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Why do we use the Laravel framework?

Created and released almost 10 years ago, open-source PHP framework Laravel stole a heart from lots of web developers. Why? Because of its simplicity, popularity and … elegance. Similarly to other frameworks, its aim is to diminish the code length and simplify the integration of extra plugins. Laravel has a large range of intrinsic options and appliances. This helps devs to build projects of any difficulty and scale. No matter what you have in mind – a simple and humble webpage or complex social platform – Laravel will handle it.

This framework offers its users strong security measures, improved caching, authorization, localization, unit testing, elaborate documentation and most importantly – powerful community support. 

Since the usage of frameworks is considered a must in the development community, let’s find out what makes Laravel so distinctive from others?

If you ask a web developer why they like working with Laravel, the majority of them mention the absence of a complicated learning circle and high level of flexibility. What’s the reason behind Laravel’s popularity in a web development branch? It is because of a chance to create well-founded and safe resolutions quickly and with minor possibility of failure.

Speaking about the exact Laravel benefits, these are the most bright ones:

Eloquent ORM

Just think about it: your app needs to manage the enormous amount of people’s info, phone numbers, e-mails, products, and other items. Every time your users change personal info, subscribe, accept orders, or do any other manipulation, the database renews instantly. Object relational mapping is an ace in Laravel’s sleeve that is able to accelerate the process of handling the abundance of user’s data and manage the relations between the parties. 

The Artisan command-line interface

The Artisan is one more really cool tool when it comes to maintaining simple MVC files with their corresponding settings. But the main advantage of it lies in providing easy and helpful commands for creating your application. All you need to do is to write the line of text that Laravel will perceive as a command.

Usage of MVC pattern

Using a model-view-controller architectural pattern helps you greatly while working on ascendable and large-scale projects. It separates the logic of an app into 3 components: model, view and controller. While MODEL manages the data and reacts to CONTROLLER’S interpretations of the consumer’s actions, VIEW shows to users the MODEL data with all of updates and modifications. Respectively, this helps to write less redundant code.

Elaborate documentation

This is especially beneficial to newbies in the Laravel user field. Since Laravel is a progressive framework, which constantly grows, the amount of information you should cover in early stages of learning Laravel grows respectively. In order to not be at the tail end, this framework offers you a vast documentation library. It includes guides and video tutorials, which will help you to catch up with the basics of Laravel previous versions.

UNIT Testing

Unit testing, inserted in Laravel, enables QA processes and ensures security. The tool checks packages if there are inconsistencies in the code and discerns the unverified changes. In fact, the application’s test set consists of unit and feature tests. Whereas unit testing is focused on a tiny, isolated piece of code, feature tests ensure your system functioning as a united mechanism. 

Cache backend full support

Laravel completely supports Redis application, which is a variation of in-memory data store. If big chunks of a load from the backend database are switched to the in-memory space, caching can distinctively diminish the database load and avoid crashing possibilities. What is more, Laravel can also be extended to Memcached, a high-performance distributed memory cache service.

Large developer community support

Besides the best packages in the PHP ecosystem, Laravel represents one of the most developer friendly frameworks. If you encounter some problem, it is enough to just write the question in one of the community support resources, and the answer will come right away. This is the power of an active growing community of Laravel’s admirers, which proves this framework’s imminent success. 

Taking credits for all Laravel bright sides, no framework is fully perfect. That’s why the question “which option should I choose while creating a website: well-developed CMS or a framework?” is still on the agenda. Here you should pay attention to a list of aspects of your current project:

Complexity of your project

Taking into account Laravel’s flexibility and modular packaging system mentioned before, you can produce a more diverse product in shorter time frames and with less efforts. On the contrary, if you decide to use CMS (e.g WordPress) for building your website, it can emerge to be a quite challenging task to deal with. Also mind your financial capacities while project development. If you’re tapped out and have to choose like in the Matrix movie between two pills: CMS and Laravel, vote for the second option. Because Laravel is open for changes and is an incredibly scalable framework.

Administrating issues

Developers without an admin panel are like Jedis without lightsabers. Here  CMSs have one crucial advantage – they let their non-technical users to update the content of the website without any programming skills. In case of Laravel, unfortunately you will have to set up such a dashboard yourself. You should also consider who and with which frequency will need the access to an admin console you’ve created. After figuring that out, you’ll probably side with CMS, which is more rational and beneficial.

The option of plugin implementation

Whereas Laravel has an innate set of proper plugins that will satisfy customers’ needs, in case of CMSs you should develop them yourself. As far as you don’t have enough time to learn all of the specifics of CMS plugin development, it is more reasonable to bet on Laravel framework from the early stages of the development process.

Let’s sum it up. Taking into consideration a bunch of Laravel advantageous features and specifics of your project, you can clearly see all generous offerings of this PHP framework. If you are not so far from hitting a rock (read: financial) bottom and are eager to set up a scalable website, Laravel will be a suitable option for you. Our devs are keen on both development systems. Thus, if you have come up with an idea for a project with unusual functionality, reach out to our SapientPro development team, and we will bring your vision to life with the help of Laravel framework or CMS within the most convenient conditions.