[2023] Web Development: Core PHP vs. Laravel Technology Showdown

When building an app, the most time-consuming and complicated part is often choosing the programming language and platform. Every framework has its strengths and weaknesses, so picking a single technology doesn't always end the task there. Core PHP and Laravel are a good example — built on the same language but offering different capabilities, which makes choosing between them even harder.

In this article, we'll cover the pros and cons of Core PHP and Laravel, and clearly point out which one you should choose for business software development.

1. The Contender: What Is Core PHP?

Core PHP is a programming language used to build high-performance websites and web-based applications that run across browsers. It's also known as the predecessor of PHP. When building software with Core PHP, developers don't need external components or libraries, which cuts costs and helps finish development within time constraints.

1.1. Advantages of Core PHP:

• Pre-built scripts: Comes with easy-to-use code that saves time during development.
• Cross-platform: Supported on major operating systems, including Linux, Solaris, UNIX, macOS, and Windows. Core PHP can connect to any database and, thanks to its compatibility with Linux and Unix, can be configured on any server.
• Easy learning curve: A language with consistent, logical syntax that shares common ground with C, making it easy to learn.
• Database connectivity: Compatible with popular database services such as MySQL and MariaDB, offering straightforward data exchange and minimizing the time it takes to build web applications.
• Speed: Loads web pages smoothly and quickly, boosting user engagement and SEO rankings.
• Cost: Available for free, enabling cost-effective development, with the option to hire talent through a variety of models.
• User-friendliness for apps and sites: Websites and web apps built with Core PHP tend to be very user-friendly thanks to intuitive design and high responsiveness.
• Easy-to-understand syntax: Developers can write clean, streamlined code. This also makes it easier to enhance apps built by other programmers according to your own requirements and push them toward completion.

1.2. Disadvantages of Core PHP:

• Additional security components: Maintaining data integrity, availability, and non-repudiation requires additional security components, which adds cost and time. Using third-party APIs can also affect a software project's cost.
• Error and exception handling: This falls short of standards and is currently being fixed by the community. Since core behavior can't be changed, this can be a drawback when delivering an app that must follow specific industry standards.
• Limited debugging tools: With fewer debugging tools available to catch errors while compiling and testing code, users may struggle once the app is rolled out to the market.

2. The Contender: What Is Laravel?

　Laravel is a PHP-based web framework, freely available on the internet. It's mainly used to handle routing, authentication, and HTML templating. Created by Taylor Otwell, Laravel is written in PHP based on Symfony and provides reusable PHP components and libraries. Since Laravel is a server-side framework, it's used for pre-defined architectures, apps with customized back-end logic, web portals, templates, full-stack app development, and managing SaaS products. Laravel is especially well suited for building single-page applications (SPAs), e-commerce sites, CMS systems, social platforms, and web portals that handle large volumes of data.

Cre: Oditeksolutions

2.1. Advantages of Laravel:

• Rich, detailed documentation: Laravel comes with extensive, detailed documentation, helping developers write a clean codebase and resolve errors.
• Integration with caching and mail services: Laravel lets you configure integrations with multiple caching and mail services, shortening load times and letting you keep users updated by email.
• Tools for automating repetitive tasks: With the built-in Artisan tool, you can automate repetitive tasks by running command-line interface scripts.
• Existing packages and templates: The online repository offers a wide variety of packages and templates, minimizing the cost, time, and effort needed to complete the software development cycle.

2.2. Disadvantages of Laravel:

• No payment gateway support: Since it doesn't support payment gateways, this framework can't be used to design e-commerce websites.
• Risk of data loss: Updating the framework version can crash the application and potentially wipe out data completely.
• Slower response time: When loaded on mobile devices, it puts extra load on the processor. As a result, response times can slow down and acknowledgments may be delayed.
• Code can get complicated: One of Laravel's defining traits is its high degree of freedom, which can sometimes lead to more complex code.
• Upgrade incompatibility: In some cases, upgrades may be incompatible with earlier versions or new tech trends, potentially degrading overall performance.
• Library quality: Since Laravel is open source and backed by a large community, this can lead to a growing number of unreliable third-party libraries.

3. Core PHP vs. Laravel: Key Differences

3.1. Core PHP vs. Laravel Table

Table 1.　Core PHP vs. Laravel comparison table

3.2. Explaining the Differences Between Core PHP and Laravel

Cre: Akdemy

3.2.1.　Performance

Core PHP is considered faster than Laravel thanks to its concurrency speed. This helps it handle a huge volume of user requests simultaneously and return responses efficiently.

3.2.2.　Ease of Modification and Customization

Modifying large projects in Core PHP can sometimes be a bit challenging. Laravel, on the other hand, uses the Model-View-Controller architecture, letting developers cleanly separate the front end and back end of the software and work on the interface and back end at the same time, saving time. What's more, the MVC approach offers better control for customizing a website according to a marketing strategy, and improves the site's search engine ranking.

3.2.3.　Database Compatibility

Laravel currently supports four major databases: SQL, SQLite, MySQL, and Postgres. Core PHP, on the other hand, can link to a wider range of databases, including IBM-DB2, MySQL, Oracle, and MongoDB. This also makes it easy to switch from one database to another, ensuring smooth data transactions and helping when migrating user data.

3.2.4.　Resource Availability

Both languages have solid community support, so outsourcing a reliable team of analysts, developers, designers, testers, and project managers for a business project isn't hard. On top of that, since compiling code doesn't require expensive hardware, you can save on cost and time throughout the software development lifecycle.

3.2.5. Security

To prevent cyberattacks or unauthorized access to Core PHP-based applications, developers need to connect to third-party APIs and define their own protocols. Laravel, however, comes with a built-in security system. What's more, its access-control and authentication system cross-verifies user IDs by default, ensuring only legitimate users can access resources. This is why Laravel is generally rated as more secure.

• See more: Why Choose React and Python for Web Development: Are These Two the Best Options?

4. Use Cases for Core PHP and Laravel

4.1.　Recommended Cases for Core PHP

• SaaS-based web applications
• On-demand streaming web apps
• E-learning web apps
• Stock trading-based web management systems
• Multilingual CMS systems
• Self-hosted website performance monitoring apps

4.2.　Recommended Cases for Laravel

• Websites using custom code scripts
• Websites with scalable server deployment using Linux, Apache, and MySQL
• Websites that require heavy image processing
• Websites (e-commerce sites, business sites, social media sites, etc.) and web apps that use server-side scripts
• Desktop (GUI) apps

5. Summary

Every programming language and development platform has its pros and cons, so it's always worth reviewing them before starting a project, to help analyze and reduce risk during development. The above shows the strengths and weaknesses of Laravel and Core PHP.

When comparing Core PHP and Laravel, we can conclude that both let organizations keep up with fast-evolving technology trends at scale. That said, Core PHP tends to suit small and mid-sized apps, while Laravel is better suited for large-scale, scalable business solutions.

Miichisoft is a Vietnamese technology company with strengths in programming languages such as PHP and Laravel, and has supported the development of numerous platforms, apps, and websites for Japanese clients. If you're interested in how our technology solutions can help unlock your business's potential, please feel free to contact us.