Wordpress vs Laravel
What is the difference?
Laravel and WordPress are often discussed in various conversations. They are frequently associated with managing online stores or blogs, but the list is far from complete. They are mentioned for a reason - both approaches are extremely popular and can be used for the same types of websites. How to choose between WordPress and Laravel then? Let us help you make the best choice.
WordPress is an open-source Content Management System (CMS) launched in 2003. It is based on PHP and MySQL, and its usage is free. WP is powered by a theme-based system and follows the plugin architecture, offering its users over 55,000 plugins enhancing themes and providing new functionalities. It is the most popular CMS globally, with approximately 35% of websites on the Internet running on WordPress.
Laravel, on the other hand, is an open-source free PHP framework launched in 2011. It follows a feature package architecture and is based on the Symfony 2 framework and the Model View Controller (MVC) architecture. Laravel was launched with the aim of tackling complex tasks more easily and creating advanced web applications more quickly. It quickly gained traction in the developer community, becoming the most popular PHP framework.
Each has its loyal fan base, and for good reason. They are both constantly evolving, with an increasing number of resources around them, and they remain the preferred choice for thousands of developers. Here's why:
As you can see, both have many distinct advantages. The one that will work best for you will heavily depend on what you expect from such a platform and your specific use case. Let's explore the most common scenarios.
Both systems have given rise to thousands of online stores due to the vast number of plugins (over 55,000 available) that make launching an online store a pleasant experience rather than a very long and complex task.
Automattic, the company behind WordPress, acquired its most popular e-commerce plugin - WooCommerce - in 2015. Since then, it has made it an integral part of WordPress, simplifying the launch of an online store in just a few minutes. It comes with support for products, themes, deals, built-in payment gateways, reports, and other features.
It has everything you need to sell online without any tech mastery. And, if for some reason you're not satisfied with WooCommerce, there are dozens of other free e-commerce plugins available. Building a Laravel commerce site is certainly more complex, but it also gives you more customization opportunities. Store features are already there, with Aimeos or Bagisto being among the most popular e-commerce packages. They add all the features you need to manage an online store, big or small. And, if something is missing, Laravel allows easily adding features and evolving the business as it grows.
So, which one to choose? Most businesses should do just fine managing their store on WordPress. It has everything you need and is super easy to set up. However, if you're building a very large store, offering thousands of products, you might want to consider a more custom project made with Laravel. Laravel handles complex solutions better, and stores built with this approach load faster and provide a better user experience.
Laravel and WordPress are suitable for many web applications. However, the more complex a project becomes, the more evident the advantages of using an MVC framework over a CMS become. Laravel brings many built-in features to the table that ease development - authentication, advanced routing, error and exception handling. And what's not already included comes with a multitude of packages for much easier development. Laravel applications are also easy to scale according to evolving needs.
WordPress can handle some of these features with plugins, but the more plugins you use, the slower the site becomes. Additionally, at some point, you'll encounter limitations that can be challenging to overcome. While building with Laravel is more complex and time-consuming, you'll appreciate the freedom to build exactly what your project needs.
This doesn't mean WordPress isn't good for anything other than landing pages. Many popular brands use WordPress as the foundation for their sites, and it's not just news and blogs. Take Spotify and BBC America as examples.
Building a web application on WordPress is also ideal for an MVP. With the use of thousands of free and paid themes, you can create a sophisticated website in a few hours at most. If that's all you need, because, for example, everything happens in a mobile app, WordPress is a perfect approach. For something more complex, Laravel might be a better idea.
Here, the choice is much simpler. WordPress was designed with content sharing in mind. Today, many media outlets, and probably the vast majority of all online blogs, are powered by WP. WordPress makes it very easy to create and share content, categorize and tag it, upload media, etc. It's also highly accessible to non-technical users, and setting up a simple blog takes a few minutes. Moreover, there are dozens of useful plugins that will make the content-sharing process even more convenient: SEO content optimizers, blogrolls, Google Docs exporters, comment systems, etc.
