# Laravel
**Laravel** is an open-source PHP web application framework created by Taylor Otwell, who began it in late 2010 and released it in 2011, providing a simple, fast routing engine, a dependency injection container, an ORM, schema migrations, robust background job processing, and real-time event broadcasting as a full-stack package for building web applications.[1](https://www.accel.com/podcast-episodes/spotlight-on-how-laravels-taylor-otwell-builds-products-and-community-that-drive-organic-growth) • [2](https://packagist.org/packages/laravel/framework) It is built on Symfony components, which act as its skeleton, and ships with the Eloquent ORM and the Blade templating engine by default.[3](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d076/f9b3320b6f5b44c9d8cce4d05735d29ddb8d.pdf) Per the literature review in a comparative study of PHP frameworks, Laravel is the most used PHP-based framework.[3](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d076/f9b3320b6f5b44c9d8cce4d05735d29ddb8d.pdf)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Creator and origin | Created by Taylor Otwell starting late 2010; released open-source in 2011[1](https://www.accel.com/podcast-episodes/spotlight-on-how-laravels-taylor-otwell-builds-products-and-community-that-drive-organic-growth) |
| Adoption | 64% usage among surveyed PHP developers in JetBrains' 2025 State of PHP survey, ahead of WordPress (25%) and Symfony (23%)[4](https://blog.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/2025/10/state-of-php-2025/) |
| Core stack | Symfony components as skeleton; Eloquent ORM; Blade templating[3](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d076/f9b3320b6f5b44c9d8cce4d05735d29ddb8d.pdf) |
| Release cadence | Major releases roughly annually; 18 months of bug fixes and 2 years of security fixes per release[5](https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/releases) |
| Supported release lines | Laravel 12 (security fixes through February 24, 2027; bug fixes ended August 13, 2026) and Laravel 13 (released March 17, 2026, PHP 8.3–8.5)[5](https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/releases) • [6](https://laravel.com/docs/13.x/releases) |
| Company | $57 million Series A from Accel, September 2024; 35 employees, up from 8 at the start of 2024[7](https://fortune.com/2024/09/05/laravel-raises-57-million-series-a-from-accel/) |
| Repository | laravel/laravel on GitHub: 84,570 stars, 24,729 forks, created June 8, 2011[8](https://www.github.com/laravel/laravel) |
## History
Otwell released Laravel in 2011 as an open-source PHP framework. From 2011 to 2014 there were no commercial offerings around it; in 2014 the first commercial product, Laravel Forge, launched with pricing plans of about $10 and $20 per month.[1](https://www.accel.com/podcast-episodes/spotlight-on-how-laravels-taylor-otwell-builds-products-and-community-that-drive-organic-growth) The company, founded in 2011 and based in [Little Rock, Arkansas](https://www.edgepedia.org/little-rock-arkansas), grew on this bootstrapped commercial ecosystem and had never raised a full venture round before September 2024, when Accel invested $57 million in a Series A.[9](https://www.accel.com/news/our-series-a-investment-in-laravel-the-future-of-shipping) • [7](https://fortune.com/2024/09/05/laravel-raises-57-million-series-a-from-accel/) At that point the company had 35 employees, up from eight at the beginning of 2024, and open-source installs had grown 25% year over year as of July 2024.[7](https://fortune.com/2024/09/05/laravel-raises-57-million-series-a-from-accel/) Otwell remained CEO and primary curator of framework features, with the investment funding additional open-source engineering, including Inertia 2.0 and a first-party VS Code extension.[9](https://www.accel.com/news/our-series-a-investment-in-laravel-the-future-of-shipping)
## Architecture and core features
Laravel is built on Symfony components, which act as its skeleton. The laravel/framework package describes a simple, fast routing engine, a dependency injection container, an ORM, schema migrations, robust background job processing, and real-time event broadcasting as its headline features.[2](https://packagist.org/packages/laravel/framework)
