Learn about Laravel. What the hype is all about? Is it all worth it? Why developers are developing and migrating to Laravel in 2025.

Even if you are just starting your journey as a web developer, you may have heard the term Laravel. You may have listened to it as a buzzword thrown around by your colleagues, read some article online, or seen multiple job postings online mentioning Laravel as a core development skill. 

This Laravel introduction often comes with taglines such as “Laravel is elegant,” “It saves so much time,” or “It makes web development so much fun!” But what exactly is Laravel, and why is it discussed so much when web development is being discussed? In this blog post, we will answer just that and more.

What is Laravel?

Laravel is primarily a web application framework built using PHP. PHP, which actually runs most of the internet (W3Techs), is a powerful scripting language used by millions of websites, including WordPress. A framework is a pre-built structure or toolkit that the developers can use instead of writing code from scratch. By using ready-made tools and libraries and following best practices, developers can quickly create clean, secure, and organized code.

Why was Laravel Created?

Before web frameworks, developers used to write all the code manually. Then came some frameworks that automated some development. Some of these older frameworks include CodeIgniter and Zend. They sped up the development process. But they lacked modern features. These include built-in authentication, friendly routing, and dependency management.

To address shortcomings in older frameworks and pack in modern features, Taylor Otwell from the US created a PHP framework with the following features.

• Modern – feature-rich
• Elegant – user-friendly
• Real-world applications based
• Community-driven

And as a result, Laravel was created!

Key Features of Laravel

Simple and Clean Routing

Laravel decides routes in a single file. This is clean and human-readable syntax.

Route::get(‘/about’, function () {
return view(‘about’);
});

That is it: no confusing configuration, just plain-to-the-point code.

Model View Controller (MVC) Architecture

Laravel is built on Model View Controller or MVC Architecture, which basically divides your project into the following three parts.

· Model: Handles data and business logic.

· View: Handles the presentation (HTML, templates)

· Controller: Connects the two and acts as the brain of the operation

Eloquent Object Relational Mapper ORM

As per the Marketing Scoop report, Laravel powers 3.23 million websites. Furthermore, Laravel has a powerful ORM that allows developers to interact with their database without raw SQL queries.

That is all to fetch a user, without worrying about SQL syntax. Eloquent not only makes developers’ work with databases a breeze but also encourages them to write readable, clean code.

Built-in Authentication and Security

Laravel has also got you covered for your login and registration needs. It has its own pre-built authentication feature that handles all the essentials securely and efficiently. This includes login, registration, password reset, and email verification. Laravel also offers security features that guard the applications against the following common threats:

• SQL Injection
• Cross-site Scripting (XSS)
• Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF)

This makes your applications inherently safe and secure.

Blade Templating Engine

Laravel’s built-in templating system is Blade Engine. This enables the injection of PHP code inside the HTML cleanly.

Blade templates make development efficient and easy with their lightning-fast performance, lightweight nature, and easy extension capabilities. This enables dynamic web building without any messy syntax.

Artisan Command Line Tool

Laravel provides developers with a command-line tool called Artisan. With this, developers can:

• Generate controllers, models, migrations, etc.
• Run database migrations
• Clear caches
• Run unit tests
• Create custom commands

php artisan make: controller UserController

With just one line, your controller file is ready!

Database Migration and Seeders

With Laravel migrations, you can version-control your database structure. It’s like versioning your code. This saves you the hassle of creating database tables manually. Instead, you write migration files in PHP, and Laravel will take care of building tables automatically. Consider the following:

php artisan migrate

To facilitate the testing, Laravel can also populate your tables with Seeders to provide sample data. This eliminates the need to manually enter fake data.

Composer and Laravel Packages

Laravel is built on PHP’s package manager, Composer, enabling easy installation and third-party library management/creation. Laravel also holds a vast package ecosystem, having both official and community-built tools. The following are some good examples:

•  Laravel Jetstream – For authentication
• Laravel Breeze – A minimal starter kit
• Laravel Cashier – To enable subscription billing
• Laravel Horizon – For queue management
• Laravel Sanctum – For API authentication

This ecosystem is so extensive that whatever your need as a developer is, there is probably a Laravel package for it.

Laravel Ecosystem and Tools

The success and popularity of Laravel stem from the fact that it is not just another web development framework but an entire ecosystem. Some of the official tools include:

1.  Laravel Forge – For server deployment and management
2.  Laravel Vapor – For serverless deployment on AWS
3.  Laravel Nova – To have an elegant admin dashboard
4.  Laravel Envoyer – To ensure zero downtime deployment
5.  Laravel Mix – To simply frontend assets like CSS and JS
6.  Laravel Sail – A Docker-based development environment

This library of Laravel tools enables both hobbyists and professionals to build and deliver their projects.

