Laravel vs WordPress: A Head-to-Head Comparison

Mar 17, 2023
Laravel vs WordPress

In the process of developing a web-based application, picking the correct technique for your project has always been key. If you make the wrong choice, the process is going to be more complicated than it should be.

In this post we'll conduct an examination of head-to-head between two of the most well-known heavyweight rivals in the PHP world: Laravel and WordPress. It will assist you in understanding the distinctions between these two PHP platforms, and assist you in making the best option for your next project.

What Is Laravel?

Although there are several other open-source PHP frameworks such as Symfony, CodeIgniter, and CakePHP, Laravel has long been regarded as the best and most popular, since it provides everything a developer wants. It has features that are available from different PHP libraries, as well as streamlines standard processes like the routing process, authentication, sessions cache, sessions, and more.

Google Trends - Laravel comparison with other PHP frameworks for the past 5 years
An analysis of PHP frameworks and other frameworks on Google Trends

Laravel Architecture

Laravel's design is based on MVC. MVC is a pattern of design which divides an application into three major components: Model View, Controller, and Model -- each one of which handles a particular aspect of development of the application.

The architectural design pattern is commonly employed by software developers to segregate the information shown to users from program process. In the end, software can be developed faster and is easier to maintain over time.

If a request is routed through the route of an Laravel application, the framework routing logic decides on which controller is best suited to take care of the request. The controller then instructs the model to communicate with the database to retrieve the information requested. Finally, the controller delivers all of the information to the display so that it can display the webpage to the user.

MVC Architecture
Model - View - Controller Diagram

Key features of Laravel

Although design patterns and framework structure are important however, they're not the only aspects which distinguish Laravel from other frameworks . over 223 million downloads.

Laravel provides a variety of interesting options. Let's take a look the most popular ones.

Routing and Middleware

For example, we can wrap a few routes with the built-in middleware \App\Http\Middleware\Authenticate::class, and it will ensure that the user is authenticated. If the user is not authenticated, the middleware will redirect users on the log-in page. If the user has been authenticated, the middleware will allow the request to continue.

Queues and Jobs

Queues can create jobs that can be completed by multiple task and run their tasks within the application's background and allow the application to present a lightning-fast experience for the user. Laravel queues provide a unified queueing API that works with a variety of queue backends like Amazon SQS, Redis, as well as relational databases.

CSRF Protection

Laravel automatically generates a secret token for each user, and then stores the token in the session. Thus, any malicious application won't get access to the token. Every request made by the user should have a token which matches the one stored in the session. This will ensure that every request is made by the user and prohibits all requests that contain unvalid tokens.

Asset Bundling (Vite)

Laravel recently announced Vite in the default settings for the newly installed Laravel apps. Vite is an frontend development tool that is designed to give the fastest development experience possible for web-based applications that are modern. When adjustments are made on the frontend of an application, Vite creates the assets for the application and displays the modifications immediately on the web browser.

HTTP Session

Sessions store information about the user across several requests. Laravel supports several session backends that may be accessed using Laravel's consistent, expressive API.

Caching

Database Migration

The concept of migrations is similar to version control, since they enable teams across different domains and platforms to share the identical database structure.

Starter Kits and Authentication

Allowing users to authenticate and log in to a website is a risky and complex choice. We would need to establish a mechanism to shield the application and user data from malicious acts.

Laravel relieves us of the burden of establishing authentication by giving us the necessary tools to build authentication quickly securely, without breaking any sweat.

Are you eager to get started right away? No worries: Laravel provides free starting kits that are fully authentic and available right out of the box.

Breeze as well as Jetstream provide a starting point for implementing all of Laravel's authentication features such as login, registration for password resets, password verification, confirmation of passwords, and much more.

Helper Performs Functions

Laravel has a wide range of aid functions to make it easier to utilize fundamental Laravel features. The majority of Laravel developers, for example, use to use the "Dump and Die" function ( dd()) to send the contents of a variable to the browser and prevent any further script execution. This helps in debugging problems and giving a full understanding of the variables' values.

Laravel Use Cases

Laravel is packed with tools that let you build of almost any type of application. But with all the features that it offers, it makes more sense to use Laravel for building sophisticated and extremely customizable applications.

Let's take a look at some use cases:

  • Never-before-seen apps: The magic term here is customization which is exactly what Laravel is all about. Laravel allows you to build complicated and unique web applications with personalized features. If there's no integrated feature to do what you want, Laravel has a variety of helper functions to aid you in building what you need starting from beginning to finish.
  • Apps that can be scaled: Laravel is an excellent choice if the business will likely to expand and deliver new features regularly. It is a modular architecture allowing it to scale with the application's workload. Additionally there is the Laravel core team , as well as a lot of people from all over the world are contributing to the framework in order to fix issues and provide frequent updates. This gives us confidence in the stability of the framework. Therefore, it is the best framework for applications that evolve rapidly.