**Eloquent and Blade.** Eloquent is an Active Record ORM: each model class maps to a database table and carries its own query and persistence behavior. Doctrine, commonly used with Symfony, is a Data Mapper ORM, and this is the most visible technical divergence between the two frameworks for backend-heavy applications.[10](https://wirefuture.com/post/laravel-11-vs-symfony-7-which-php-framework-in-2025) Blade is Laravel's templating engine, used for server-rendered views.[3](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d076/f9b3320b6f5b44c9d8cce4d05735d29ddb8d.pdf)
**Frontend models.** For interactive frontends, Laravel supports two first-party approaches. Livewire v3 is a ground-up rewrite in which PHP classes with render() methods return Blade templates and the framework diffs HTML to update only the changed parts of the DOM; Volt adds single-file components in one .blade.php file.[11](https://blog.codercops.com/blog/laravel-in-2026-php-framework-guide) The Inertia route pairs a Laravel backend with React, Vue, or Svelte single-page frontends; the React, Svelte, and Vue starter kits in Laravel 12 use Inertia 2 with [TypeScript](https://www.edgepedia.org/typescript), shadcn/ui, and Tailwind.[5](https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/releases)
## Ecosystem and commercial tooling
Laravel's commercial layer grew from Forge outward. Forge provisions servers inside a customer's AWS or [DigitalOcean](https://www.edgepedia.org/digitalocean) account; Vapor provides serverless deployment on [AWS Lambda](https://www.edgepedia.org/aws-lambda); Nova is an administration panel; Horizon monitors queues.[12](https://scalingdevtools.com/podcast/episodes/taylor-otwell) • [13](https://www.itpathsolutions.com/the-top-3-backend-frameworks-and-which-to-choose) Cited pricing puts Forge at $12/month, Vapor at $39/month, and Nova at a $199 license.[14](https://www.phpeveryday.com/articles/laravel-vs-symfony-vs-other-php-frameworks-2026-survey/) In a 2024 [JetBrains](https://www.edgepedia.org/jetbrains) survey, Forge, Vapor, and Nova were reported as gaining traction for server management, serverless deployment, and admin panels respectively.[15](https://blog.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/2024/09/laravel-trends-2024-the-latest-market-insights/)
**Laravel Cloud** was announced at Laracon in 2024 as a fully managed hosting platform, described as "from hello world to hello web in under a minute."[9](https://www.accel.com/news/our-series-a-investment-in-laravel-the-future-of-shipping) Whereas Forge works with servers the customer provisions, Cloud is a fully managed service on the model of Heroku or Vercel: [Kubernetes](https://www.edgepedia.org/kubernetes) clusters and databases are run by Laravel itself, which also covers the AWS charges and bears the blame for any outage.[12](https://scalingdevtools.com/podcast/episodes/taylor-otwell) At Laracon EU 2026 the Cloud API and CLI became generally available, allowing deployments, environments, and infrastructure to be managed from the terminal or programmatically, including by AI agents.[16](https://notesonlaravel.com/laracon-eu-2026/)
**Developer tooling.** Laravel Herd, released in 2024 for Mac and available on Windows since late 2024, packages a local PHP development environment that cuts new-project setup from about an hour to roughly five minutes.[11](https://blog.codercops.com/blog/laravel-in-2026-php-framework-guide) Laravel Reverb, released in early 2024, is a first-party self-hosted [WebSocket](https://www.edgepedia.org/websocket) server implementing the Pusher protocol, so Echo and broadcasting channels work unchanged.[11](https://blog.codercops.com/blog/laravel-in-2026-php-framework-guide)
## Releases and support lifecycle
Laravel follows an annual release cadence, with major releases roughly each year; for all releases, bug fixes are provided for 18 months and security fixes for 2 years.[6](https://laravel.com/docs/13.x/releases) • [5](https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/releases)
| Version | PHP | Released | Bug fixes until | Security fixes until |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 8.1–8.3 | February 14th, 2023 | August 6th, 2024 | February 4th, 2025[5](https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/releases) |
| 11 | 8.2–8.4 | March 12th, 2024 | September 3rd, 2025 | March 12th, 2026[5](https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/releases) |
| 12 | 8.2–8.5 | February 24th, 2025 | August 13th, 2026 | February 24th, 2027[5](https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/releases) |
| 13 | 8.3–8.5 | March 17th, 2026 | Q3 2027 | March 17th, 2028[6](https://laravel.com/docs/13.x/releases) |
In March 2024 Laravel 11 arrived with a reshaped application skeleton: the standard app.php configuration file was dropped, service providers were merged together, and the config publishing mechanism was redesigned, leaving a slimmer starting codebase.[11](https://blog.codercops.com/blog/laravel-in-2026-php-framework-guide)
