Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Bootstrap VS Laravel

Compare Bootstrap VS Laravel and see what are their differences

Bootstrap logo Bootstrap

Simple and flexible HTML, CSS, and JS for popular UI components and interactions

Laravel logo Laravel

A PHP Framework For Web Artisans
  • Bootstrap Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-22
  • Laravel Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-24

Bootstrap features and specs

  • Responsive Design
    Bootstrap's grid system ensures that webpages are responsive and adapt to different screen sizes seamlessly.
  • Pre-designed Components
    Bootstrap comes with a variety of pre-designed components like buttons, forms, modals, and navigation bars that streamline the development process.
  • Cross-browser Compatibility
    Bootstrap ensures that your website will function correctly across different browsers, reducing the time spent on debugging issues related to browser inconsistencies.
  • Extensive Documentation
    The documentation is comprehensive and well-organized, making it easier for developers to understand and implement Bootstrap features quickly.
  • Community Support
    With a large and active community, finding help and resources related to Bootstrap development is relatively easy.
  • Customizable
    Bootstrap allows you to customize the default styles and components using Sass variables, making it adaptable to any project needs.
  • CDN Support
    Bootstrap can be included via Content Delivery Networks (CDN), which can help to speed up the initial load time of your web pages.

Possible disadvantages of Bootstrap

  • Uniform Look
    Websites built with Bootstrap often look similar because many developers use the default styles and components without customization.
  • Overhead
    Including the entire Bootstrap library can add unnecessary weight to your project if you only use a small fraction of its features.
  • Learning Curve
    For beginners, the extensive set of features and classes can be overwhelming and take some time to learn.
  • Dependency on jQuery
    Older versions of Bootstrap heavily rely on jQuery, which can be a disadvantage for projects that aim to minimize dependencies.
  • Specific Structure
    Bootstrap works best when you adhere to its predefined structure and classes, which can limit flexibility for more complex or unique designs.
  • Customization Challenges
    Deep customization can be difficult and time-consuming, especially if you need to override many default styles and behaviors.
  • Performance Issues
    Using a large number of Bootstrap components can lead to performance issues, particularly on lower-end devices.

Laravel features and specs

  • Eloquent ORM
    Laravel includes Eloquent ORM, which provides a beautiful and simple ActiveRecord implementation for working with your database. It allows for easy interaction with your databases, offering an intuitive syntax.
  • Blade Templating Engine
    The Blade templating engine offers a clean and efficient syntax for writing templates. It provides features like template inheritance and sections, which makes template design more manageable and organized.
  • Artisan CLI
    Laravel's Artisan Command Line Interface (CLI) allows developers to perform repetitive tasks and manage their Laravel project more efficiently with built-in commands for database migration, seeding, and building tasks.
  • Strong Community and Ecosystem
    Laravel has a large and active community that provides an abundance of resources, including packages, tutorials, and screencasts on Laracasts. This ecosystem allows for quick problem-solving and an extensive library of reusable components.
  • Robust Security Features
    Laravel provides built-in security features such as salted and hashed passwords, encryption, and protection against common vulnerabilities like SQL injection and cross-site request forgery (CSRF).
  • Efficient Testing
    Laravel comes with PHPUnit integrated, along with convenient helper methods, making writing test cases and performing automated testing more straightforward. This leads to better code reliability and fewer bugs.
  • Comprehensive Documentation
    Laravel has thorough and well-organized documentation that covers all its features in detail. This makes it easier for new and experienced developers to understand and use the framework effectively.

Possible disadvantages of Laravel

  • Performance Overhead
    Since Laravel is a full-featured framework, it includes many built-in functions and layers that can create performance overhead. For very high-performance applications, fine-tuning may be necessary.
  • Steep Learning Curve for Beginners
    For those new to web development or coming from a different programming paradigm, Laravel can be challenging to grasp initially due to its extensive features and modern PHP practices.
  • Heavy Dependency on Composer
    Laravel heavily relies on Composer for dependency management. While this is beneficial for package management, it can be a downside if you are not familiar with Composer or have issues managing packages.
  • Frequent Updates
    Laravel receives frequent updates and changes in the new versions, which can sometimes lead to compatibility issues with existing projects. Keeping up with the updates can be time-consuming.
  • Hosting Requirements
    Laravel requires specific server configurations and dependencies, which may not be available on all shared hosting services. This can necessitate using a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or dedicated server, which might have higher costs.