We know what you might think: Laravel seems to be an awesome choice for whatever project you have in mind! Why bother with anything else?

Well, you'll want to think about it until you've met WordPress.

What Is WordPress?

In the days when web development was just beginning and incredibly difficult as well as complex. It also did not have any support for developers. instruments.

But, WordPress pushed the envelope in allowing users to build full websites that have an appealing and attractive CMS without needing to start building from scratch or evenalready knowing how to code in any way.

  • WordPress.org is the free, self-hosted and open-source version of WordPress that users install and make use of as an element of their web-based site. It offers total flexibility and opens the door to many choices for customizing.
  • However, WordPress.com is the only paid option for usage and small websites. It does not scale as well as self-hosted WordPress sites.

WordPress Architecture

Think of WordPress as a vehicle with an engine that is powerful: It's possible to use it as is, or you can customize it with additional functions (think GPS for parking, parking sensors or GPS. ).

WordPress's architecture is built on plugins. The CMS is used by itself, however you may add plugins to introduce extra features and expand functions.

If WordPress is upgraded to a different version, the files in WordPress' core are replaced. As a result, if you add custom functionality to the WordPress website by editing directly the WordPress corefiles, the modifications will be lost in the event that WordPress gets upgraded.

Keep in mind that WordPress plugins work only to self-hosted WordPress websites. WordPress.com (as as opposed to WordPress.org) often provides theme choices for site customization. However, it is not possible to freely add plugins to modify websites using WordPress.com.

Key Features

The key to WordPress's colossal success lies in its built-in features that allow users to achieve so much with little effort. Let's go through the most popular options that the CMS provides.

Plugins

User Management

Media Management

Modern Browsers Compatibility

Theme System

Are you thinking of a concept of a web site, but you're not sure how to make it happen? WordPress can help.

Built-in Comments

Publishing Tools

WordPress allows you to easily manage your content. There is a comprehensive content publishing system from the beginning, which allows you to make drafts, check posts, make revisions and then make them available for publication. You will also be able to regulate your privacy for your blog posts as well as pages by making them public or private with an option to password-protect them.

WordPress Use Cases

Thanks to continuous improvements to functionalities, WordPress has become so far more than just a blogging platform. It's now a powerful , powerful technology, backed by a worldwide group of committed contributors who are committed to enabling anyone to create and share without boundaries.

Let's look at some of the different kinds of websites you can create using WordPress:

It's likely that you've noticed the possibilities for creating websites using WordPress are nearly limitless. So long as you've identified what you'd like to achieve you can almost guarantee to build it using WordPress, the most popular CMS.

However, this could also be the case with Laravel and Laravel. So how are we supposed to determine which tech to choose?

Similarities and Differences in Laravel WordPress vs. WordPress

Let's take some look at the similarities with Laravel and WordPress:

  • Free and open source
  • Provides the capability to construct various types of web sites
  • There is a large community of people and endless support
  • With built-in attributes
  • Fast and flexible
  • Run on an object-oriented structure
  • Dependable and well-maintained by contributors from all over the globe

We'll now look at the difference between them according to what's been mentioned so far:

  • Laravel can be described as a platform that allows creating custom web apps starting from scratch. WordPress is a CMS platform that offers an advanced starting point for creating websites.
  • To use Laravel it is necessary to be a PHP developer. WordPress may be used with no prior programming experience.
  • Laravel utilizes MVC architecture, whereas WordPress makes use of the plugin architecture.
  • In Laravel it is possible to expand and enhance functionality by using packages. However, in WordPress using plugins.

Laravel vs WordPress: Head-to-Head Comparison

We understand that choosing between Laravel and WordPress is not an easy decision since they each appear to work in the majority of cases. In order to resolve this issue challenge, let us pit both technology against each other in a head-to-head comparison.

Popularity

It's not fair to compare popularity because , when it boils to the essence, Laravel and WordPress aren't exactly the same. Laravel is a PHP framework, while WordPress is a content management platform; the difference between the two is significant.

Laravel permits you to build and perform what WordPress is able to do. WordPress, however, cannot do everything that Laravel can.

It makes sense since Laravel is limitless because it's a framework for customizing web applications to meet your requirements regardless of how complicated they may be. But WordPress was created to simplify the management of content.

In conclusion and done, here's a picture taken from Google Trends demonstrating the difference between these two platforms during the last five years.

Google Trends - Laravel comparison with WordPress
A comparison between Laravel and WordPress via Google Trends

It's clear that Laravel has been gaining on WordPress. Yet, this is not an indication it is the case that Laravel is superior. People, in fact, tend to follow trending topics even though they're not the best for them.

