In case you weren’t aware, Laravel is an open source PHP web framework that largely follows the same principals as Symfony and is based on the MVC (model-view-controller) architecture. The developer, Taylor Otwell, wanted to improve on the CodeIgniter framework, which lacked in some areas, specifically user authorisation and authentication.
Laravel Benefits
The benefits of using Laravel to build web applications include the following:
- Flexibility
- Scalability
- Application integration
- Security
- Speed
If you talk to a Laravel development agency UK or your country offers, they can take a look at your project and if they feel the Laravel is the best PHP application, they would advise you accordingly. More than that, they have teams of very talented web developers that can work together on your project and with this amazing set of PHP tools, you can really think outside of the box and get creative.
Ongoing Development
As you would expect with any web development tool, Laravel has been constantly updated since its creation in 2011, when version 1 was released. As it stands in December 2021, Laravel 8 is the current version, which boasts features such as:
- Laravel Jetstream
- Model factory classes
- Migration squashing
- Tailwind CSS
Key Design Points
There are many key design points with Laravel, which include:
- Bundles
- ORM – Object relational mapping.
- Query builder
- Application logic
- Reverse routing
- Restful controllers
- Class auto loading
- Blade templating engine
- IoC containers
- Migratory version control
- Database seeding
- Unit testing
- Automatic pagination
- Homestead
- Canvas
- Lazy collection
These many design points are the result of almost a decade of ongoing development, with some new additions to every version.
First Party Packages
These are ready-to-use packages that include:
- Cashier – Introduced in version 4.2, this package enabled billing and invoices.
- Envoy – Introduced in version 4.2, this package provides minimal syntax for defining common tasks.
- Socialite – Provides authentication for social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
- Passport – Introduced in version 5.3, Passport provides full server implementation.
- Scout – Introduced in version 5.3, this package simplifies searches.
- Dusk – Introduced in version 5.4, dusk enabled browser automation and testing.
- Horizon – Introduced in version 5.5, horizon provides an effective dashboard.
- Telescope – Introduced in version 5.7, this package deals with requests and database queries.
- Sanctum – Introduced in version 7.7, this is a lightweight authentication system.
- Jetstream – Introduced in version 8.0, this provides an application scaffold.
- Fortify – Introduced in version 8.0, this provides an application scaffold.
- Breeze – This is an authentication package.
Command Line Interface (CLI)
Laravel’s CLI is called Artisan and it was first introduced in version 3.0, while the CLI was developed to enable Symfony migration. Artisan can effectively manage database migrations and seeding, publishing package assets and generating code for new migrations.
Talk To A Professional Web Developer
In order to determine whether or not Laravel is right for your web project, you should seek out a leading development agency, who has an in-house team of top developers that are skilled in designing projects with both Laravel and Symfony. Once the developer understands your needs, he can make a recommendation on which set of PHP applications to use and your project can begin.
