What is Laravel?- How is it related to PHP and its use cases in web development

Laravel. A framework that:

• Powers over 741,766 websites worldwide.
• Boasts off 69.1k Github stars with 20.3k live projects.
• Topped the chart in the last 5 years when it comes to the value of interest over time.

After reading such astonishing stats, of course, you want to hire a Laravel developer. However, you have questions.

What’s special about Laravel? What’s the relation of Laravel with PHP? When should you use Laravel ?

We have all the answers. In the next five minutes, learn all about Laravel definition, its relation with PHP, and its use cases. This article will discuss:

• The definition of Laravel
• Laravel’s relation with PHP
• Use cases of Laravel

Feel free to navigate between the sections.

Laravel definition, relation with PHP, and use cases — a complete guide

What is Laravel?

An open-source web framework that offers HTML authentication, server-side routing handling, templating, and much more. The framework uses the Model View Control (MVC) architecture and is based on Symfony.

With Laravel, you can develop web apps with:

• Customized backend logic
• Pre-defined architectures
• Templates
• Web portals

Furthermore, Laravel allows you to build full-stack apps and manage SaaS products as well.

3 key features of Laravel

MVC architecture

The MVC architecture helps create order to the unstructured code. The architecture achieves the same by keeping a tight separation between presentation layers and business logic.

MVC architecture allows you to:

• Separate files into logical directories. Thus, developers can find the files when working on a large project with ease.
• Separate project roles. The process allows a backend developer to work on the controller logic while a frontend developer works on the view part simultaneously.
• Separate broad responsibilities. The process allows developers to modify the views and models separately.

Artisan CLI

The in-built Artisan CLI (Command Line Interface) uses the Symfony Console component as the foundation.

The Artisan CLI allows you to:

• Develop MVC files and issue their commands
• Develop database architecture
• Manage the needed dependencies with the Composer Dependency Manager for installing and upgrading third-party apps

Eloquent ORM

Laravel Eloquent ORM (Object Relational Manager) allows developers to access objects without considering the object’s relation with the source. Furthermore, the feature extracts and shows the data through a single query to the end-user.

Eloquent ORM allows you to:

• Host built relationships. Thus, whenever developers change the table, the related data changes as well.
• Lower the data fetching time from databases. The process makes Laravel one of the fastest frameworks in PHP.
• Use the feature inside or outside Laravel.

A step-by-step comparison of Laravel and PHP

• Speed
• Laravel

Laravel comes with multiple layers of code to offer seamless performance. The flip side is that the layer of code makes the framework slow. The framework can take up to 360 ms (or even up to 1.5s in rare cases) to load.

However, you can optimize the framework to load within 20 ms. Use cache tags to quickly load the pre-stored information in apps. The process leads to a faster response time.

• PHP

PHP 8.0 generates 1617 requests each for a single concurrency. The number changes to 9352 requests each second when the concurrency is 20.

The concurrency rate refers to the number of devices or machines a language can handle for user request execution. Early versions of PHP didn’t have the ability to handle concurrency which the developers rectified in the latest iterations.

• Application architecture

Laravel

Laravel offers the Model View Controller (MVC) architecture. The architecture allows developers to split project roles.

The Laravel architecture concept allows you to:

• Customize web apps on a global scale
• Choose application-specific routes
• Reuse application logic and implement external APIs

PHP

PHP offers several frameworks such as CakePHP, Codeigniter, and Ubiquity. Most of these frameworks offer MVC architectures.

The MVC architecture allows developers to:

• Differentiate the representation layer with the business logic
• Extract data from the model part whenever the system receives requests from users
• Handle the trigger for the request execution
• Ease of testing

Laravel

Laravel offers two levels of code testing — Feature tests and Unit tests.

Furthermore, the framework provides detailed testing documentation and tools as well. Thus, developers can test the web app environment at multiple levels. An example would be conducting mock tests by mocking app events and codes.

PHP

PHP offers two methods to test web apps — return-type declaration and scalar-type hinting.

Return-type declaration authorizes the precision of the return data type from the function. Furthermore, you can create an error-free testing environment with the method.

Scalar-type hinting allows you to track the data types returning from a function in the web app. Furthermore, scalar-type hinting makes the code’s intent more explicit.

• Scalability

Laravel

Laravel scalability comes from PHP and offers support to rapidly growing businesses. You can achieve massive horizontal scaling with Laravel. All you need are a solid database and a load balancer.

Use AWS, advanced caching methods such as Memcached, and MySQL to scale Laravel web apps.

PHP

A highly scalable scripting language, PHP scales through autoloader and opcode cache. The framework achieves the same by interpreting the code to a machine-friendly language for every request.

The opcode cache saves the interpretation from the first request. The cache applies the same interpretation to further requests. Thus, the framework never needs to recompile the entire code on every interpretation.

• Database support

Laravel

Laravel supports 4 database systems — MySQL, SQL, SQLite, and Postgres.

Laravel uses the Eloquent ORM, the fluent query builder, and raw SQL to offer smooth interactions with the database systems. Furthermore, developers can establish multiple database connections.

PHP

PHP supports primary database systems such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Oracle.

Furthermore, the framework offers a PDO (PHP Data Objects) layer to constantly interact with app and database systems.

Laravel use cases

• Web apps presupposing microservices architecture

Laravel offers microservices architecture that includes multiple irrespectively functioning modules. The feature makes Laravel perfect for web apps that are scalable and high-performing.

Laravel achieves the same with the in-built framework — Lumen.

• Businesses searching for enterprise-grade apps

The spheres include healthcare, e-commerce, media, and web pages with heavy traffic.

Laravel offers smooth and seamless performance with backed-in systems, Service Container, and Event Broadcasting.

• Businesses needing backend data management

The segment includes content-oriented app development and CRM platforms.

Developers can follow one of the two paths — create web apps from the ground up which ensures scalability and use the Laravel framework integrating with an existing CMS.

• High-level security apps

Laravel security features such as Bcrypt hashing calculation, arranged SQL, and hashed secret words make the framework the best choice for high-level security apps.

• Businesses searching for serverless deployment

Laravel Vapor — powered by AWS — allows to create, manage, scale, and restore databases from the in-built dashboard.

Laravel definition, relation with PHP and use cases — one of the best frameworks out in the market

Laravel has 600 contributors on Github. With its MVC architecture, high levels of security, and Eloquent ORM, the number will continue to grow.

Now that you know Laravel definition, relation with PHP, and use cases, the information will help you make the best of the framework with a web development service