This is a nice tutorial. However, I would recommend you to create crud in php using prepared statements. This is because prepared statements makes your code secure. Otherwise your website could be vulnerable to sql injection attacks.

You can create your own search in laravel with real time or live search result. To create this type of laravel search functionality, you can easily use ajax jquery in your view file.

You can also use just AJAX jQuery instead of vue with Laravel for file uploading form. Integrating vue is somewhat complicated. But using AJAX in Laravel file upload form is comparatively easy.

In PHP, unit testing is not that difficult. This is because you have tools, like PHPUnit, for the testing. These tools make testing easier and automated. For PHP unit testing with this tool, you only have to install the tool, set your directory structure and write the test case. In the end, you can run the test case using following composer command, for example: ./vendor/bin/phpunit --bootstrap vendor/autoload.php Tests/EmailTest

I still prefer the laravel file upload form without any front-end script or rendering. It looks neat to me. Furthermore, creating a simple laravel file upload with multiple file and image upload functionality is really easy and quick.

Since you only get 512mb at $5, it is better to host only 1 app. 512mb server is not recommended for hosting a site. You should use it as a production server. I have been used my DO 512mb server on Cloudways for php web hosting as a production server.

Our regular web hosting is where you host a website on a shared or dedicated server. This server could be on cloud, vps or some PC. ECS is a container service. Containers are also setup on cloud or vps infrastructure, but they are scalable. This means it grows with the website or app. If your database requirements go up, the container can be scaled up to contain the database. If you are looking to host your website on a PHP MySQL hosting provider, then I would recommend using Cloudways platform. This platform provides pre-configured managed servers on top of infrastructures, like AWS and others. You can launch the server from their platform and the platform will setup OS and stack itself.

I won't recommend a shared hosting for PHP based website. They are just not secure and fast. You can easily host a PHP website on DigitalOcean server in one-click using Cloudways platform. No need to manually setup or configure stack. The server will already have that configured. You can get started with deploying your website right away. If you want to attach a block storage to your server, you can do from their platform in one-click and scale up anytime you need.

I would recommend AWS for such a large website. If you don't know how to setup AWS instance manually, then you can use Cloudways PHP web hosting for deploying your app quickly on AWS EC2 instance. This platform lets you launch AWS server in just few minutes, without having to manually setup the server and install stack on it.

There is Google App Engine and then there is Google Compute Engine. Former is a PaaS and latter is not.