How it works
Laravel covers most of what a web app needs in one coherent package: routing, the Eloquent ORM and migrations, Blade templates, validation, queues, a task scheduler, events, mail and notifications, file storage and testing helpers. The Artisan command line generates code and runs jobs, and starter kits add sign-in screens built with React, Vue or Livewire.
Taylor Otwell released it in 2011, and a paid ecosystem has grown around it: Laravel Cloud and Forge for hosting and servers, Nova for admin panels. Because PHP runs on nearly every host, Laravel apps are cheap to deploy. The trade-offs are a lot of framework to learn and PHP as the language, which some JavaScript-first teams would rather avoid.
Laravel pros and cons
Pros
- Very complete: queues, scheduler, mail and auth all included
- Readable, consistent APIs and thorough documentation
- Runs on cheap PHP hosting as well as modern clouds
- Large community, packages and video courses
Cons
- Many framework conventions to learn at first
- Heavy traffic needs care with caching, queues or Octane
- Needs PHP skills, which JavaScript-only teams may lack
When to use Laravel
Pick it when
- Full web apps, dashboards and SaaS products built by a PHP team
- Projects that need queues, email and scheduled jobs from day one
Skip it when
- The team works only in JavaScript or TypeScript
Laravel pricing
Open source
Free (MIT). Laravel Cloud, the official hosting, starts at about $5 a month with usage credits included.
Laravel pricing page (opens in a new tab)Approximate, checked September 2026.What the other tools cost
Related terms
More in Backend and APIs
Frameworks