Laravel tooling (herd, valet, sail, starter kits)

Hi All,

I was looking at Laravel today, and I'm am going to choose between this and Django for an app. But looking at Laravel, 1. do I need to install the Herd tooling, Valet, Sail.. all the other bits and bobs or can I do this with just brew? Reason is, when looking at Herd, some of the features are "Pro features" only and I don't really want the upsell. Must I use Sail? Must I use Herd? Must I just use Valet?

if it helps, this would be installed on my mac.

2. Then there's like a couple of additional choices that drop from there, such as Breeze and Blade.. or livelier.. or just Jetstream?

Is the Laravel ecosystem something that you need to just immerse yourself in? Do I have to go all in on all the tooling or should I stop procrastinating and just go with Django

Yes, open to learning, but don't want to get caught in lots of paid value adds. any tips, tricks or helpful guides welcome