Everyone knows that PHP has become one of the most popular programming languages used by programmers to develop high-quality server backend processes.
But choosing the right PHP development framework to develop a web application for the business can be challenging because there are various options available out there.
If you have planned to develop a business website based on PHP, Laravel would be the best PHP development framework to go with.
Laravel is highly demanded and recognized across the web development market. This PHP framework has also earned a reliable position among the other available ones and is counted as the most preferred web development framework by clients and web development professionals.
Laravel is an open-source PHP application framework that follows the architectural MVC (Model View Controller) pattern that aids Laravel developers in developing web applications quickly and efficiently.
It comes with a modular packaging system that made it the best and the most appreciated platform for modern web development.
The story doesn’t end here!
Laravel is widely accredited for its clean and expressive syntax used to ease and speed up the web development process. Besides, many other benefits are there when using Laravel for high-quality web development.
You can also have access to the vast and intelligent Laravel PHP community offers to the website owners and the entire community.
Let’s discover a few striking factors about Laravel Framework
- PHP Laravel framework follows the simple MVC framework, making it easy and to use without any pain.
- It has well-defined tables and classes.
- The best part is, Laravel framework has automatically linked classes that are well defined in the database codes.
- ORM classes available in Laravel go well with all database objects.
- The reverse routing enables Laravel to build apt URLs automatically.
- Laravel allows easy updates, new entries, and databases to be filled and made, resulting in fast and efficient web development.
- Laravel comes with a robust set of migrations that are similar to frameworks such as Ruby on Rails. Using these migration files helps PHP Laravel developers to modify and update the website database with ease. Developers can even alter database schema without hassle.
- The simple way of editing makes Laravel web development much more comfortable than any other platform.
- Laravel web development is combined with a powerful repository, packaging systems, and dependency manager.
- The query builder used in the Laravel web development can be used to create very selectable caching. Doing this can improve the overall coding format of the Laravel framework. This PHP framework also provides detailed classes and methods.
- One more significant feature of the Laravel framework is the Blade Template Engine that contains a good list of control structures, loops, and extended custom directives, assisting Laravel developers in rapid application development.
- The command-line utility in Laravel makes unit testing easy.
- Pagination can also be done in Laravel using automated methods.
Today, people are moving towards modular PHP development, and that’s how using Laravel is a great option. The framework has many features and benefits, making it one of the best choices for web developers.
What are the factors that make Laravel to be your choice?
Authorization Technique
It’s easy to implement authentication techniques in Laravel. This web development framework provides simple ways to organize authorization logic and control access to resources.
Object-Oriented Libraries
The primary reason that makes Laravel the top PHP framework is, it has object-oriented libraries that you can’t find in any other PHP framework.
It also has a pre-installed authentication library that is easy to use and implement. The library is built with many advanced features, including Bcrypt hashing, checking active users, password reset, encryption, and CSRF (Cross-site Request Forgery) protection.
Artisan
Laravel offers a built-in tool, i.e., Artisan, a developer usually has to interact with. Generally, the Laravel framework uses a command line that creates and handles the Laravel project environment.
Laravel Artisan tool allows developers to perform various tedious programming tasks that most developers avoid performing manually. They perceive it as a pain in their web development cycle.
MVC Support
Another factor in choosing Laravel over other platforms is its ultimate MVC architecture support from Symfony, ensuring clarity between presentation and logic.
MVC allows better documentation, improves website performance, and provides multiple built-in functionalities.
Security
Security is probably something that everyone would look at before choosing a platform while developing an application. Using Laravel would be highly beneficial as it takes complete care of the website security within its framework.
It uses a salted and hashed password, which means that the password would never be saved as the plain text in the database.
This robust framework uses the Bcrypt hashing algorithm to generate a fully encrypted password representation. This highly renowned PHP framework uses ready-to-use SQL statements, making injection attacks effective and unimaginable.
Furthermore, Laravel provides a simple way to escape user input to avoid user injection of <script> tag.
The security features include
- Configuration
- Strong passwords
- Authenticating users
Manually logging in users - Protecting routes
- HTTP Basic Authentication
- Passwords reminders and reset
- Encryption
- Authenticating drivers
Database Migration
There is a drawback for developers that they have to keep the database in sync between different development machines. Laravel solves this issue by making database migrations far easier and effortless for developers.
As long as you keep all of the database work in seeds and migrations, it is easy for you to migrate all the changes to any machine you use. Developers consider this another reason for choosing Laravel as an ideal PHP framework for web development.
Great Tutorials
A developer needs to learn more to deliver quality work to the clients. Here in Laravel, you will get access to Laracasts, offering a mix of paid and free video tutorials that show you how to use Laravel.
You can’t find this feature in any other PHP platforms, including CakePHP or Yii. All the tutorial videos are made by Jeffrey way, an experienced and well-known instructor.
He seems to have his fingers on the pulse of the essentials and offers clear and concise instructions. Videos made by him are well-thought-out and meaningful, making listeners feel contented.
Blade Templating Engine
The available Blade Template Engine in Laravel is intuitive, helping developers to work with typical PHP/HTML spaghetti. It is one of the best features of the framework.
If you ever need to alter or modify an if statement using HTML inside of it, with Blade, you can do it effortlessly.
