Laravel the top PHP framework?

[Bawse]

Do you think Laravel is the best framework available for PHP programmers? What other frameworks do you like?

I've only ever used CodeIgniter, and Laravel. I started with CodeIgniter in school, and eventually transitioned over to Laravel.

 

[iqbal135]

Do you think Laravel is the best framework available for PHP programmers? What other frameworks do you like?

I've only ever used CodeIgniter, and Laravel. I started with CodeIgniter in school, and eventually transitioned over to Laravel.

Absolutely! Laravel's elegant syntax, robust ecosystem, and built-in tools like Eloquent ORM, Artisan, and Blade templating make it the go-to framework for modern PHP development. The community support and regular updates only strengthen its position as the top PHP framework. Whether you're building small apps or large enterprise solutions, Laravel handles it all with ease.

 

[ribash24]

Do you think Laravel is the best framework available for PHP programmers? What other frameworks do you like?

I've only ever used CodeIgniter, and Laravel. I started with CodeIgniter in school, and eventually transitioned over to Laravel.

Laravel is definitely one of the best frameworks for PHP, offering a lot of features and flexibility.
I also appreciate Symfony for its robustness and scalability in larger projects.
CodeIgniter is great for simpler applications, especially when you need something lightweight and fast to develop.

 

[ken_gitahi]

Laravel does much of the heavy lifting for you, so you can build something robust quite quickly.

But I can hamper your growth as a developer if you are always using its inbuilt tool and tools from the ecosystem without understanding how and why they work the way they do.

This is why it is always best for people new to Laravel to start with PHP basics and at least learn some OOP before touching Laravel. Doing this will also save you a lot of time in the future as a beginner.

 

[Tyrsson]

Let me put this gently.

I would not recommend Laravel.

Why would I say this?

1. It is the most opinionated framework you will find in the market today. You are locked in from install.
2. Its use of anti-patterns should be a crime (that was a joke ). See their "facade" use for an example. Its binds you to their container implementation. It's the equivalent of the Service Locator Pattern. If they provided it and left it at that it would be one thing, but they push this usage. Don't do it. You will regret it.
3. Its prolific use of static is atrocious.
4. Artisan is ok, but you can achieve the same level of tooling by leveraging Symfony console within any of the better built, more standards compliant, frameworks out there.
5. Their ORM uses a Active Record pattern. It is not enterprise ready. Period. It performs worse than Doctrine ORM.
6. The difficulty in unit testing.... Well, be my guest. You will figure it out.

How do I know you can accomplish point 4? Well, because I have, more than once.

masteringmezzio.com/src/App/src/Tooling at 0.0.x · tyrsson/masteringmezzio.com

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github.com

This is the Handler and its template file and wiring it creates by running the tooling for creating a CRUD handler.


Another couple of points is that last I checked they do not natively support psr 7 (if this has changed forgive the oversight). I have the same issue with Symfony and Laminas MVC (was zend framework MVC). Yes, they support middleware in a sense but they run pre controller and it's a convoluted process of figuring out exactly how to achieve your desired workflow. There are much simpler solutions. Not to mention, once you support "middleware" pre controller then your controllers are just Request Handlers, so why the misnomer? It only creates confusion for jr's. Not only that but I suppose it could be argued that it breaches the MVC pattern.
On the same point about psr 7. Symfony and Laminas MVC both require a bridge to psr 7. Why incur the overhead of translation? If it's a new project go with a framework that supports psr 7 out of the box.

For anything more than a simple marketing site I could not recommend Laravel. I could however recommend:
Mezzio (supports Swoole out of the box) This is all I use if I get to make the decision.
Slim
Laminas MVC
Symfony