---
title: "Laravel"
description: "Laravel is a popular PHP framework for building web applications. Learn about its MVC architecture, Eloquent ORM, tooling ecosystem and practical uses."
url: "https://nodea.io/en/glossary/laravel"
lang: "en"
updated: "2026-07-13"
---

# Laravel

> Laravel is an open-source PHP framework based on the MVC pattern that simplifies and speeds up building web applications through elegant syntax and a rich ecosystem of ready-made tools.

**Laravel** is an open-source framework for the [PHP](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/php) language, created by Taylor Otwell and first released in 2011. Based on the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architectural pattern, it emphasizes clean, expressive syntax and developer productivity, which has made it one of the most popular [frameworks](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/framework) for building web applications in the world.

## How Laravel works

Laravel organizes an application around the MVC pattern: models represent data, views handle presentation and controllers tie the logic together. The framework ships a complete set of ready-made mechanisms that in plain PHP you would have to write by hand:

- **Eloquent ORM** — a convenient mapping of database tables to PHP objects;
- **routing system** — a readable way to define URLs and how they are handled;
- **Blade templating engine** — composing views from reusable components;
- **migrations** — version control for the database structure in code;
- **queues and scheduled tasks** — handling background work such as sending emails.

A rich ecosystem has grown around the framework: Composer for dependency management, and tools such as Horizon (queues), Sanctum and Passport (authentication), or Forge and Vapor for deployment.

## Practical application

Laravel is used to build a broad range of applications: CRM and ERP systems, SaaS platforms, online stores, APIs for mobile apps and admin panels. It suits both small projects and large, high-traffic systems. A Laravel application is deployed on a server with [PHP-FPM](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/php-fpm) and a [MySQL](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/mysql) or MariaDB database — full control over the environment comes from a VPS or a managed server, where you can tune the PHP version, caching and queues to the project's needs.

### What is the difference between Laravel and Symfony?

Symfony is a set of independent, highly configurable components — some of which Laravel itself builds on. Laravel prioritizes development speed and developer experience, shipping ready-made solutions (ORM, authentication, queues) with minimal configuration. Symfony is often chosen for very large enterprise systems, Laravel when time to market matters most.

### What are the hosting requirements for a Laravel application?

Laravel needs a server running a currently supported version of PHP, several PHP extensions (including PDO, Mbstring and OpenSSL) and a database, most often MySQL or MariaDB. For efficient operation it benefits from Composer, Redis for queues and caching, and CLI access. A VPS or a managed server with full control over the PHP configuration works best.

## Related

- [PHP](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/php)
- [Framework](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/framework)
- [Symfony](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/symfony)
- [MySQL](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/mysql)
- [Backend](https://nodea.io/en/glossary/backend)

---

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