Why do Developers Go for Laravel?

We have seen the key features of Laravel, and the following are some of the key features that make Laravel stand out from other frameworks:

Elegant Syntax

Built with a developer-centric focus, Laravel’s syntax is expressive, developer-friendly, human-readable, and simply a joy to work with.

Rapid Development

With Artisan commands, Eloquent ORM, and an off-the-shelf authentication process, development is accelerated. This cuts down weeks of development to mere days.

Strong Community

One of the biggest reasons for Laravel’s success is its vast community. It is one of the most active and helpful out there. From a ton of tutorials on YouTube to online courses, you can find help every step of the way.

Regular Updates

Another big reason for Laravel’s success is its future-proof design, with regular updates that include modern PHP features.

Scalability

From beginner projects to enterprise-level applications, Laravel scales easily and effortlessly. Companies like BBC, Pfizer, and 9GAG use Laravel for their professional applications. You can contact Objects to hire Laravel developers to start building your enterprise-level application.  

Glance Into the Working of Laravel

Now, let’s understand the working of Laravel with an example of the /about page of a website.

•  Routing: First and foremost, this query will access Laravel’s route file. Then it will be decided which controller will handle the query.
  
• Controller: Controller retrieves the necessary data from the database using models.
  
• Model: The Model then interacts with the database using Eloquent ORM of Laravel.
  
• View: This data is then sent by the controller to a blade view file. Then it is displayed beautifully using HTML.
  
• Response: The page is sent back to the user’s browser.

Laravel makes the entire process easy to understand for developers and users alike. 

Real World Uses of Laravel

Now let’s look at some of the real-world web applications supported by Laravel:

• Content Management Systems (CMS)
• E-Commerce stores
• SaaS platforms
• APIs and backend servers for mobile applications
• Portfolio site
• Enterprise-level web applications
• Blog websites

Notable Migration Cases to Laravel

• FlexyFit Academy is an online fitness education platform. InfyOm transformed its legacy PHP system to Laravel. They needed this transformation because their code was not keeping up with their growth due to scalability issues. Laravel injected multi-site architecture and multi-language support with modularity.
  
• Cubet transformed legacy PHP and Java modules into Laravel for the Baltic school management platform. This transformation increased API response time by 30% and made the platform future-proof. And all this was carried out with just 30 minutes of downtime.
  
• A post in Medium describes the migration of a team from Phalcon to Laravel through incremental replacement of components. Gradually, they replaced the Phalcon codebase and reduced technical debt.

How to Get Started

The user-friendly nature and active Laravel community make learning the framework simple. Following is your quick guide map to learning Laravel:

1. Start with learning basic PHP. In PHP, you should know about syntax and topics like variables, loops, and Object-Oriented Programming (OOP).
   
2. Set up your Environment with the installation of PHP, Composer, and Laravel. For easy setup, use Laravel Sail (a Docker-based tool).
   
3. Next, explore the basics by learning about routes, controllers, and views.
   
4. Moving towards advanced Laravel topics is the next step of your Laravel learning journey. This includes authentication, database migration, Eloquent relationships, middleware, and API building.
   
5. After a strong foundation, start implementation. Start with making small projects. Make a blog, a to-do list, or a portfolio site. Then scale up gradually. 

For quick and easy reference, visit the official docs at https://laravel.com/docs, which is excellently written and is very beginner-friendly.

 Common Laravel Misconceptions

 Myth 1:

• Since Laravel is written in PHP, it’s slow.
• In reality, the performance of Laravel is optimized. This is ensured with efficient caching and queuing. That is why Laravel can handle large-scale applications effortlessly.

Myth 2:

• Laravel is suitable only for small-scale applications.
• In reality, some of the large-scale web applications are powered by Laravel. In fact, scalability depends upon architecture, not the framework itself.

Myth 3:

•  Laravel is very hard to learn for beginners
• Learning Laravel is not hard, but you have to start smart by first learning the basics of MVC and PHP. Once this is done, learning Laravel is actually a walk in the park.

Final Thoughts

Laravel is not a framework only – it is a philosophy of web development that values scalability, cleanliness, and elegance. As a leading framework, Laravel provides everything you need for any type of project, from enterprise-level solutions to beginner projects. 

Having a large and active online community also makes development with Laravel easy and enjoyable.