Should you use Laravel (PHP) to build your web application in 2023

Laravel is a popular open-source PHP framework that has gained a lot of traction in the web development community in recent years. It offers a number of features and tools that make it an attractive choice for building web applications, but it also has its drawbacks. In this blog article, we will outline the pros and cons of using Laravel for building your web application.

Pros of Laravel:

1. MVC Architecture: Laravel follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern, which allows for better organization and separation of concerns in your application. This makes it easier to maintain and extend your codebase over time.
2. Fast Development Time: Laravel comes with a number of pre-built components and libraries that allow developers to quickly build and deploy web apps. This means that you can get your web app up and running in a fraction of the time it would take with other frameworks. 
3. API Ready: Laravel is built with powerful API tools which makes it a great choice for building APIs for decoupled applications.
4. Micro-Framework: Laravel has a micro-framework distribution called Lumen which is a great choice for small apps or integrations.
5. Great Performance: Laravel is known for its exceptional performance. It uses a number of tools and features to optimize the speed and efficiency of your web app, including optimized routing, caching, and queueing. This means that your web app will be able to handle a large number of users and requests without slowing down or crashing. 
6. Eloquent ORM: Laravel's Eloquent ORM makes it easy to interact with your database by providing a simple, fluent interface for working with your data. This eliminates the need for writing complex SQL queries, and makes it easier to manage your data in a consistent and organized way.
7. Artisan Console: Laravel comes with a powerful command-line interface called Artisan, which provides a number of useful tools and commands for managing your application. This includes commands for generating models, controllers, and views, as well as for managing your database and running tests.
8. Laravel Community: One of our favorite aspects of the framework is its strong community. Laravel has a large and active community of developers, who are constantly contributing to the framework and sharing knowledge and best practices. This makes it easy to find help and support when you need it, and to learn from the experiences of others.

Cons of Laravel:

1. Steep Learning Curve: Laravel is a powerful framework, but it also has a steep learning curve. This can make it difficult for beginners to get up and running with the framework, and may require a significant investment of time and effort to master.
2. Limited Scalability: Laravel is designed to be scalable, but it is not as scalable as some other frameworks. Understanding this limitation, and how to work with it is important for building any large application with Laravel.
3. Dependency on PHP: Laravel is built on top of PHP, which means that you need to have a good understanding of PHP in order to use the framework effectively. This can be a barrier for developers who are more comfortable with other languages. If you want to use Laravel, you need to be prepared to commit to using PHP for the long term.
4. Frameworks Move Fast: In 2023, code frameworks continue to iterate at a very rapid pace. If your application is not frequently updated it will fall very far behind and updating it could be time consuming. If your application will not be changing often, you may want to consider custom coding or choosing a framework that releases updates less frequently.

Overall, Laravel is a powerful and feature-rich framework that can be a great choice for building web applications. It is built on PHP which has its own set of pros and cons, but generally is still a great choice for building web applications.

As we say at Tragic, it is all about choosing the right tool for the job. It is important to carefully consider the pros and cons, and to make sure that the framework is a good match for your needs and goals. We love working with Laravel. It works great for backend APIs and web applications, but it does have some limitations that you must be aware of. Would we use Laravel for every app? No. Is it a great tool that we recommend for many use cases? Yes!

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