Laravel vs Next.js

Overview

Laravel

Stacks28.7K

Followers23.7K

Votes3.9K

GitHub Stars82.6K

Forks24.6K

Next.js

Stacks8.0K

Followers5.1K

Votes330

GitHub Stars135.4K

Forks29.7K

Laravel vs Next.js: What are the differences?

Laravel and Next.js are both popular web development frameworks, but they serve different purposes and offer unique features. Here are the key differences between Laravel and Next.js:

Language and Ecosystem: Laravel is a PHP framework that follows the MVC (Model View Controller) pattern, whereas Next.js is a JavaScript framework built on top of React. Laravel has a mature ecosystem with a large number of plugins and libraries available, while Next.js benefits from the extensive React ecosystem.
Server-side Rendering: Laravel is primarily used for server-side rendering (SSR) applications, where the server completes rendering tasks before sending the final content to the client. Next.js, on the other hand, offers server-side rendering out of the box. This means that Next.js can deliver pre-rendered HTML to the client, improving initial load times and search engine optimization (SEO).
Routing and API Development: Laravel provides a robust routing system, making it highly efficient for building RESTful APIs. It includes features like route caching and parameter patterns. Next.js, however, primarily focuses on client-side routing for building single-page applications (SPAs) with React.
Frontend React Components: Next.js integrates seamlessly with React, enabling developers to build highly interactive and performant web applications using reusable React components. Laravel, while compatible with React, does not have the same level of integration and support for React as Next.js.
Asset Compilation and Dependency Management: Laravel uses Laravel Mix and Elixir for asset compilation and management, making it straightforward to compile and bundle CSS, JavaScript, and other assets. Next.js has built-in support for bundling and optimizing code, with features like automatic CSS/JS minification and code splitting.
Deployment and Hosting: Laravel applications can be deployed to various hosting environments, including shared hosting, virtual private servers, or cloud platforms like AWS or DigitalOcean. Next.js applications are typically deployed to serverless environments like Vercel or other static hosting platforms due to its focus on pre-rendered content and client-side interactions.

In summary, Laravel is a PHP framework primarily used for server-side rendering and API development, while Next.js is a JavaScript framework built on React that offers server-side rendering out of the box and focuses on client-side rendering for building SPAs. Laravel has a mature PHP ecosystem, while Next.js leverages the extensive React ecosystem for building modern web applications.

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Advice on Laravel, Next.js

Taylor

May 5, 2020

Review

Hey guys,

My backend set up is Prisma / GraphQL-Yoga at the moment, and I love it. It's so intuitive to learn and is really neat on the frontend too, however, there were a few gotchas when I was learning! Especially around understanding how it all pieces together (the stack). There isn't a great deal of information out there on exactly how to put into production my set up, which is a backend set up on a Digital Ocean droplet with Prisma/GraphQL Yoga in a Docker Container using Next & Apollo Client on the frontend somewhere else. It's such a niche subject, so I bet only a few hundred people have got a website with this stack in production. Anyway, I wrote a blog post to help those who might need help understanding it. Here it is, hope it helps!

758k views758k

Comments

Eva

Fullstack developer

Jul 28, 2020

Needs adviceon

Java

Spring Boot

JavaScript

Hello, I am a fullstack web developer. I have been working for a company with Java/ Spring Boot and client-side JavaScript(mainly jQuery, some AngularJS) for the past 4 years. As I wish to now work as a freelancer, I am faced with a dilemma: which stack to choose given my current knowledge and the state of the market?

I've heard PHP is very popular in the freelance world. I don't know PHP. However, I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to learn since it has many similarities with Java (OOP). It seems to me that Laravel has similarities with Spring Boot (it's MVC and OOP). Also, people say Laravel works well with Vue.js, which is my favorite JS framework.

On the other hand, I already know the Javascript language, and I like Vue.js, so I figure I could go the fullstack Javascript route with ExpressJS. However, I am not sure if these techs are ripe for freelancing (with regards to RAD, stability, reliability, security, costs, etc.) Is it true that Express is almost always used with MongoDB? Because my experience is mostly with SQL databases.

The projects I would like to work on are custom web applications/websites for small businesses. I have developed custom ERPs before and found that Java was a good fit, except for it taking a long time to develop. I cannot make a choice, and I am constantly switching between trying PHP and Node.js/Express. Any real-world advice would be welcome! I would love to find a stack that I enjoy while doing meaningful freelance coding.

826k views826k

Comments

washie

Developer at Bytecom

Jun 14, 2020

Decided

i find python quite resourceful. given the bulk of libraries that python has and the trends of the tech i find django which runs on python to be the framework of choice to the upcoming web services and application. Laravel on the other hand which is powered by PHP is also quite resourceful and great for startups and common web applications.