Since Laravel is currently the PHP hot area, Laravel developers are becoming more expensive. This makes it a good idea for smaller companies to consider WordPress when it meets the requirements of their business.

Cost-effectiveness

Hosting

Learn Curve, and User-Friendliness

Laravel is well known because of its easy-to-use syntax. In the end, Laravel was developed to help facilitate PHP development easier.

Performance

WordPress sites can be hit by slow loading times as well as the poor performance of certain extensions. It works fine with simple websites. However, as your website grows and demands more plugins and resources, finding a solution might be challenging.

Scalability

Applications built with Laravel are always adaptable since they're designed entirely from scratch using MVC architecture. In the past, we've explained how MVC separates the application logic from the information displayed for the user. This makes it extremely easy to work on each component individually. The business owner is able to add or remove elements and to modify the application when the company grows without worrying about any negative impact on the user experience, or the website's performance and speed.

Development Time

Laravel projects are developed entirely from scratch, so it takes some time to create projects that have a reliable CMS and personalized features. With a wide range of tools available for Laravel and a huge user base, skilled designers can significantly reduce their time spent on coding.

Security

Laravel applications are totally secured due to the framework's robust security features. This makes it a good choice for dealing with sensitive data. It comes with powerful security tools like password encryption, authentication methods, route protection, and protection from common threats such as SQL injections and CSRF. SQL injections.

Still, Laravel is still more reliable and secure, without the need for additional software.

SEO

Laravel isn't equipped with SEO features. If you're looking to boost SEO performance, you'll need to use external packages that are readily available. The web app SEO optimized as you are able to completely alter it and customize any feature you want, however it's going to take effort and time.

Speed

Laravel's Eloquent Object-Relational Mapper (ORM) is among the main features that separates Laravel from other PHP frameworks. Eloquent ORM allows you to query the database and it is extremely fast. It is also possible to ignore it altogether and use Laravel's query builder. This is faster than models from Eloquent.

WordPress is slowed because of the plugins on your website. Website owners must be cautious when installing plugins, and check the integrity of the code prior to removing it.

Can Laravel and WordPress Use Together?

Laravel is the most popular open-source PHP framework of the moment that manages the frontend and backend for the application. However, the backend is usually the more complex aspect. Thus, many developers employ Laravel together with WordPress and WordPress, with Laravel controlling the frontend, as well as WordPress taking care of the backend.

Another advantage of WordPress is that it is extremely popular and simple for anybody to use. This is beneficial when developing an online application because it removes the requirement of teaching the users and contributors on how to manage content.

There are many ways of using Laravel in conjunction with WordPress. Let's go through several of the top techniques.

Corcel

Corcel is the top open-source program to integrate Laravel to WordPress. It enables content retrieval straight to your WordPress database by using Laravel Eloquent models. It can be used with WordPress as the Backend (administration Panel) or as the CMS, with any other PHP framework that is able to access data on the other side (as a Model layer).

Corcel is an ideal choice for Laravel, although it may be utilized with any PHP project that uses Composer.

WP Eloquent

WordPress Eloquent is a WordPress table wrapper program for databases. It covers Comments, Posts and User, Post Meta User, and User Meta models.

This package hasn't had any updates in very long duration. It may therefore need some changes before you can use the package in your work.

WordPress Rest API

This method greatly simplifies processing of data read and retrieval. What's more, it simplifies many of the codes also.

Laravel vs WordPress The Best One: Which Should You Choose?

When we're forced to pick any one of the technologies over the others, it always feels that we're losing the benefits of one technology to get more. We're in a situation where both Laravel as well as WordPress have the potential to accomplish whatever you want to achieve.

But, the best tool for your needs will make your life easier.

In that regard, we recommend using Laravel for apps when the application you're building is:

  • An enterprise app used by an organization to help solve problems
  • Complex, it will need special and distinctive characteristics
  • Container for information that is sensitive that must be well secured
  • It is likely that the company will grow rapidly.
  • In the future, APIs will be required.

Use WordPress for your next website that's:

  • A blog, news website or platform which contains a large volume of content written
  • Going to require speed in development, particularly when you want to start quickly
  • Professional or personal, a site
  • An SEO-friendly website
  • An easy and simple ecommerce store

Shortly, Laravel is the best option for a custom web application. It's more expensive than WordPress and requires the assistance of an experienced developer but it will enable your application to expand while including the features you want. WordPress is, on the contrary it's a good option for light websites or sites that are not likely to get significant upgrades regarding features capabilities.

Which of the two options --- Laravel and WordPress Have you selected to build your next website What will you build? Let us know by commenting below.

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