Another interesting point of WordPress blogs is their design. You can easily choose the desired color palette for your blog and add other features to make your resource visually appealing. Of course, you can recreate all these features with Laravel, and there are even packages that can help. But does it really make sense if you can have everything at a much lower cost and much faster? Additionally, WordPress has access to hundreds of handy and free extensions (plugins) that take care of SEO. Since blogs and news outlets heavily rely on organic search, this is a significant advantage for WordPress sites.
There may be use cases for Laravel as well, but that would be with more complex development. For example, if content sharing is just one of many features of a platform and everything else needs to be built from scratch, it makes sense to go with Laravel for the entire project.
Now, let's put the two platforms side by side to see which aspects they excel in.
| WordPress | Laravel | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | WP sites can be significantly slowed down as the number of extensions increases. Having non-optimized code can impact loading speed. However, choosing well-coded plugins and limiting their number can result in a fairly performant site. |
Laravel uses Eloquent ORM for database queries, making it extremely fast. It's one of the fastest frameworks, a key reason developers choose it. Advantage for Laravel. |
| Performance | WordPress often takes time to load and has poor performance with some addons. This has less impact on simpler sites, but complex solutions, if not optimized, can be a major hindrance. |
Laravel is designed to handle complex tasks. Its built-in features offer many functionalities, enhanced by numerous available packages. Advantage for Laravel. |
| SEO | WP offers several easy ways to make your site visible on search engines. WordPress sites generally perform well in searches. |
Laravel doesn't come with ready-made SEO features. However, there are resources available to optimize content. Experts can surpass WordPress in SEO results. |
| Security | Security is a major concern for WordPress due to past vulnerabilities in plugins and themes. WP has improved significantly in this aspect over the years. |
Laravel comes with advanced security features integrated into the framework. This includes robust authentication mechanisms, password encryption, route protection, and protection against common threats. Advantage for Laravel. |
| Ease of Use | Not much is easier than this. WordPress is very easy to set up, and themes and plugins make it accessible to many. A WordPress beginner can grasp the basics in just 10 minutes. Advantage for WordPress. |
Laravel is a framework for developers and requires some level of experience to grasp its core concept. Still considered one of the most intuitive and easy-to-use frameworks among developers. |
| Development Time | With ready-made themes, it's easy to get a site running in WordPress. Customizations will take a bit more time, but for less demanding projects, development time is very satisfying. Advantage for WordPress. |
Laravel projects take much more time to build, as they need to be built from scratch. But with abundant resources and a large community, skilled developers can significantly reduce development time. |
| Cost-effectiveness | WordPress is free, and themes are inexpensive or even free. Custom projects will, of course, cost more, but in general, WordPress is considered one of the most cost-effective ways to set up a web application. Advantage for WordPress. |
Laravel resources are generally more expensive than those based on WordPress. Laravel sites require an investment of resources like any development project. In this aspect, they can't compete with WP in the short term. In the long term, a Laravel site can save time and resources for site evolution. |
| Scalability | Scaling web applications with WordPress can be problematic. Adding more and more addons slows down the site, and customization options are limited. |
Laravel is a dream when it comes to scalability. With its modular constructions, developers can shape an architecture from the start and modify it freely as the project grows. Advantage for Laravel. |
There is constant interest in combining both platforms for a single web application. This can be particularly useful if you're developing a web application that will be used by someone else (usually a client). WordPress is known for its simplicity, and typical Laravel backends require a lot of effort to navigate. That's why some developers choose to combine both - WordPress admin and the Laravel-based platform handling the interface. This way, everyone can control content via the backend with minimal additional training. Simultaneously, the site benefits from Laravel's high concurrency (compared to WordPress) and, consequently, much better performance. It's not the easiest thing to do, but it's entirely feasible.
Laravel and WordPress are very different platforms but can be used for the same applications with much success. Regarding performance, scalability, or speed, Laravel surpasses WordPress by a mile. Automattic's product takes its revenge when we focus on ease of use, cost, and SEO. Each has its distinct advantages, so it's not surprising they are also used together on various occasions.
We hope we've made the choice easier for you, and you'll now be able to make an informed decision.
