telescope
Laravel Telescope is a first-party debugging and monitoring tool for Laravel applications that captures requests, exceptions, database queries, jobs, mail, cache operations, and scheduled tasks in a web-based dashboard. It is designed as a development-time companion, not a production monitoring solution.
Key facts
Objective fields from the source. Values we can't verify are shown as “Unknown” rather than guessed.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Repository | laravel/telescope |
| Owner | laravel |
| Primary language | PHP |
| License | MIT — OSI-approved |
| Stars | 5.2k |
| Forks | 660 |
| Open issues | 15 |
| Latest release | v5.20.0 (2026-04-07) |
| Last updated | 2026-07-02 |
| Source | https://github.com/laravel/telescope |
What telescope is
Telescope is a PHP package that integrates deeply with Laravel's service container to intercept and log HTTP requests, database queries, exceptions, queued jobs, notifications, and other framework events. It provides a local web UI for real-time inspection and filtering of these telemetry events, with configurable listeners and data retention.
Get the telescope source
Clone the repository and explore it locally.
git clone https://github.com/laravel/telescope.gitcd telescope# follow the project's README for install & configurationNeed it deployed, integrated, or customized instead? DEV.co ships production installs.
Best use cases
Implementation considerations
- Telescope must be registered in the application service provider and configured with allowed environments (typically development only) to prevent unintended activation.
- Database migration is required to store captured events; the schema supports customizable retention policies.
- Gate-based authorization controls access to the Telescope dashboard; configure to restrict by IP, user role, or custom logic.
- Listener configuration allows selective capture of specific event types to reduce overhead and noise.
- Sensitive data (passwords, tokens, API keys) should be masked in configuration using the privacy feature.
When to avoid it — and what to weigh
- Production monitoring required — Telescope is not designed for production use; for production observability, use dedicated APM tools (New Relic, Datadog, etc.).
- Team-wide centralized logging — Telescope runs on local developer machines and does not provide centralized log aggregation or multi-user audit trails.
- Zero-overhead requirement — Telescope incurs performance overhead from event listeners and data retention; disable or exclude it in performance-critical contexts.
- Non-Laravel projects — Telescope is Laravel-specific and cannot be used outside the Laravel framework ecosystem.
License & commercial use
MIT License. Permissive OSI-approved license allowing free use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions (retain copyright notice and license text).
MIT License permits commercial use without licensing fees or restrictions. No commercial support agreement is stated in the provided data; refer to Laravel's official support channels or community resources for assistance.
DEV.co evaluation signals
Editorial assessment — not user reviews. Directional, with an explicit confidence level.
| Signal | Assessment |
|---|---|
| Maintenance | Active |
| Documentation | Strong |
| License clarity | Clear |
| Deployment complexity | Low |
| DEV.co fit | Good |
| Assessment confidence | High |
Telescope captures sensitive request/response data and query parameters; configure privacy masking for credentials and secrets. Access to the dashboard should be restricted to trusted development environments. Local-only deployment mitigates exposure risk, but ensure the development machine and source control do not leak captured data containing secrets.
Alternatives to consider
Laravel Debugbar
Lighter-weight toolbar overlay in browser inspector; no database required but less feature-rich for complex request inspection.
Xdebug + IDE integration (PHPStorm, VS Code)
Step-through debugging with full stack visibility; steeper learning curve and not middleware-agnostic.
External APM (New Relic, Datadog, Sentry)
Production-ready observability with alerting and team dashboards; overkill and costly for local development.
Build on telescope with DEV.co software developers
Telescope accelerates debugging and performance tuning in development. Our engineers can help integrate Telescope into your Laravel workflow or explore custom observability solutions for your team.
Talk to DEV.coRelated open-source tools
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telescope FAQ
Can Telescope be used in production?
Does Telescope slow down my application?
How is captured data stored?
Is Telescope safe for shared development environments?
Work with a software development agency
From first prototype to production, DEV.co delivers software development services around tools like telescope. Our software development agency staffs experienced software developers and web developers for custom software development, web development, integrations, and ongoing support across open-source observability and beyond.
Ready to streamline Laravel development?
Telescope accelerates debugging and performance tuning in development. Our engineers can help integrate Telescope into your Laravel workflow or explore custom observability solutions for your team.