The top benefits of Laravel PHP Framework

What is Laravel

Laravel is a free, open-source general-purpose PHP framework.

Taylor Otwell developed Laravel in June 2011. It quickly gained popularity and holds a leading position both among developers and potential owners of web projects. And this is due to many incredible advantages of the framework.

Versatility with 100% customization

The manager will most likely name this characteristic as the main advantage of the framework. But after all, almost every (if not every) CMS developer claims a similar benefit.

What is the difference?

The versatility of CMS is both a plus and a minus. Yes, you can create a project of any type and purpose - from a news portal to an online store. But there is a significant price to pay for this. And it's not about money (although a little about them too), but about the fact that together with the CMS, you will get a lot of tools, modules, and scripts out of the box, which with a high degree of probability you will never need, but they will constantly consume a resource.

Speaking about Laravel, the versatility seems to be different. Any projects could be developed on the framework without any problems. Features and functionality are compiled or created individually.

This approach appears in the following two benefits of Laravel.

Flexible and easily integrated

The site owner is not limited in the possibilities and functionality of the project on the Laravel framework. Laravel allows the creation of a regular business site or a large-scale eCommerce website.

Many salespeople convince you that despite the constant growth of a web resource, competent developers will be able to bypass the CMS limitations. It is partly true, but it is complex and problematic and therefore not cheap and not always within the CMS ideology.

The Laravel web development doesn't have such problems. The project is easily scaled in the right direction. Absolutely any implementations are available with the framework: complex functions and services. And all-new features are added within the framework's logic without the need to bypass the initially laid down restrictions.

Customization in everything

Do you need to update the design, change filters, site search engine or customize the most convenient admin panel yourself? Yes, all of these are possible with Laravel without any strings attached.

The logic of the system essentially limits project customization on CMS. It is even more difficult to personalize a website where ready-made solutions are implemented. But it is not so when using the PHP framework. The fact is that even ready-made packages are created in such a way that they can be completely disassembled and assembled, using only the necessary from them.

And since we are talking about ready-made solutions, let's pay attention to them.

Variety of meticulously maintained packages

Packages help fill the resource with the necessary functions - analogs of modules in CMS. The library of pre-installed software is freely available. The authors are constantly working on development and support, so finding a time-tested turnkey solution that best suits business requirements is not difficult.

And remember the previous point, they all could be adapted to the unique needs of a particular project.

Blade Templates

Unlike other PHP frameworks, Laravel is equipped with the Blade templating engine, which is very powerful and not complicated at the same time. It allows you to use simple PHP code in your templates. In addition to this, Blade adds no cost to your project by compiling all templates into plain PHP code and caching them until they are changed.

Security Vulnerabilities Fixture

The development of any website includes the elimination of security vulnerabilities. It should be done in the early stages of web development because, after the project delivery, it is much more expensive to eliminate vulnerabilities.

The framework protects web projects from three of the most severe security risks on the web:

• cross-site request forgery;
• XSS attacks (cross-site scripting);
• SQL injections.

Potentially dangerous Html tags are escaped and output as a run line of pure text that cannot be executed.

Own ORM (technology for interacting with the database by providing API methods for typical operations: fetch, add, update, delete, etc.) eliminates the transfer of "raw" SQL queries and normalizes all parameters when they are built. Everything that can harm is removed from them.

High page loading speed

This parameter affects the site's ranking in search engines and customer loyalty.

A key feature of Laravel is caching management. By default, the cache is enabled at the file system level. At the same time, it is possible to choose a method for storing session objects using several technologies:

• file storage on the server – standard session objects;
• cookie;
• Memcached;
• Redis;
• saving data in the database;
• temporary PHP array.

By choosing technologies that store data in the server's RAM, you could seriously reduce the time to access them.

When your web app grows, it fetches more traffic. This increases the request numbers it has to deal with. A Laravel website can handle website requests much quicker than most other frameworks.

In addition to this, the framework implements a process queue mechanism. It reduces the load on the server, which is critical for high-load projects. So, your website can process tasks quicker. Laravel allows you to easily create queued jobs that may be processed in the background. If you put off time-intensive tasks such as sending emails to a queue, your application can quickly respond to web requests and provide a better user experience to your customers.

Built-in authentication and authorization systems

When a customer visits your website or makes a purchase, he has to identify himself and make payments securely. Laravel gives you the tools to implement authentication securely, quickly, and efficiently.