Responsible Interface
Responsible interface is a new feature added in the Laravel PHP framework with the release of regular updates. It is known as a class used to implement the interface, which can be returned using the controller method.
Soon after that, the router will check for the instance of responsible when preparing the response form “Illuminate\Routing\Router.”
Automatic Package Discovery
It was not that difficult to install packages with previous versions of Laravel. New Laravel versions were built with a new feature called automatic package discovery that automatically detects the packages when users initiate the installation.
With Laravel, users don’t need to set up any providers or aliases while installing new packages. Also, the framework allows developers to disable this feature when it comes to installing any specific packages.
10 Best Example Websites Built Using Laravel PHP
There are a ton of excellent web projects created with Laravel. Let’s check out some of the most stunning and beautiful websites built on Laravel PHP.
1. Startups.com
Startups.com is a platform where startups are given a kick start. It is built with Laravel framework to help startups find customers, press, funding, and mentors.
This website tracks over a million startups and provides access to all their registered users, who are more than a million. The company serves customers in the United States and many other countries.
Many websites provide the same service, but startups.com stands out because of its robust built architecture. All credit goes to Laravel.
2. Worldwalking.org
Worldwalking.org is a website project that motivates people to adopt walking. Based on Laravel, the site offers many features for its smartphone app that encourages people to check out and improve their walking skills. Either way, the website looks excellent and has some of the most unique and unusual features.
3. Globaldietarydatabase.org
Global Dietary Database is a data collecting website based on Laravel web application created for Friedman School of nutrition science and policy at tufts university. Through this website, users from around the world can log in and contribute dietary data.
This project aims to receive funding from the bill and Melinda gates foundations to collect diet and nutrition data from hundreds of government health ministries, academic institutions, and NGOs worldwide.
4. Fusioninvoice.com
If you are a small business owner or maybe a freelancer, Fusioninvoice would be a great new addition to anyone’s list of tools for managing a business.
With Fusioninvoice, you can launch your own self-hosted invoicing platform that you can use to keep track of your monetary activities within your business. All within a beautiful interface that’s build on top of the Laravel platform.
5. Exploregeorgia.org
Explore Georgia is an official Laravel-based state’s tourism website of the Georgia Department of Economic Development. This innovative and engaging website uses practical planning tools to motivate Georgia travelers to trip to the state.
Georgia explorer trip planner offers potential visitors a playful and more interactive way to explore the entire site and plan their dream vacation or gateway.
All aspects of the customer’s travel decision-making process have been considered, from inspiration to trip planning to booking to sharing through social media. The site is built to provide great exposure to thousands of state’s tourism industry partners.
More than 16,000 Georgia restaurants can be searched and filtered based on location, cuisine, or type of restaurants.
Similar websites could do the same, but they aren’t great, and you know why.
7. Ratemyapprenticeship.co.uk
Ratemyapprenticeship.co.uk is a Laravel-based web application that provides young people in the UK with relevant information about apprenticeships and school leaver programmes.
The website also offers school leaver various opportunities such as sponsored degree programmes, Gap year programmes, traineeships, and work experience.
8. Bonappetour.com
Bonappetour.com is a community marketplace, something similar to Airbnb but for restaurants. Built using Laravel, this website connects travelers with local home chefs to provide a unique home-dining experience.
Travelers can find several dining options on this website, dining experiences available in the cities they are visiting, in over 75 cities worldwide.
Each dining experience features a menu prepared by the host, and it has more than a thousand verified hosts, a description of the host, and reviews by previous guests (if any).
Travelers can message the host if he/she wishes to. Once both the traveler and the host have confirmed the arrangement, they should make payments through the website.
9. Laracasts.com
Laracasts.com is the most well-known e-learning Laravel-based website specializing in teaching subscribers PHP framework, Laravel, and other related technologies.
Through the website, you can get daily updates, specifically related to your working web developers. Laracasts is based in the USA and has a commendable social media following, showcasing a healthy community.
10. Yulair.com
If you have ever traveled to Canada or lived there, you would have used this website at least once. Yulair.com is probably the best website for Canadians to search for the best airfare to/from the country. This multilingual and multiple subdomain web application is built with the Laravel framework.
Visitors can then search the site or get an email alert. Yulair averages more than a hundred thousand visitors and has a vast social media following.
As you can see, the websites which are built on Laravel have robust recognition across the market. It’s the experience that makes the developers and business owners go for it, and they are never disappointed. These examples stand as a testimony on what and how Laravel can help you with your business website.
Conclusion
We all know that Laravel is the most popular PHP framework, and there is no denying that it is a great platform to choose from for modern website development.
Also, Laravel provides extensive community support. Be it the official websites like Laracasts or social media accounts on Twitter or Facebook, Laravel is everywhere, and the community is growing substantially. It means finding a solution for any of your problems is not a challenging task.
Read Also:
- How to Become a Good PHP Programmer : Best 9 Tips
- 8 Easy Tips for More Effective Small Business Website Design
- Understanding the Role of UI and UX Design in Corporate Websites
Author Bio: Mohit Maheshwari is Chief Strategist at NMG Technologies, a full service IT Company offering website and mobile app development services. He has been in the industry since 2000 and focuses on long-term strategies, intuitive user experience and successful customer acquisition. Follow Mohit on Twitter and LinkedIn.