Laravel and WordPress in 2021

Here at Camino Dev we are big fans of both Laravel and Wordpress. We often talk with clients about what is the best option for them so we thought we would write a bit about both and what the difference is. First we want to state that these two technologies are very very different. At a high level, Laravel is designed to help developers to be more efficient, build better, more robust and maintainable systems. It is in fact just a bunch of code with no user interface or anything a non-technical user could use. Wordpress at it's heart is a content management system built with the non-technical user in mind. It therefore can be used by a non-technical person to build wonderful websites without writing a single line of code. At Camino Dev we work with both technologies depending on the project. Again at a high level custom projects we will usually recommend building with Laravel, more simple projects or e-commerce websites we generally will recommend building with Wordpress.

Laravel is an open-source framework. It is the most popular PHP Web framework and it is quickly becoming one of the worlds most popular backend frameworks. It is primarily used for building a wide range of custom web applications and is based on MVC (model view controller) architecture and symphony.

Laravel was developed by Taylor Otwell and was initially released in the 2011. Laravel was released with inbuilt features for authentication, localisation, models, sessions, routing and many other features like an inversion of control and a templating system called Blade. Effectively, the building blocks of a modern web application, things to make a developers life a whole lot easier.

WordPress is an open-source content management system. It is mainly used for writing blogs, newspapers and website management system. It is usually used for small companies, bloggers and e-commerce stores. With WordPress, a non-technical person can easily manage their website content and functionality. A key feature of Wordpress is its extendability through plugins. Plugins can be viewed as small pieces of software that can be added to your website (they can be 'plugged in' to your website. Wordpress community has built thousands upon thousands of plugins to meet almost any need of a website.

 Which system you should use for your next web project? Laravel or WordPress?

Well, it depends on the project stakeholder needs as well as the budget, timeline and long-term plan of the project.

WordPress:

1.    If an e-commerce site is to be developed, then Wordpress with the very popular plugin 'WooCommerce' is a great option. If you have bought online then it is very likely that you have use WooCommerce. It is an incredibly popular, robust and reliable system to build online shops.

2.    If the client's budget is limited or the project has a very short timeline, then possibly a simple website sing Wordpress is a good option.

3.    It has a huge community around it with a multitude of resources.

4.    It is much easier to handle for non-tech users.

Laravel :

1.    Web applications developed in Laravel can be customised to no limits. Here developers capability is the only limitation.

2.    Laravel has industry leading security feature built in and also has great user authentication, authorisation and restricted access features that are easy to implement. This keeps you and your data secure.

3.    Modern programming paradigms like MVC framework support Laravel. Their support has added a boost in the overall productivity of applications made in Laravel. Now business logic and presentation code can be separated. The importance of this cannot be understated, especially for the ease of maintenance in the future.

4.    Over 1 million websites worldwide are built using Laravel and and this number is continuously growing every day.

Conclusion:

Wordpress, due to its success as the worlds most popular Content Management System in the world, hackers often target websites that are built on WordPress. However, it is not actually WordPress core that is under attack but often the plugins which have been installed. WordPress core itself is very secure, maintained by the community so that issues are fixed incredibly quickly. But websites built on WordPress are often left with loopholes because of faulty plugins or outdated themes may be. This is why it is important to often have a professional help with the development of a Wordpress site, or before installing any plugins thoroughly research them. Here at Camino Dev we are very careful about adding plugins. We always complete an internal audit of all plugins we add to websites, and often will build custom plugins to meet our clients specific needs.

Laravel is not immune to these problems and poor designed Laravel systems still exist. However a good developer or team should be able to ensure that they stick to modern principles and build a slick and secure system that meets the needs of the clients and/or its users.