What is Laravel?
Laravel is one of the most popular PHP frameworks, designed for building web applications with elegance and simplicity. Known for its powerful features and developer-friendly environment, Laravel offers everything from routing and templating to authentication and caching.
In this guide, we’ll cover how to get started with Laravel step-by-step. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to set up a Laravel project and build your first web application.
Laravel has useful built-in features like the Artisan command-line interface (CLI), native authentication and model-view-controller (MVC) architecture. These features make the framework easy to use and are the main reason for its popularity.
Laravel is a trendy web framework. It has more than 70,000 stars on GitHub and has become an in-demand skill on the job market.
What Is Laravel Used For?
Laravel is an easy-to-use web framework that will help you create extensible PHP-based websites and web applications at scale.
Before creating a web app or website, you need to make a foundational decision as to what technology you are going to use. This is one of the trickiest parts of the web development process.
To build something simple, such as an online store or portfolio, you can rely on no-code website creators. If you are looking to build something more advanced, a no-code solution might not be enough. Instead, you should choose a framework and start writing code on it. Laravel is a good choice as an easy-to-use open-source framework for building modern web applications at scale.
Benefits of Laravel
Laravel’s first stable release took place in 2011 but didn’t get much attention. When Laravel 3 came out in 2012, it started to gain some hype thanks to its new features, such as Artisan CLI. Here are a few notable Laravel features that make it such a popular PHP framework among web developers.
MVC Architecture
Laravel framework promotes the MVC architectural pattern for creating web apps. This pattern specifies a set of rules that specify how to build scalable and maintainable web apps.
The Laravel MVC pattern helps developers bring order and consistency to unstructured code. The MVC approach also makes it easy to develop both small and large-scale web applications.
Artisan CLI
- Migrate data
- Manage databases
- Generate boilerplate code, controllers, models and more
Built-In Authentication
Laravel comes with a out-of-the-box solutions for authentication and authorization. With a couple of Artisan commands, you can set up reliable and robust authentication and authorization for your web app.
Blade Template Engine
The Blade Template Engine is a powerful tool that comes with Laravel. You can use the Blade to:
- Connect data models
- Process application code inside template tags
- Divert output to a text file or other streams
Thanks to these features, Blade makes development quicker and more convenient.
Prerequisites for Laravel Installation
Before starting, ensure your system has the following:
PHP (Version 8.1 or later)
Composer (Dependency Manager for PHP)
MySQL or PostgreSQL
Web Server (Apache or Nginx)
Node.js and NPM (Optional, for frontend development)
Step 1: Installing Composer
Composer is essential for managing Laravel’s dependencies. You can install it using the following command:
Verify the installation:
Step 2: Installing Laravel
Once Composer is installed, run the following command to create a new Laravel project:
Navigate to the project directory:
Step 3: Configuring Environment Variables
Laravel uses an .env file to manage configuration settings. Update your database settings in the .env file:
Run migrations to set up database tables:
Step 4: Understanding Laravel Folder Structure
Laravel projects follow a well-organized folder structure:
app/: Contains controllers, models, and services.
config/: Configuration files.
database/: Migrations and seeders.
resources/: Views and assets.
routes/: Web and API routes.
storage/: Logs and cache.
tests/: Automated tests.
Step 5: Creating Your First Route
Define a simple route in the routes/web.php file:
Start the development server:
Visit http://localhost:8000 to see your application in action.
Step 6: Creating a Controller and View
Generate a controller using Artisan:
Define a method in WelcomeController.php:
Create a Blade view in resources/views/welcome.blade.php:
Update your route:
Step 7: Final Thoughts
Congratulations! You’ve successfully built your first Laravel application. Laravel’s extensive documentation and active community make it a great choice for both beginners and experienced developers.
FAQs
1. What is Laravel used for?
- Laravel is used for building web applications using PHP. It provides tools for routing, authentication, database management, and more.
2. Is Laravel free to use?
- Yes, Laravel is an open-source framework and free to use under the MIT license.
3. How long does it take to learn Laravel?
- With basic PHP knowledge, you can grasp the fundamentals of Laravel within a few weeks.
4. What is the latest version of Laravel?
- You can check the official Laravel website for the latest version.
5. Can I build an API with Laravel?
- Yes, Laravel provides built-in support for creating RESTful APIs using routes and controllers.
Start building with Laravel today and experience the joy of developing elegant web applications!
