WordPress Multisite Subdirectory Setup With Laravel Herd | Multisite Drivers to Fix 404 Error
If you are trying to set up WordPress Multisite with subdirectories on your local Windows machine using Laravel Herd, there is one step that almost every tutorial misses & it causes your subsites to return a blank page or a 404 error no matter how correctly you followed the rest of the steps. In this video I walk through the complete setup from scratch and show you exactly how to fix that routing issue so your local multisite network actually works.
This is not a problem with your WordPress configuration. It is a known gap in how Herd's default WordPress driver handles subdirectory-based multisite URLs, and the fix takes less than five minutes once you know what to do.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS VIDEO
How to enable WordPress Multisite on a local install running through Laravel Herd on Windows 10 or Windows 11, why the subdirectory option is easier to work with than subdomains for local development and what the difference actually means in practice, what to add to wp-config.php and which part of the code WordPress generates you can safely ignore when using Herd, why your second and third sites return a 404 even after a seemingly correct multisite setup, how to find the Herd custom drivers directory on Windows including what to do if the folder does not exist yet, how to install a community maintained Valet driver that fixes subdirectory routing for multisite, and how to confirm everything is working correctly across both the front end and the wp-admin of each subsite.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro and what goes wrong
0:35 What you need before starting
0:45 Create a Local WordPress site in Herd
2:20 Enabling multisite in wp-config.php
3:05 Running network setup in wp-admin
4:50 Why Herd breaks subdirectory multisite
5:21 Installing the custom Valet driver on Windows
6:44 Testing your subsites after the fix
7:00 Wrap up
LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO
Full written tutorial with all code snippets: [https://wpfresher.com/wordpress-multi...]
QUICK RECAP OF THE FIX
The core issue is that Herd's built-in WordPress driver does not correctly translate subdirectory-based subsite URLs. Every request for a subsite like mysite.test/site-two falls through to nothing because the driver is not looking up the subsite in the network's site table. The solution is to install a custom PHP driver file into the Herd drivers directory .config backslash herd backslash config backslash valet backslash Drivers, then restart Herd. Once that driver is active, it intercepts subsite requests and routes them correctly through WordPress's multisite bootstrap, and your network works exactly as it would on a real server.
If the Drivers folder does not exist in that location yet, just create it yourself with a capital D and drop the driver file inside. That is all it takes.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Does this work on Windows 10 as well as Windows 11?
Yes. The Herd configuration path and driver setup are the same on both versions of Windows.
Will this custom driver break my other single-site WordPress projects in Herd?
No. The driver is only activated for projects that detect the MULTISITE or WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE constant in wp-config.php. All your other projects continue to run through Herd's default driver without any changes.
Do I need wildcard DNS or a wildcard SSL certificate for this?
No. Wildcard DNS and certificates are only required for subdomain-based multisite. Since we are using subdirectories, every subsite shares the same local domain & your existing Herd certificate covers it.
Does this driver also work on macOS with Herd or Valet?
Yes. The same driver file works on macOS as well. The only difference is the folder path, which on macOS lives inside your home directory under Library slash Application Support slash Herd slash config slash valet slash Drivers.
Can I use this setup for WooCommerce Multisite testing?
Yes. Once the routing is working correctly, you can install and network-activate WooCommerce just as you would on a live server, making it useful for testing WooCommerce-based plugins and themes across multiple stores within a single network.
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