Understanding Laravel: How It Works & Why Use It

What is Laravel?

Laravel is a free and open-source PHP web application framework created by Taylor Otwell and first released in 2011. (Wikipedia) It is designed to make web development in PHP more elegant, expressive and structured, while following modern development practices. (Wikipedia)

Why choose Laravel?

Here are some of the reasons Laravel is popular:

• It follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern, which helps keep code organized and maintainable. (Hostinger)
• It comes with a rich set of built-in tools: routing, ORM (object-relational mapping), templating engine, CLI (command-line interface), authentication scaffolding, etc. (builtin.com)
• It supports modern PHP features, robust security (e.g., CSRF protection, SQL injection prevention) and has a large community. (WeblineIndia)
• It gives flexibility: you can use it as a full-stack framework (frontend + backend) or as a backend API serving data to other clients. (Laravel)

How Laravel works: from request to response

Here’s a simplified breakdown of how a typical web request flows through a Laravel application:

1. Route / Request Received
   The user issues a request (e.g., browser visits a URL). Laravel’s routing system looks up the defined route in your routes files (web.php, api.php) and determines which controller/action should handle the request. (upstackhq.com)
2. Middleware & Bootstrapping
   Laravel runs a set of bootstrappers and middleware that prepare the application: environment detection, error handling, session/cookie setup, authentication check, etc. (This happens “behind the scenes”.) (Laravel)
3. Controller Execution
   The controller receives the request, handles business logic: maybe fetches data, interacts with models, applies validation, decides what happens next. (Medium)
4. Model / Database Interaction
   If data persistence is needed, the controller works with a model (via Laravel’s ORM, called Eloquent) to read/write data in the database. This abstracts SQL queries and lets you work in a more object-oriented way. (builtin.com)
5. View / Response Rendered
   The controller passes data to a view (via Laravel’s Blade templating engine) which generates the HTML (or JSON, if it’s an API) sent back to client. This separates presentation (View) from logic (Controller) and data (Model). (Laravel)
6. Return Response to User
   The prepared response (HTML, JSON, etc) is sent back to the browser or API client, completing the cycle.

Here is the request-flow in one sentence: User → Route → Controller → Model (if needed) → View → Response.

Key Components & Features

• Routing: Define URL endpoints, HTTP methods, link them to controllers/actions. Easy to set up. (upstackhq.com)
• Controllers: Manage application logic and coordinate between models and views.
• Models / Eloquent ORM: Models represent tables; Eloquent makes database interaction easier and more secure. (Wikipedia)
• Views / Blade: Templating engine that enables reusable templates, clean syntax, separation of concerns. (Reddit)
• Middleware: Filters HTTP requests — e.g., authentication, logging, maintenance mode. Good for cross-cutting concerns.
• Command Line (Artisan): Laravel’s CLI tool to generate code (controllers, models), run migrations, scheduling, tasks. (builtin.com)
• Migrations & Database Versioning: You define database schema changes in code, allowing version control of your database. (Hostinger)
• Security features: CSRF token protection, prepared statements for ORM, built-in protections against XSS/SQLi. (WeblineIndia)
• Testing support: Built-in support for unit testing and functional tests helps maintain high code quality. (Net Solutions)

Typical Use-Cases

• Building a standard web application (frontend + backend) where Laravel handles routing + views + data.
• Using Laravel as a backend API: you may skip the view-part and serve JSON to a JavaScript frontend or mobile app. (Laravel)
• Rapid prototyping: Because of its tooling, scaffolding and rich ecosystem, Laravel allows faster development of features.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Clean, expressive syntax and structure help maintainability.
• Strong community and rich ecosystem of packages.
• Built-in functionalities that many apps need (authentication, routing, ORM, templating).
• Good for both small projects and large ones due to scalability of structure.

Cons:

• Learning curve: Some concepts (service container, providers, middleware) may feel complex for beginners.
• Performance overhead: Because it's feature-rich, there is more overhead versus minimal frameworks — though this can be mitigated.
• Upgrading major versions sometimes require breaking changes (so care is needed in long-term projects).

How to Get Started

1. Ensure you have PHP (version recommended by Laravel), a web server (Apache/Nginx) and Composer (PHP’s dependency manager). (How-To Geek)
2. Install Laravel: e.g., composer create-project laravel/laravel myApp or use laravel new myApp if you have the installer. (How-To Geek)
3. Explore the folder structure: /routes, /app/Http/Controllers, /app/Models, /resources/views, etc. (bythebea.com)
4. Define a route, create a controller, create a simple model, and a view to display something.
5. Learn more advanced topics: middleware, dependency injection, service container, queues, events, etc.
6. Explore the official documentation, tutorials, and community resources.

Final Thoughts

Laravel strikes a nice balance between structure and productivity. By following proven design patterns like MVC, providing a wide array of built-in tools, and being extendable, it helps developers build robust web applications faster. At the same time, the richness of its features means you’ll benefit from spending time to understand its architecture and inner workings.

If you’d like, I can prepare a step-by-step tutorial (with code examples) for Laravel — just tell me whether you prefer building a web app (full stack) or an API backend, and I’ll tailor it!