758k views758k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Laravel	Next.js
It is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions, and caching.	Next.js is a minimalistic framework for server-rendered React applications.
Template Engine; MVC Architecture Support; Eloquent ORM (Object Relational Mapping); Security; Artisan; Libraries & Modular; Database Migration System; Unit-Testing	Zero setup. Use the filesystem as an API; Only JavaScript. Everything is a function; Automatic server rendering and code splitting; Data fetching is up to the developer; Anticipation is the key to performance; Simple deployment
Statistics
GitHub Stars 82.6K	GitHub Stars 135.4K
GitHub Forks 24.6K	GitHub Forks 29.7K
Stacks 28.7K	Stacks 8.0K
Followers 23.7K	Followers 5.1K
Votes 3.9K	Votes 330
Pros & Cons
Pros 555 Clean architecture 392 Growing community 370 Composer friendly 344 Open source 325 The only framework to consider for php Cons 54 PHP 33 Too many dependency 23 Slower than the other two 17 A lot of static method calls for convenience 15 Too many include	Pros 51 Automatic server rendering and code splitting 44 Built with React 34 Easy setup 26 TypeScript 24 Universal JavaScript Cons 9 Structure is weak compared to Angular(2+)
Integrations
PHP Django CodeIgniter CakePHP	React

What are some alternatives to Laravel, Next.js?

Node.js

Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

Rails

Rails is a web-application framework that includes everything needed to create database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.

Django

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

.NET

.NET is a general purpose development platform. With .NET, you can use multiple languages, editors, and libraries to build native applications for web, mobile, desktop, gaming, and IoT for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and more.

ASP.NET Core

A free and open-source web framework, and higher performance than ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft and the community. It is a modular framework that runs on both the full .NET Framework, on Windows, and the cross-platform .NET Core.

Symfony

It is written with speed and flexibility in mind. It allows developers to build better and easy to maintain websites with PHP..

Spring

A key element of Spring is infrastructural support at the application level: Spring focuses on the "plumbing" of enterprise applications so that teams can focus on application-level business logic, without unnecessary ties to specific deployment environments.

Spring Boot

Spring Boot makes it easy to create stand-alone, production-grade Spring based Applications that you can "just run". We take an opinionated view of the Spring platform and third-party libraries so you can get started with minimum fuss. Most Spring Boot applications need very little Spring configuration.

Android SDK

Android provides a rich application framework that allows you to build innovative apps and games for mobile devices in a Java language environment.

Phoenix Framework

Phoenix is a framework for building HTML5 apps, API backends and distributed systems. Written in Elixir, you get beautiful syntax, productive tooling and a fast runtime.

Related Comparisons

Laravel vs Next.js: What are the differences?

Laravel and Next.js are both popular web development frameworks, but they serve different purposes and offer unique features. Here are the key differences between Laravel and Next.js:

Language and Ecosystem: Laravel is a PHP framework that follows the MVC (Model View Controller) pattern, whereas Next.js is a JavaScript framework built on top of React. Laravel has a mature ecosystem with a large number of plugins and libraries available, while Next.js benefits from the extensive React ecosystem.
Server-side Rendering: Laravel is primarily used for server-side rendering (SSR) applications, where the server completes rendering tasks before sending the final content to the client. Next.js, on the other hand, offers server-side rendering out of the box. This means that Next.js can deliver pre-rendered HTML to the client, improving initial load times and search engine optimization (SEO).
Routing and API Development: Laravel provides a robust routing system, making it highly efficient for building RESTful APIs. It includes features like route caching and parameter patterns. Next.js, however, primarily focuses on client-side routing for building single-page applications (SPAs) with React.
Frontend React Components: Next.js integrates seamlessly with React, enabling developers to build highly interactive and performant web applications using reusable React components. Laravel, while compatible with React, does not have the same level of integration and support for React as Next.js.
Asset Compilation and Dependency Management: Laravel uses Laravel Mix and Elixir for asset compilation and management, making it straightforward to compile and bundle CSS, JavaScript, and other assets. Next.js has built-in support for bundling and optimizing code, with features like automatic CSS/JS minification and code splitting.
Deployment and Hosting: Laravel applications can be deployed to various hosting environments, including shared hosting, virtual private servers, or cloud platforms like AWS or DigitalOcean. Next.js applications are typically deployed to serverless environments like Vercel or other static hosting platforms due to its focus on pre-rendered content and client-side interactions.

Laravel vs Next.js

Overview