Laravel is a PHP web application framework with expressive and elegant syntax. It comes with numerous features to make the developing process easier. For example, easing common tasks like authentication, routing, sessions, and caching. Laravel will also produce good-looking user interfaces to help provide good user experience.
Below are seven benefits that make Laravel one of the best frameworks for web developing.
1. Blade Template Engine
Blade is the lightweight, yet powerful templating engine that comes pre-installed with Laravel. Unlike other PHP templating engines, Blade does not restrict using plain PHP code in the views. Blade also does not have any overhead, meaning it will not make the web app slower or take more memory.
Blade provides features like template inheritance, where each template only contains the differences from the template it extends. This makes managing the templates simpler and more efficient. Moreover, Blade allows you to create components that are reusable and can encapsulate PHP, HTML, and JavaScript. For example you could create a navbar or a button components and reuse it across the views. This will cut down development time and keep the appearance of the web app consistent.
2. Better Authentication and Authorisation
Laravel makes it very simple and easy to implement a fully working and secure authentication system. This includes Login, Registration, and Password Resetting. So you do not have to worry about creating it yourself and making sure it works.
The implementation of authorisation is quite simple as most of it is configured out-of-the-box. The tools provided will make setting up and managing the authorisation side of the application easier. The authorisation logic and controlling access to resources can be done with the in-built functions of Laravel.
3. Automated Testing
In web development, unit testing plays a vital role in making sure the web app is working as intended. It will help you make sure there are no bugs and errors throughout the app.
Laravel was built with testing in mind. Out of the box, Laravel comes with in-built support for automated testing, primarily supporting PHP Unit testing. Testing has been made to be less time consuming. Laravel offers functions to imitate how a user could interact with the web app, this will help you do more expressive and extensive testing.
This unit testing feature of Laravel allows each component or module of the web app to be tested individually to ensure that the entire app performs well. This will result in a high-performing web app with functioning and optimized code.
4. MVC Architecture
The MVC architecture consists of three parts: Model, View, Controller. These parts are responsible for specific areas of the web app. It provides a clear separation between the presentation layers and business logic.
The Model handles all the data-related logic. It represents the data being passed between the Views and Controllers. The View is responsible for all the UI logic of the application. The Controller acts as the middle-man between the Model and View. It processes all business logic and incoming requests by manipulating the data using the Models and using the Views to render the output.
With Laravel supporting this architecture, it makes it one of the best framework to use for web development. It enhances the app’s performance, security, and scalability. It also provides better code clarity and documentation.
5. In-built Libraries
Laravel provides dynamic pre-installed libraries to help you develop your web app. These libraries include Object Oriented libraries that cannot be found in other PHP frameworks, they were designed by and made for Laravel.
One of the libraries is the authentication library, which has several features that help Laravel provide the benefits discussed above for authentication.
6. Open Source and Massive Community
Laravel is an open source framework for web developers, unlike many other PHP frameworks that comes with a price tag. It also has a massive community that supports the framework to improve it and make it more flexible. Though there are other open source framework, not all get the necessary support and response from the community, and none has a following as big as Laravel.
As a developer, you will be able to find support and solutions for any issues you may encounter while developing with Laravel.
7. Automated Task Scheduling and Execution
Laravel has its own automatic command scheduler to automate tasks when it is needed. For example, sending emails to users, in-app notifications, cleaning up the database, or doing calculations during non-peak hours.
In the past, web developers had to SSH into the web server and create a Cron entry for each task that needed to be run regularly. However, with Laravel’s scheduler you can avoid this. It will allow you to quickly and expressively define the commands you want to run. You can configure what they do and when to run them.
Conclusion
“Laravel is the strongest contender in the PHP ecosystem simply because it includes the features needed to build modern web applications. ” - Taylor Otwell (Creator of Laravel)
From the benefits discussed above, he is right. Laravel is a top-tier framework for web development. It is the go-to framework for many web developers due to the numerous features it offers. If you are not already using Laravel, consider using it for your next web project.