Three announcements from Laracon US 2025 that will save you money

This summer Laravel developers from across the world gather for Laracon US to hear the latest updates and announcements.

We were there, not just to learn but to take what we’ve learnt and share how it applies to your community, product or business.

The updates to Livewire, Pest, and Nightwatch might sound technical, but the message for you is simple: they make Laravel projects faster to build, cheaper to maintain, and more reliable to run.

1. Livewire 4: faster features, cheaper upgrades

Livewire is a framework that allows developers to build modern, app-like experiences directly inside your Laravel project, without having to build a separate frontend in something like React or Vue.

For many of our membership platforms, Livewire helps us create highly interactive features (dashboards, profiles, messaging) while keeping the codebase lean and affordable.

With Livewire 4, the focus is on evolution, not disruption:

Smooth upgrade path - unlike many major version changes, this isn’t a rewrite that forces expensive redevelopment. Your app can continue running while gradually adopting new features. That means lower upgrade costs when moving forward.

Single-file components by default - instead of developers juggling multiple files, Livewire 4 introduces a simpler structure: one file per component. This reduces project complexity, speeds up onboarding, and helps avoid costly mistakes.

JavaScript improvements baked in - no more fiddly setup; JavaScript inside Livewire “just works.” That means fewer hours troubleshooting integrations and more time spent delivering value.

Integrated testing - tests can now live right next to the components they’re checking, saving developer time and improving project reliability.

This means we can achieve faster development cycles, fewer maintenance headaches, and less time (and budget) spent keeping your platform up to date.

For membership organisations and community platforms, this means more focus on creating features that delight your members, and less on paying for invisible infrastructure work.

2. Pest 4: better testing, fewer costly mistakes

Testing is often invisible to clients, but it’s one of the most important parts of building robust digital platforms.

At Steadfast Collective, we use testing to make sure new features don’t break old ones, bugs are caught before launch, and updates can be deployed with confidence.

Pest, the PHP testing framework, is already known for being elegant and developer-friendly. But with Pest 4, it takes a giant leap forward by introducing browser testing powered by Playwright (a world-class testing engine).

Here’s why that matters for you:

Speed means savings - Pest 4 is up to 5x faster than Laravel Dusk, the old standard. Faster tests mean developers can ship updates quickly, cutting down on project costs.

Debugging tools that work - Pest now offers tools like debug() and tinker() to identify problems instantly, reducing wasted hours chasing down obscure bugs.

Smoke and visual testing - Instead of just checking if a page loads, Pest can now detect JavaScript errors, forgotten console logs, and even pixel-level design changes.

CI/CD integration - Pest is designed for modern workflows like GitHub Actions. That means your project can adopt rapid, automated testing without ballooning budgets.

For you, Pest 4 reduces the risk of things going wrong, which means fewer costly fixes and smoother launches.

If you’ve ever felt the pain of a broken page, a checkout that doesn’t quite work, or a bug introduced during an update, Pest 4 is built to help us minimise those issues before they ever reach your community.

3. Nightwatch: smarter monitoring, lower bills

After a platform launches, the work isn’t finished.

That’s why we use monitoring and error-tracking tools like Nightwatch to keep your system healthy. If something goes wrong in the middle of the night, Nightwatch is often the first to know.

At Laracon US, Taylor shared just how widely Nightwatch is being used: 21 billion events processed across 16,000 app environments in the previous four weeks alone. This isn’t niche software, it’s become the backbone of Laravel monitoring globally.

The updates they announced make it even more cost-effective.

50% more included events on every plan, meaning you get more monitoring coverage. We include monitoring as part of our hosting and support packages, and these changes allow us to keep our costs low.

Cache insights and Slack integration, new features make it easier to find and fix performance issues. Instead of spending hours diagnosing why a page feels slow, Nightwatch points straight to the problem, saving both time and money.

At Steadfast Collective, we believe in building platforms that last.

Projects that are cost-effective not just at launch, but for the next 10 years.