**Laravel 12** was a relatively minor maintenance release focused on upgrading dependencies, so most applications could upgrade without changing application code; notable additions include typed configuration objects and a fluent route definition API.[5](https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/releases) • [17](https://msaied.com/public/articles/laravel-new-in-12-first-class-typed-config-fluent-routing-and-upgrade-notes) It introduced new starter kits for React, Svelte, Vue, and Livewire, with the Livewire kit using the Flux UI component library and Laravel Volt; with their introduction, Laravel Breeze and Laravel Jetstream stopped receiving additional updates.[5](https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/releases) A WorkOS AuthKit-powered variant of each kit offers social authentication, passkeys, and SSO, with WorkOS offering free authentication for applications up to 1 million monthly active users.[5](https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/releases)
**Laravel 13** continues the annual cadence with a focus on AI-native workflows, stronger defaults, and more expressive developer APIs, including first-party AI primitives, JSON:API resources, and semantic and vector search capabilities.[6](https://laravel.com/docs/13.x/releases)
## By the numbers
JetBrains' 2025 State of PHP survey found Laravel leading framework usage at 64%, followed by [WordPress](https://www.edgepedia.org/wordpress) at 25% and Symfony at 23%, with [CodeIgniter](https://www.edgepedia.org/codeigniter), Yii, and CakePHP holding smaller stable shares; the same survey found 89% of respondents on PHP 8.x.[4](https://blog.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/2025/10/state-of-php-2025/) In the 2024 Laravel Trends survey, 95.40% of respondents used Laravel for business applications and 57.90% for hobby projects.[15](https://blog.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/2024/09/laravel-trends-2024-the-latest-market-insights/)
The laravel/laravel GitHub repository, created June 8, 2011, has 84,570 stars and 24,729 forks.[8](https://www.github.com/laravel/laravel) BuiltWith data cited in 2024 put about 1.5 million websites worldwide on Laravel, with 743,470 active sites; these aggregator-cited figures are indicative only.[18](https://tms-outsource.com/blog/posts/laravel-statistics/) Companies reported as using Laravel include Apple, OpenAI, Square, Zillow, OpenTable, Motorola, and Pfizer; Accel cites Square's commerce engine, a Fortune 10 retailer's internal CRM, and the [Milwaukee Bucks](https://www.edgepedia.org/milwaukee-bucks) website as Laravel-built products.[7](https://fortune.com/2024/09/05/laravel-raises-57-million-series-a-from-accel/) • [9](https://www.accel.com/news/our-series-a-investment-in-laravel-the-future-of-shipping)
## Comparison with other frameworks
A multi-criteria evaluation of seven MVC frameworks (Laravel and Symfony in PHP, [Django](https://www.edgepedia.org/django-web-framework) and Flask in Python, Spring Boot in Java, and React and Angular in JavaScript/TypeScript) found no single framework dominates across all dimensions: [Spring Boot](https://www.edgepedia.org/spring-boot) offered superior throughput and scalability, while Laravel and Django excelled in learning curve and documentation quality.[19](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-16851-1_24)
Against Symfony, its closest PHP sibling, Laravel shares underlying components but differs in defaults: Eloquent (Active Record) versus Doctrine (Data Mapper), and a cited characterization frames Symfony as the more stable pattern and Laravel as a pioneer in creating dynamic solutions.[10](https://wirefuture.com/post/laravel-11-vs-symfony-7-which-php-framework-in-2025) • [3](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d076/f9b3320b6f5b44c9d8cce4d05735d29ddb8d.pdf) Against Node.js options, an 11-criterion 2026 comparison scored Express 75/100 and Laravel 79/100, with the widest gap in "batteries included," where Laravel is well ahead; Laravel bundles routing, a dependency injection container, job queues, and event broadcasting, backed by first-party packages and paid hosting products.[20](https://faun.dev/toolbox/express-vs-laravel/) On GitHub stars as of January 2026, Laravel (84,025) sat between Django (87,258) and [NestJS](https://www.edgepedia.org/nestjs) (75,176).[13](https://www.itpathsolutions.com/the-top-3-backend-frameworks-and-which-to-choose)
## Performance
Benchmark results conflict. A November 2023 study testing Laravel, Symfony, CodeIgniter, Yii, and Zend on three hardware tiers with MySQL 8.0, measuring response time, database read/write, parallel query processing, and memory usage, concluded that Laravel was the best-performing PHP framework based on all the metrics considered.[21](https://research-journal.org/archive/11-137-2023-november/10.23670/IRJ.2023.137.29) Other work points the other way: raw benchmarks show Symfony with a slight edge in requests-per-second on minimal applications, though the difference is described as negligible in real-world applications optimized with OPcache, queue workers, and caching layers.[10](https://wirefuture.com/post/laravel-11-vs-symfony-7-which-php-framework-in-2025) The framework's layers carry measurable cost in one direct comparison: native PHP served at 18.3 ms against Laravel's 344.52 ms, attributed to the additional routing, controller, and model processing, while Laravel excelled in code efficiency due to its ORM.[22](https://ojs2.pnb.ac.id/index.php/MATRIX/article/download/1413/890)
