Laravel is the most popular, free, open-source PHP framework for web application development, and has been so for some years now.
While the well-structured code and elegant syntax make it developer-friendly and suitable for developing complex web applications, the built-in features for common tasks and security enable speedier development and security matching expectations of a modern web application.
It is now the go-to framework for building applications that will evolve with the changing web trends.
Laravel framework is also loved by developers due to its many developer-friendly features. Let’s take a look at some of the features below.
The official documentation of Laravel is clearly one of the best we’ve seen. It is very detailed and you’ll most likely find what you’re looking for in the official documentation itself.
It is very helpful for developers as official documentation is always more authentic and reliable than a community forum.
Since the framework has been in existence for over a decade and is also the most popular, there is a large and active community available for support.
This ensures that you can rely on a wide range of resources, such as documentation, tutorials, and forums, to help you get started with Laravel and troubleshoot any issues you may encounter along the way.
With Laravel, there are a lot of pre-built functions and structures that work on the latest PHP principles to build responsive web applications in a time-efficient manner. For e.g. running a couple of Artisan commands on the server can set up a simple user registration and login feature with email verification.
There is no need to spend long hours and weeks writing individual lines of code.
Laravel is highly customizable and extensible, with a range of third-party packages and plugins available to add additional functionality to your project.
This means that you can tailor Laravel to your specific needs, and easily integrate with other technologies and services that your project requires.
Laravel’s Eloquent ORM is a database abstraction layer that simplifies working with databases in web applications. With Eloquent, developers can define models for database tables, and then use object-oriented syntax to interact with the database.
Eloquent provides many features to make database interactions easier, such as query builders, relationships, and support for advanced database features such as soft deletes and timestamps.
Its intuitive syntax, rich feature set, and powerful capabilities make Eloquent a popular choice among developers for database management in Laravel projects.
Artisan is a great command line interface that is shipped with Laravel. It can be used to run helpful commands for database migrations, creating models, controllers, etc. It also has a great REPL tool called Tinker, which is highly useful for interacting with any part of the application and for debugging.
Laravel uses a unique message queuing system, which helps to run time-consuming tasks like generating PDFs or sending emails in the background. This means the user doesn’t have to wait for such tasks to complete, and your site can handle the rest of the tasks faster.
This helps with a good user experience and also reduces your hosting costs in the long run.
Traditionally, managing cron jobs requires access to the web server and managing the crontab file. This may also require services of a Dev-Ops resource as access to the web server or knowledge of the crontab file syntax may not be in the developer’s domain.
Laravel’s in-built Task Scheduler allows managing scheduled cron jobs in a fluently expressive way within the Laravel codebase, without the need to access the webserver for adding or updating the jobs.
Laravel provides a robust and comprehensive testing framework that makes it easy to write and run tests for your web applications. The framework includes a variety of testing tools and features, such as PHPUnit, which is a popular PHP testing framework.
Laravel also provides a testing suite that includes HTTP tests, console tests, and browser tests. This means that you can test all aspects of your application, including its routes, controllers, models, views, and integrations.
In conclusion, Laravel stands out as the preferred choice for web developers for a multitude of reasons. Its elegant syntax and well-structured code make it ideal for crafting complex web applications that can adapt to the ever-evolving landscape of the internet.
Built-in features like authentication system, task schedulers, event listeners, event broadcasting, Eloquent ORM, etc are great advantages when developing complex features and applications. From a developer’s perspective, the advantages of working with Laravel are abundant.
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If you’re a decision-maker, check out our article on why Laravel is a great choice for your web application development needs.