Thanks to the open OAuth authorization protocol (scheme), it is easy to implement access to personal areas on the website through social networks or forms. It saves time and simplifies the authentication process.

Multi-lingual websites

The platform provides unlimited opportunities for web applications designed for multiple regions or languages. A Laravel web resource can support the required number of versions. And the organization of multilingualism does not require a lot of time.

Community of developers around the world

Laravel project owners don't face the problem of finding a contractor and moving from one developer to another, as in the case of launching self-written sites or on the specialized CMS.

The ease of programming and the expansive possibilities of the framework ensured the rapid emergence of a large community of developers. It allows you to find a specialist with the right level and experience.

Short development time

There is another plus, determined by the advantages of the Laravel framework for developers. Any non-standard functionality on the CMS will require serious labor, which is time and investment. On the other hand, the framework allows you to implement only the necessary features and seriously save on the creation of web projects and their refinement.

Development cost

You don't have to pay for Laravel because it is an open-source framework. You need to find a qualified developer who can implement all your plans and ideas into a new online project. Since the time to develop and maintain a Laravel website is less than using some other PHP, your costs will be much lower.

MVC Architecture

The code structure of the framework follows the popular pattern - MVC. It highlights models (models), views (views), and controllers (controllers).

It is a time-tested solution to an efficient application structure that separates the model (logic), view (UI), and controller processes (interface). MVC helps to write more readable code and makes the development process comfortable by separating the actions of front-end and back-end developers.

An additional plus is that such an architecture dramatically reduces the likelihood of problems when making changes to the code. The layers are isolated, and there is no need to consider, remember, or assume numerous connections that may be affected. As a result, this model reduces the number of errors.

Artisan Console

Among other advantages, the framework is equipped with an Artisan command-line interface. It gives useful commands that can help you develop your project.

Artisan is a script that exists inside your application and takes care of routine and repetitive programming tasks. This tool simplifies database management. It allows you to generate MVC files and form custom commands. Also, it enables you to run unit tests for your project.

Mail and notifications

Laravel provides an API powered by the popular Symfony Mailer component and a set of drivers for sending mail locally and using cloud services and support for sending through other channels, including Slack and SMS. Laravel and Symfony Mailer provide drivers for sending email via Mailgun, SMTP, Amazon SES, Postmark, and sendmail.

Broadcasting and events

Laravel has events and broadcasting functions that help you implement real-time data, live-updating user interfaces, etc. Broadcasting the events allows you to share the same data between your server-side and client-side.

Laravel events admit you to subscribe and listen for different events taken in your project. You can create events' and listeners' directories with the help of the Artisan console commands.

URL routing

Users use the web application by clicking or typing links to see the content they want. If your application is not configured for URL routing, it may display an error page.

Laravel helps to provide URL generation for your project that is very useful for creating links in your templates and redirecting to another part of your website.

Testing automation

The validators are constructions that help validate data based on predefined rules. You can create your own rules, error messages, and validators.

Such tools reduce the number of errors in the code, increasing the reliability of the web project.

Laravel has a mechanism for creating unit tests based on the PHPUnit built-in testing framework. It provides the ability to emulate visiting pages and user actions (clicking links, buttons, filling out forms, etc.) during performance tests.

Convenient and safe work with databases

Inconsistent changes to the database can easily break a web project. The problem is especially relevant in group development. The migration technology implemented in Laravel is designed to eliminate the difficulties in using and updating data.

Migration files are a kind of timeline for creating and editing tables. They contain the structure of these tables or their modifications. This model ensures safe work with the database: update, roll back edits, add and remove parts, and perform other operations with data.

Task launch scheduling

The framework's scheduler is designed to flexibly manage the schedule for performing systematic actions (for example, sending emails or notifications). In this case, the developer does not need to generate many Cron instances.

Conclusion

The attentive reader has probably noticed that the last couple of benefits is more important not for the potential site owner but for the developers. But since these framework features allow you to optimize the time for project implementation and reduce the likelihood of errors, they are 100% useful for the business for which the web resource is being made.

Laravel is a powerful PHP framework for building websites and services with unlimited possibilities.

It is just perfect for non-standard projects and those that are sure to grow and scale. However, its flexibility and breadth of features make it an excellent choice for sites with classic functionality.