If your company is looking for increases in marketing performance, inventory management efficiency, and customer service quality, web applications can provide them, as well as many additional benefits. Using a framework, or a collection of tools that make development faster and easier, is one way to build such apps.
When you choose the right framework for your development projects, you get a boost in the quality and functionality of the resulting web applications. Laravel, a popular and versatile PHP framework, is one you should consider. Whether you use an in-house team or outsource application development to a nearshore development company like BairesDev, Laravel development could be the best option for creating your web applications.
Here we explore Laravel so you can understand the basics before making your choice. We’ll cover what it’s used for, key features, benefits, and options for learning.
What Is Laravel?
In the early 2000s, most PHP-based codes were in the form of scripts, which were difficult to use. As time went on, they became even less manageable, without any logical organization. Sir Taylor Otwell created Laravel to address this problem, releasing it in July of 2011.
Designed to work with the PHP, Laravel has all the tools necessary to develop right out of the box. Laravel development provides a structural foundation for apps and helps streamline the process.
What Is Laravel Used For?
You can use Laravel to build a wide range of applications, from simple to complex. Specific types include:
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- Data-related software solutions
- Content-oriented websites, such as news and blogs
- Enterprise software including CRM and CMS
- E-commerce based software
- Social networking websites
Laravel can handle the high complexity level needed for enterprise apps that require a backend, including user accounts, exports, and order management systems. It can also help beginners build more sustainable and stable basic apps.
What Are Laravel’s Key Features?
Laravel includes a range of powerful features that make it a valuable PHP framework:
MVC architecture support
Laravel uses a model-view-controller (MVC) architectural pattern. These three core parts of the framework work together:
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- Most of the processing is done in the controllers, which are responsible for user interaction and data operations.
- The controllers connect to the models to get, create, or update data.
- Views, which contain the HTML structure, display the results.
MVC separates models from views, reducing the number of dependencies between them, so changes made to one layer will have only minor impacts on other layers. The resulting code is more organized, less fragile, and easier to debug.
Blade templating engine
Blade, Laravel’s easy to use and powerful templating engine, helps you design unique and impressive layouts. Blade views are compiled and cached until they’re modified further, which cuts down on loading time and improves search engine rankings.
Automated testing
Laravel’s built-in automated testing makes eliminating bugs easier. Actions include unit testing for controllers and classes, and feature testing for code base. The testing included in Laravel development can simulate basic user behavior — like clicking links and filling out forms — which simplifies and speeds up the process.
Authentication
Writing authentication code for web applications can be a time-consuming process. Laravel makes it simpler with an out-of-the-box authentication configuration file that includes many options, allowing you to build a fully functional authentication scheme using an easy command. It also provides convenient paperwork to develop your own authentication system.
Artisan command line tool
Laravel comes with dozens of pre-built commands in its Artisan command line tool, which you can use to create models and controllers and avoid repetitive, tedious tasks. You can also write your own commands to extend Artisan’s range.
Modular packaging system
With Laravel’s modular packaging system, you can easily add functionalities to applications without writing them from scratch. You can create your own packages for code you use routinely or install the ready-to-use packages.
Database migration system
You can create and modify database tables with Laravel’s database migration system. It permits the expansion of the database structure without recreating everything, reducing the chance of losing data. Developers can also easily share databases with other team members using database migration.
What Are Laravel’s Benefits?
The Laravel PHP framework offers a wide range of overall benefits including stability, scalability, reliability, and high performance. In particular, it provides:
Fast development
Using Laravel development accelerates the creation of web apps, with faster server-client authentication systems, routing, and caching activities. It delivers results accurately and quickly, allowing you to build faster and more successful web apps.
Ease of use
With Laravel, you get all the tools you need right out of the box. The versatile and user-friendly interface simplifies lengthy and complex programming tasks and makes the process smoother and more effective. Tasks like routing, authentication, and caching become easier to accomplish.
Security
Laravel development offers an intuitive way to generate safer web applications. Instead of plain text passwords, it saves all passwords as a hash using BCrypt. It also offers a significant level of security parameters not available in other frameworks, specifically addressing threats and vulnerabilities like SQL injection attacks, cross-site request forgery, and cross-site scripting.
Efficiency
Laravel caches nearly all information to reduce processing time and increase efficiency. Caching moves information to a temporary storage site, making websites faster and contributing to better SEO scores and increased user satisfaction.
Is Laravel Popular?
Laravel’s features and benefits have made it the most popular PHP framework with expert and beginning developers. Its popularity has been growing over the past few years, while that of other PHP frameworks has been declining.
This popularity makes sense, given that Laravel makes web application development simpler, faster, and more comfortable, giving you access to advanced features and essential tools that improve efficiency. It allows expert developers to complete complex and sophisticated apps, while also remaining accessible to beginners for more basic projects.
How to Learn Laravel
Laravel has a short learning curve and many resources are available to help you learn it from scratch, including podcasts, videos, written tutorials, and a vibrant support community.
Laracasts
This webcast learning website includes specialized learning and practice tools, free tutorials, and paid expert tutorials. The following video provides an overview:
Support community
A vibrant and extensive Laravel development community of experts can help you if you get stuck during the development process. You can seek assistance from this community to resolve your concerns quickly, reducing the incidence of long delays.
Documentation
Laravel comes with detailed documentation, which gets updated regularly to reflect new features.
Consider Laravel for Web Application Development
Learning the basics of the Laravel framework can help you decide whether it’s the right choice for your web application projects. Its ease of use, scalability, and speed have helped make it the most popular PHP framework.