Analysis of Laravel

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Laravel is considered a good framework for web development.

Why this product is good

  • Features
    Laravel includes a wide variety of built-in features such as authentication, routing, sessions, and caching, which accelerate the development process.
  • Community
    It has a large and active community which contributes to a rich ecosystem of packages and resources.
  • Ease of use
    Laravel emphasizes simplicity and elegance, making it relatively easy to use, especially for developers familiar with PHP.
  • Documentation
    It provides comprehensive and well-structured documentation, which is very helpful for beginners and experienced developers alike.
  • Modern tooling
    Laravel offers modern tooling with features like a robust CLI, built-in task scheduling, and an expressive ORM called Eloquent.

Recommended for

  • Developers looking to build scalable web applications with PHP.
  • Teams seeking a framework with a strong balance between power and ease of use.
  • Projects that benefit from built-in solutions for common web application requirements like authentication and API support.
  • Developers interested in a framework with out-of-the-box features and an expressive syntax.

Bootstrap videos

Is Bootstrap Still Worth It? -- 1 Design, 2 Code Bases.

More videos:

  • Review - BOOTSTRAP Review | Best CSS Library ?
  • Review - Should you use Bootstrap?

Laravel videos

Laravel in 100 seconds

More videos:

  • Review - Why Laravel is Still Best in 2018

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Bootstrap and Laravel)
Developer Tools
54 54%
46% 46
Design Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Web Frameworks
0 0%
100% 100
CSS Framework
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Bootstrap and Laravel

Bootstrap Reviews

22 Best Bootstrap Alternatives & What Each Is Best For
Bootstrap alternatives are a suite of different tools and frameworks that web developers and designers employ for creating dynamic, responsive websites and applications. These tools, like Bootstrap itself, offer pre-written code for different elements of a website - from typography and buttons to navigation bars and image carousels - but each has its unique features and...
Source: thectoclub.com
15 Top Bootstrap Alternatives For Frontend Developers in 2024
UIKit is a modular front-end framework like Bootstrap and a Bootstrap competitor designed to develop fast and powerful web interfaces. You can utilize it with HTML or JavaScript based on your preference. It offers built-in support for right-to-left languages and includes an extensive library of components. This framework like Bootstrap provides a convenient solution for...
Source: coursesity.com
9 Best Bootstrap Alternatives | Best Frontend Frameworks [2024]
The only downside it has as compared to Bootstrap and Foundation is it is only a CSS framework, which means no JavaScript. So you will have to write your own JavaScript or Jquery to toggle your dropdowns or perform other basic interactionhttps://bulma.io/s of the sort. Overall it is a great alternative to Bootstrap, which is also being updated very frequently.
Source: hackr.io
Top 10 Best CSS Frameworks for Front-End Developers in 2022
Bootstrap is one of the most popular CSS frameworks globally and received instant popularity because of its responsive design. It was also the first framework that gave priority to mobile devices. With Bootstrap, there is no need for a separate design for mobile viewing. You just need to add the necessary classes, and the website will adapt to the screen size based on the...
Source: hackr.io
15 Best CSS Frameworks: Professional Bootstrap and Foundation Alternatives
This is why Bootstrap is by far the most popular framework on the market. All developers have heard of Bootstrap, and more than 80% of them say they are happy using it.

