[suddenclarity]

Maybe an off-topic rant but I ran into a similar feeling when wanting to do a personal PHP project with Laravel.

Even with the backend set, the front still felt like it had to make a choice among Blade, Livewire, Vue and React glued together with Inertia (?). Then you had to pick between several different authentication systems. Unfortunately I wanted app support as well which would require React Native, Flutter or something else which the Laravel documentation doesn't seem to make any mention about.

Naturally one could make it all from scratch with vanilla PHP and JS but that's often not a suitable comparison to a full-fledge framework.

[tored]

Laravel has become highly commercialized, having raised $57 million in VC funding last year. While it remains an open-source framework, it has evolved into a full-fledged ecosystem with official services like Forge, Vapor, and starter kits (Breeze, Jetstream) that streamline development and deployment. These tools are optional, but Laravel is making it harder to install a barebones version through Composer, subtly pushing developers toward its ecosystem.

Laravel is no longer just a PHP framework; it now resembles Java Spring — an opinionated, enterprise-friendly ecosystem where everything can be connected through configuration. The focus has shifted towards businesses and teams rather than personal or hobbyist projects.

For those who prefer a more traditional framework with long-term stability and fewer commercial dependencies, Symfony remains a solid alternative.

Relevant threads:

https://www.reddit.com/r/laravel/comments/1iyyxk4/laravel_is...

https://www.reddit.com/r/PHP/comments/1j05wh1/laravel_is_goi...

[martinsnow]

I don't understand your comment. You can just do jwt and whatever flavour of front end you want.

[dqv]

I'm not sure "just choose whatever front end you want" is a helpful response to someone who is having trouble choosing a front end they want.