**Octane** changes the picture by removing per-request bootstrap: it runs the application in a persistent process using Swoole or FrankenPHP, loading the framework and service container once and significantly reducing response times.[11](https://blog.codercops.com/blog/laravel-in-2026-php-framework-guide)
## Security and criticism
Laravel's security defaults include CSRF protection enabled by default, XSS protection for escaped output via Blade templating, [SQL injection](https://www.edgepedia.org/sql-injection) protection for parameterized Eloquent queries, password hashing via bcrypt and argon2, encrypted cookies, and out-of-the-box rate limiting.[23](https://fsck.sh/en/blog/laravel-vs-symfony-2025-comparison/) In Laravel 13, the request forgery protection middleware was enhanced and formalized as PreventRequestForgery, adding origin-aware request verification while preserving compatibility with token-based CSRF protection.[6](https://laravel.com/docs/13.x/releases)
Cited criticisms concentrate on convention and maintenance cost. Facades make code look simple but hide dependencies, making testing and static analysis harder; Eloquent's magic methods can confuse IDEs; major versions every 12 months require migration effort; and the framework is described as having a monolithic tendency at scale.[14](https://www.phpeveryday.com/articles/laravel-vs-symfony-vs-other-php-frameworks-2026-survey/)
## References
1. [Taylor Otwell interview, Accel podcast: How Laravel's Taylor Otwell Builds Products and Community](https://www.accel.com/podcast-episodes/spotlight-on-how-laravels-taylor-otwell-builds-products-and-community-that-drive-organic-growth)
2. [laravel/framework on Packagist](https://packagist.org/packages/laravel/framework)
3. [Comparative analysis of PHP frameworks on the example of Laravel and Symfony](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d076/f9b3320b6f5b44c9d8cce4d05735d29ddb8d.pdf)
4. [The State of PHP 2025, JetBrains PhpStorm Blog](https://blog.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/2025/10/state-of-php-2025/)
5. [Release Notes, Laravel 12.x documentation](https://laravel.com/docs/12.x/releases)
6. [Release Notes, Laravel 13.x documentation](https://laravel.com/docs/13.x/releases)
7. [Exclusive: Laravel raises $57 million Series A from Accel, Fortune](https://fortune.com/2024/09/05/laravel-raises-57-million-series-a-from-accel/)
8. [laravel/laravel on GitHub](https://www.github.com/laravel/laravel)
9. [Our Series A Investment in Laravel, Accel](https://www.accel.com/news/our-series-a-investment-in-laravel-the-future-of-shipping)
10. [Laravel 11 vs Symfony 7: Which PHP Framework in 2025?, WireFuture](https://wirefuture.com/post/laravel-11-vs-symfony-7-which-php-framework-in-2025)
11. [Laravel in 2026: What PHP's Most Popular Framework Actually Looks Like Now, CoderCops](https://blog.codercops.com/blog/laravel-in-2026-php-framework-guide)
12. [Taylor Otwell, founder of Laravel, Scaling DevTools podcast](https://scalingdevtools.com/podcast/episodes/taylor-otwell)
13. [Laravel vs Django vs NestJS: Backend Framework Comparison 2026, IT Path Solutions](https://www.itpathsolutions.com/the-top-3-backend-frameworks-and-which-to-choose)
14. [Laravel vs Symfony vs Other PHP Frameworks: 2026 Survey, PHP Everyday](https://www.phpeveryday.com/articles/laravel-vs-symfony-vs-other-php-frameworks-2026-survey/)
15. [Laravel Trends 2024: Results Overview, JetBrains PhpStorm Blog](https://blog.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/2024/09/laravel-trends-2024-the-latest-market-insights/)
16. [Everything Announced at Laracon EU 2026, Notes on Laravel](https://notesonlaravel.com/laracon-eu-2026/)
17. [Laravel 12: Typed Config, Fluent Routing & Upgrade, Mohamed Said](https://msaied.com/public/articles/laravel-new-in-12-first-class-typed-config-fluent-routing-and-upgrade-notes)
18. [Laravel statistics transforming PHP development, TMS Outsource](https://tms-outsource.com/blog/posts/laravel-statistics/)
19. [Empirical Evaluation of MVC Frameworks, Springer](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-16851-1_24)
20. [Express vs Laravel: Web Application Frameworks Comparison (2026), Faun](https://faun.dev/toolbox/express-vs-laravel/)
21. [A Comparative Analysis of Backend Frameworks, International Research Journal (2023)](https://research-journal.org/archive/11-137-2023-november/10.23670/IRJ.2023.137.29)
22. [Laravel framework and native PHP: Comparison in the creation](https://ojs2.pnb.ac.id/index.php/MATRIX/article/download/1413/890)
23. [Laravel vs Symfony 2025: When to Use Which, fsck.sh](https://fsck.sh/en/blog/laravel-vs-symfony-2025-comparison/)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Technology and the built world › Computing and digital systems › Software and programming › Development tools and collaboration infrastructure › Frameworks, libraries, and APIs › Web frameworks and libraries*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 17, 2026; Sep 30, 2026; Oct 15, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 15, 2026 · Last review: Oct 15, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license