Laravel Reviews

Laravel vs. Symfony: A Comprehensive Comparison of PHP Frameworks
Laravel has a vibrant ecosystem with many first-party packages, such as Laravel Horizon for queue management, Laravel Echo for real-time events, and Laravel Sanctum for API authentication, that make it easy to extend functionality without much hassle.
The 20 Best Laravel Alternatives for Web Development
Oh, you bet. When devs talk Symfony, theyโ€™re eyeing robustness and a modular vibe that Laravel fans might miss. Its reusable components could tempt even the most loyal Laravel artisans to at least take a peek.
Top 9 best Frameworks for web development
The best frameworks for web development include React, Angular, Vue.js, Django, Spring, Laravel, Ruby on Rails, Flask and Express.js. Each of these frameworks has its own advantages and distinctive features, so it is important to choose the framework that best suits the needs of your project.
Source: www.kiwop.com
Top 5 Laravel Alternatives
However, there are other excellent choices other than Laravel as well. So, letโ€™s check out some excellent Laravel alternatives before you hire Laravel developers India for your web development project. This post provides you with a thorough understanding of the available web development framework choices and their benefits over Laravel. For that, letโ€™s first discuss the...
Framework review: Laravel vs CodeIgniter
Let's start with CodeIgniter first. It focuses on performance and speed. It offers a simple, easy-to-learn syntax, making it ideal for beginners. CodeIgniter uses its own proprietary Active Record implementation for database operations, which provides a simple and intuitive way to interact with data. Unlike Laravel, CodeIgniter does not enforce a specific architectural...
Source: infinyhost.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Bootstrap might be a bit more popular than Laravel. We know about 364 links to it since March 2021 and only 244 links to Laravel. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Bootstrap mentions (364)

  • Build a Real-time Chat App with Vue 3, Socket.io and Nodejs
    Next, we will set up the frontend part of our real time chat app using Vue 3 and Bootstrap. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Have I Been Pwned 2.0 is Now Live
    Not in the so distant past, when Bootstrapped themes were becoming the face of the Internet, a new framework came to town โ€” TailwindCSS. The smart thing they did was introduced the framework with a few brilliant template and a lot of styled components. I bought the initial copy and does a lot of people. Those templates, TailwindUI.com (now TailwindCSS.com/plus)[1] became the gradien-y, dark-ish, glow-y design you... - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • How to Build a Blog with Laravel (& Send Slack Notifications)
    This will show the posts passed from the controller in a row of cards. Please notice that you are linking to Bootstrapโ€™s CDN for easy styling. If there are no posts, a message on a card saying that there are no posts will be shown. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Overengineered Anchor Links
    Yeah, good point. It's kinda common to have a big footer. Examples: https://getbootstrap.com/, https://stake.us/ (casino) That way on desktop you could get away with a 50vh margin under the content and then another 50vh for the footer. - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • The 3 Best Python Frameworks To Build UIs for AI Apps
    FastHTML allows developers to build modern web applications entirely in Python without touching JavaScript or React. As its name implies, it is quicker to begin with FastHTML. However, it does not have pre-built UI components and styling. Getting the best out of this framework requires the knowledge of HTMX and UI styling using CSS libraries like Tailwind and Bootstrap. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
View more

Laravel mentions (244)

  • Integrating MongoDB into Laravel with Filament
    Laravel is one of the best PHP frameworks I ever tried in my career which works very well with relational databases such MariaDB or PostgreSQL. However recently I had the opportunity to dig into NoSQL databases, specifically into MongoDB that offers amazing features like TTL indexes or embedded documents (aka One to Few relationships). - Source: dev.to / 11 days ago
  • Building a JSON CRUD API in PHP
    Frameworks like Laravel simplify development for Complex APIs. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Spot2 CTO's Tips for Developing
    We learned this lesson the hard way. Our initial Laravel and Next.js applications worked beautifully for a small team, but as we added more software developers, merge conflicts and build times became productivity killers. We had to refactor both our code architecture and our development processes. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Build a Command Line TODO App with Goravel Console
    You may have used Laravel (personally, Iโ€™ve used it a lot!). I love its developer-friendly experience and straightforward architecture. However, for the Go community, something similar was missing. Enter Goravelโ€”a framework that makes life easier for PHP developers like me who want to work with Go. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • I analyzed how Supabase and Laravel launched. Here's what I learned.
    Laravel is a PHP web framework used by developers around the world. In March 2024, they launched Laravel Cloud with a full lineup of updates. All dropped at once. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Bootstrap and Laravel, you can also consider the following products

Tailwind CSS - A utility-first CSS framework for rapidly building custom user interfaces.

Django - The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines

Materialize CSS - A modern responsive front-end framework based on Material Design

Ruby on Rails - Ruby on Rails is an open source full-stack web application framework for the Ruby programming...

Foundation - The most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world

CodeIgniter - A Fully Baked PHP Framework