Enlightn Is Archived: What to Use Instead for Laravel Security
Enlightn was archived on 1 January 2026 and its website is gone. Here is what it did, what genuinely replaces each part of it, and where StackShield fits.
Quick Summary
StackShield
- Laravel-specific external monitoring
- 30+ security checks, zero installation
- From $29/mo with 14-day free trial
Enlightn
- Laravel Static Analyzer (archived)
- Enlightn was a Laravel-specific static analysis tool that ran as a Composer package and inspected your code, configurati...
- No longer sold. OSS version remains under LGPL-3.0
The Bottom Line
Choose StackShield for the runtime half of what Enlightn covered, and for the half it never covered at all. StackShield watches the deployed application from the outside, continuously, and catches the configuration regressions that static analysis cannot see: debug mode re-enabled after an incident, Telescope left reachable after a deploy, a server change that starts serving .env. Be clear that this is not a like-for-like replacement.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature |
StackShield
|
Enlightn |
|---|---|---|
| Maintained | Yes | No (archived 2026-01-01) |
| Last updated | Continuously | 2024-06-15 |
| Analysis type | External (attacker perspective) | Internal (static code analysis) |
| Laravel-specific | Yes | Yes |
| Security checks | Yes (30+ external) | Yes (49, static) |
| Performance checks | No | Yes (37) |
| Reliability checks | No | Yes (45) |
| Detects production misconfiguration | Yes | No |
| Continuous monitoring | Yes (scheduled scans, alerts) | No (on demand) |
| Installation | None, enter a URL | Composer package |
| Price | From $29/mo | No longer sold |
Where Enlightn Excels
- Genuinely good tool while maintained, 982 GitHub stars and 131 checks
- Covered performance and reliability as well as security, which few Laravel tools do
- Understood Laravel conventions properly rather than treating it as generic PHP
- Ran locally and in CI with no external service or account
- The OSS version remains available under LGPL-3.0 and still runs
Where Enlightn Falls Short
- Archived 1 January 2026, repository read-only, no further development
- Last code push was 15 June 2024, so recent Laravel releases are uncovered
- The laravel-enlightn.com website no longer resolves, so docs are GitHub only
- Pro tier can no longer be purchased
- Static analysis only, so it never saw runtime or production state
Choose StackShield if...
Choose StackShield for the runtime half of what Enlightn covered, and for the half it never covered at all. StackShield watches the deployed application from the outside, continuously, and catches the configuration regressions that static analysis cannot see: debug mode re-enabled after an incident, Telescope left reachable after a deploy, a server change that starts serving .env. Be clear that this is not a like-for-like replacement.
Choose Enlightn if...
Do not start a new project on Enlightn. It is archived and will not be updated for future Laravel releases. If you already run it and it works against your current Laravel version, there is no urgency to remove it, and the OSS checks still function. But treat it as frozen rather than as a tool you can rely on going forward.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is Enlightn dead?
Effectively yes. The GitHub repository was archived on 1 January 2026 and is read-only, the last code push was 15 June 2024, and the laravel-enlightn.com website no longer resolves. The open-source package is still installable under LGPL-3.0 and its checks still run, but nothing new is being added and support for newer Laravel releases will not arrive. Verified 7 September 2026.
Does StackShield replace Enlightn?
Only partly, and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise. Enlightn did static analysis of your code across security, performance and reliability. StackShield does none of those things. It examines your running application from the outside. It replaces the part of Enlightn that asked whether your configuration is safe, and it does so continuously rather than once, but it does not read your code.
What actually replaces each part of Enlightn?
Split it by layer. For dependency vulnerabilities, composer audit ships with Composer 2.4 and above and reads your lock file against the PHP advisory database. For static code analysis, Larastan and PHPStan cover the code quality and correctness ground, and Ward is a maintained Laravel-aware option for secrets and injection patterns. For performance and reliability, Laravel Pulse and Nightwatch are the current first-party answers. For runtime security posture, which is the part none of those cover, that is where StackShield fits.
Should I remove Enlightn from my project now?
Not urgently. An archived package that still runs is not a security risk in itself, and its checks remain valid for the Laravel versions it knew about. The risk is quieter: it will silently stop covering new framework behaviour, so over time a passing Enlightn run means less than it used to. Plan the migration rather than rushing it.
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