Laravel vs. Other PHP Frameworks: A Comparison

If you’re building a website for your company or business, kudos to you! We live in a highly digitalized era so being present in the digital world makes it easier to reach your customers worldwide. 

Website creation requires finding web development services and choosing an appropriate framework. PHP frameworks are considered superior and the numbers prove it. Approximately 79.2 percent of websites prefer PHP programming.

This is one of the most frequently used web developing languages. But, as there are plenty of PHP frameworks out there, choosing the most suitable one can be a challenge.

Laravel is one of the strong contenders and many praise it as the ultimate PHP framework for website building. To discover why Laravel is such a popular PHP framework, we’re going to explore it in more detail and do a PHP framework comparison.

Laravel Explained

With more than 40,000 companies using Laravel today, it’s undoubtedly one of web developers’ favorites. This model-view-controller framework uses PHP. 

It’s known for making web and software development simpler and faster, managing complex applications, and improving security. This open-source PHP framework is an increasingly sought-after choice for web applications and APIs. 

The abundance of tools and features allows web developers to create quality and strong websites and apps efficiently and quickly. Considering the rising use of Laravel, it’s no wonder Laravel developers are in so much demand.

PHP Frameworks Comparison: Laravel vs. Other PHP Frameworks

As a potent and elegant PHP web framework, Laravel boasts an expressive syntax and an intuitive design. It comes with features like caching, routing, authentication, etc. 

The community of Laravel is also big so there’s rarely a lack of packages and plugins that one can access. There are many reasons why a web developer decides to use this PHP framework for a project. 

Here are some of the most common ones:

  • The ultimate packaging system to take on multiple software or library support for process automation.
  • Easy authentication and authorization that’s only several commands away.
  • A built-in Blade Template Engine that combines a single or several templates and a data model for resulting views. 
  • An expressive syntax that’s object-oriented. 
  • Effortless scheduling of periodical tasks via Scheduler.
  • The Broadcasting concept allows the implementation of real-time data, live feeds, etc.
  • Flysystem integration offers easy-to-use drivers for local file systems, Rackspace Cloud Storage, and Amazon S3.

Let’s see how Laravel performs in comparison to some of the other trending PHP frameworks:

  • Laravel vs. Symfony

Laravel’s learning curve is more shallow than that of Symfony. The tutorials and community of Symfony aren’t as strong as those of Laravel. However, Symfony’s higher modularity is something web developers prefer during complex projects. 

Symfony’s strong security system may be advantageous, but the implementation isn’t always smooth. Laravel’s security setup is simpler and also easier to maintain. 

Laravel may be a better option because of the simple syntax and rich learning material. If you need to design a complex application, Symphony may be more suitable due to its scalability, structure, and maintenance.

  • Laravel vs. CodeIgniter

CodeIgniter’s learning curve is more shallow than that of Laravel and more suitable for beginners. It’s user-friendly and the installation is quick, though you will need external source plugins to get additional features. 

Laravel isn’t that difficult to learn, especially if you’re comfortable with MVC and PHP. The CodeIgniter community may be stronger, but the resources with Laravel mustn’t be underestimated. With Laravel, you get built-in functionalities whereas you may need third-party libraries with CodeIgniter. 

The expressive Blade template in Laravel is much superior to the template parser class of CodeIgniter, though both of them are user-friendly. If you have a smaller and simpler project, CodeIgniter may do just fine; however, if the project is more complex and needs scalability, Laravel may be more suitable.

  • Laravel vs. Yii 2

Though both of these frameworks have a shallow learning curve and take security seriously, Yii2 is the go-to for building modern apps quickly and efficiently. Developers tend to choose Laravel when there’s a need for sophisticated syntax. 

The blade template system of Laravel may better the application performance whereas that of Yii2 is a default template system. The MVC framework of Yii2 is known to provide better use of all elements. 

Laravel may be more appropriate for projects that need to be completed fast and to have modern features. Yii2 is also a quick and efficient choice and provides great security, customization, and flexibility. It’s also a preferred solution if the developer is working with older systems and databases. 

Final Thoughts 

It’s a no-brainer: 

Laravel is a great PHP framework for building apps and websites. It has the MVC architecture, object-oriented libraries, robust templating, path security, a big community, built-in ORM, and many other splendid features that make it an indispensable tool for web developers.


If you’re still unsure how the use of Laravel can advance your company project, consult our experienced team of developers at ArtHaus to learn more. We’ve been providing effective IT solutions to clients globally for more than two decades.