Laravel is an open-source PHP framework used to build websites and apps. It contains all the necessary components and features to help web developers create a website using the PHP scripting language. It is important to note that Laravel isn’t the only framework available to PHP developers. In fact, other popular PHP frameworks include Symfony, CodeIgniter and Yii (just to name a few). And if we venture outside the PHP zone, there’s even more frameworks available, such as Rails which is based on the Ruby language, .NET which uses C#, or Sails.js, a Javascript framework.
Just like most popular web frameworks, Laravel follows a model-view-controller (MVC) approach to development. This simply means that the development process is broken down into three main components:
- Model: How data is handled and maintained on the site or app.
- View: This is the visual representation of the data, or in other words the UI (user interface). This bit will be mostly handled by HTML/CSS. Examples of UI elements may include drop-downs, charts, text boxes and tables.
- Controller: As the name suggests, it controls the data shown to the user. When a user interacts with the site/app, it will retrieve the relevant data from the model and then display it to the user using the view component.
As you can imagine, this MVC approach to website development can have many benefits including faster development times, easier maintenance and even greater scalability. This makes a framework like Laravel a desirable choice for custom web projects. For more information, see our post on Laravel benefits.
What is Laravel Used For?
Laravel is a software tool that helps web developers build websites and web applications more easily with the PHP programming language.
It provides pre-built features and tools that simplify common tasks like the ability to manage databases, perform user authentication, and route user requests.
It’s popular among developers for its ability to help them build web applications quickly and efficiently.
Here are just a few of the use cases for this cross-platform PHP framework that Laravel developers have designed:
- E-commerce websites and online stores
- Social networking sites
- E-learning content management systems
- Enterprise-level applications like enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, and electronic health record systems
How Popular is Laravel?
Laravel has a huge community of patrons and is trusted by many businesses for a wide range of reasons. Some of the main reasons are security, scalability, stability, and performance.
It is considered one of the most popular web development frameworks around the world. Its usage is expected to continue to increase as the demand remains steady and the community embraces and mentors new developers daily.
Why is Laravel Used?
Laravel Developers mainly build custom websites or applications using PHP, alongside other languages. Of course, writing the code from scratch in custom projects could take ages, so a framework like Laravel is used to save time. Some of the key features of Laravel include:
- Built-in Modules: Built-in packages means that you can add ready-made features to your web application, without the need of having to write code from scratch. You can even create your own custom packages separately and add them to your site.
- Automated Testing: Laravel offers both unit testing and feature testing. Unit testing can test small pieces of code. While feature testing can be used to test larger pieces of code or features on the site.
- Route Handling: Using simple names, rather than long path names makes it easier to manage bigger applications. Plus all route names can be changed in one place via a dedicated file, instead of having to manually change route names multiple times throughout the application.
- Security Features: Laravel offers a range of security features, such as user authentication, role authorizations, email verifications, password hashing and more.
- Database Migrations: With version control, database migrations are much easier to manage.
- Template Engine: The Blade template engine allows developers to easily create and maintain lightweight templates for their web pages.
- Eloquent ORM (Object Relational Mapping): Developers can write database queries using PHP syntax rather than SQL code. This makes it faster to manage and query databases.
Because Laravel has an extensive list of powerful features, it is recommended to be used on big projects, rather than small, simple web projects. Common examples of sites created using Laravel may include booking applications, forums, and even custom content management systems (CMS).
If you’re interested in creating a custom web application using Laravel, please contact our team.
Building Authentication and Authorization Systems
The configuration power of the Laravel PHP framework is outstanding! It implements authorization and authentication security with no hassles. There are different built-in Laravel packages listed which we will discuss below that ensure a streamlined authentication. Thus, data is protected and users get secured data management for their Laravel-based websites.
Integration With the Mail Services
I found many PHP frameworks comply with mail integration and the Laravel framework does the same. If you are thinking of setting up a new service account, the framework has a “Swiftmailer” library that enables API configurations for individual email accounts. That’s how easy an email notification is there with the Laravel framework.
Some Laravel drivers permit messages to be sent quickly through cloud services. These drivers include SMTP, Mailgun, Mandrill, SparkPost, Amazon SES, PHP’s “mail” function, and “Sendmail”. Customizing email appearance is easier with Laravel PHP framework as it offers unique email designs, and images with no complicated hurdles.
Fixing Technical Vulnerabilities
Laravel PHP framework has an advanced codebase that offers security measures much ahead of time. You might have come across different website threats like SQL injections, cross-site scripting, and coding forgery. No worries! Business owners will be rest assured with the sense of security with the Laravel framework.
Laravel Packages List to Use in 2024
Beginners must choose one among these Laravel packages list to save time in website building. Below we have categorized Laraval packages as per their functionality, let’s have a quick look.
Laravel Development Packages
Underlying Laravel PHP frameworks facilitates the debugging, asset compilation, and code generation tasks.
- Laravel Debugbar: Are you struggling to find bugs in the Laravel framework? Try out Laravel Debugbar which displays all database queries, rendered templates, and passed parameters making the debugging task easier.
- Laravel User Verification: This Laravel package simplifies user onboarding by validating email verification. As a user, you get the flexibility to customize email templates, verification logic, and the user experience. That’s how you are saving valuable time in user authentication!
- Socialite: If you are messed up with social login setups on the Laravel PHP framework, their official team has a surprise for you. Integrate the Socialite Laravel package and allow users to log in with popular platforms like Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
Laravel Security Packages
Don’t worry when you have installed these Laravel security packages in your backend system.
- Laravel Breeze: It is a simple authentication package that allows users to customize authentication controllers and views.
- JWT-Auth: An authentication package that uses JWT tokens for stateless authentication, which is useful for microservices-based applications.
- Laravel Fortify: An authentication system that includes registration, login, email verification, password reset, and two-factor authentication.
Laravel Admin Panel Packages
Are you looking to build admin panels on the Laravel PHP frameworks? Here are some Laravel packages to consider. I am sure they will help you out!
- Voyager: Let Voyager take you on the beautiful voyage of creating an admin panel in a simplified, clean, user-friendly process. It has dummy data for your testing purposes.
- LaraAdmin: LaraAdmin is a free and open-source powerhouse for Laravel developers. This package simplifies admin panel creation with features like user management, role-based access control, and dynamic menus.