>.phar --php=8.4 all

This command builds binaries with PHP 8.4 embedded for:

  • macOS: arm64 and x64 architectures
  • Linux: arm64 and x64 architectures
  • Windows: x64 architecture

The binaries will be created in the ./builds/build folder, organized by platform.

For platform-specific builds or additional configuration options, please check the PHPacker documentation.

Running

You can execute the binary directly:

./builds/build/mac/mac-arm

or on Linux:

./builds/build/linux/linux-x64

or on Windows:

C:\application\path> builds\build\windows\windows-x64.exe

The binary is completely self-contained and can be distributed as a single file without any dependencies.

Considerations

  • Binary files are larger than PHAR archives due to the embedded PHP runtime
  • Build process requires network access to download PHP binaries
  • Some PHP extensions may not be available in the embedded runtime