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Laravel Nova VS esbuild

Compare Laravel Nova VS esbuild and see what are their differences

Laravel Nova logo Laravel Nova

Application and Data, Languages & Frameworks, and MVC Tools

esbuild logo esbuild

An extremely fast JavaScript bundler and minifier
  • Laravel Nova Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-08-21
  • esbuild Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-05-07

Laravel Nova features and specs

  • Ease of Integration
    Laravel Nova is designed to work seamlessly with the Laravel framework, allowing for quick and efficient integration with existing Laravel applications.
  • User Interface
    Nova provides a clean, responsive, and modern user interface that enhances the user experience for both developers and end-users.
  • Resource Management
    It offers comprehensive tools for managing resources, relationships, and metrics, making it easier to handle complex data structures within the admin panel.
  • Customizability
    Developers can easily customize the Nova dashboard, including fields, actions, filters, and lenses, to suit their application needs.
  • Active Community and Support
    As part of the Laravel ecosystem, Nova benefits from an active community, detailed documentation, and ongoing support and updates.

Possible disadvantages of Laravel Nova

  • Cost
    Unlike other free open-source Laravel solutions, Nova is a paid product, which might not be suitable for small projects or developers with limited budgets.
  • Learning Curve
    For developers who are new to Laravel or Nova, there is a learning curve to effectively understand and utilize all of Nova’s features.
  • Limited Extensibility
    While Nova is customizable, there are certain extensibility limitations that might require a workaround or in-depth understanding to overcome.
  • Dependence on Laravel Ecosystem
    Nova is tightly coupled with Laravel, which means it cannot be used with other PHP frameworks, thus limiting its use cases.
  • Performance Concerns
    In some cases, especially with larger datasets or more complex operations, there might be performance bottlenecks if the Nova configurations are not optimized properly.

esbuild features and specs

  • Speed
    esbuild is known for its blazing-fast performance because it is written in Go and optimized for efficiency. This makes it significantly faster than many other popular build tools.
  • Simplicity
    esbuild has a minimalistic and straightforward configuration, making it easy to set up and use without needing to navigate through complex configuration files.
  • Tree Shaking
    esbuild supports tree shaking, which helps in eliminating dead code, thereby resulting in smaller bundle sizes and improved performance.
  • TypeScript Support
    esbuild has built-in support for TypeScript, allowing developers to seamlessly integrate TypeScript into their build process without needing additional configuration.
  • CommonJS and ES Module Support
    esbuild supports both CommonJS and ES modules, providing flexibility in how modules are imported and exported.
  • Bundling
    esbuild can bundle multiple JavaScript files, resolving dependencies and optimizing the output, which is beneficial for production-ready applications.

Possible disadvantages of esbuild

  • Limited Plugin Ecosystem
    Compared to more mature tools like Webpack or Rollup, esbuild has a relatively smaller ecosystem of plugins, which might limit some advanced customization and integration capabilities.
  • Less Mature
    As a newer tool, esbuild might have less extensive community support and fewer resources such as tutorials and documentation compared to older and more established build tools.
  • Feature Parity
    While esbuild covers many essential features, it may lack some advanced features found in other build tools, potentially requiring additional tools or workarounds for complex scenarios.
  • Non-Configurable Output
    esbuild's approach to simplicity sometimes means less configurability compared to other tools. This might be restrictive for projects that require highly customized or specific build outputs.
  • Source Map Support
    While esbuild does support source maps, its support might be less comprehensive compared to some other build tools, potentially causing issues during debugging.

Analysis of esbuild

Overall verdict

  • Esbuild is considered a great tool for developers looking for a fast and efficient bundling solution. Its performance and feature set make it a preferred choice for projects where build speed is a critical factor.

Why this product is good

  • Esbuild is highly regarded due to its impressive speed and performance. It is built in Go, which allows it to be significantly faster than other JavaScript bundlers written in JavaScript. Esbuild is designed to handle large codebases quickly, making it a great tool for developers who prioritize build speed. Additionally, it supports modern JavaScript features and offers features like tree shaking, minification, and support for various module formats.

Recommended for

    Esbuild is recommended for developers who work on large projects and need a bundler that can significantly reduce build times. It is ideal for those who prefer using cutting-edge tools and technologies in their workflow. Additionally, it's suitable for developers who need to support modern JavaScript features and are looking for a straightforward configuration process.

Laravel Nova videos

LARAVEL NOVA VS LARAVEL BACKPACK ⚔ HONEST REVIEW

More videos:

  • Review - Laravel Nova Overview
  • Review - LKnet | Why we Decidided to Switch from Wordpress to Laravel Nova

esbuild videos

ESBuild and SWC: Worth your time?

More videos:

  • Review - Let's talk about esbuild
  • Tutorial - Introduction to ESBuild tutorial for React / JavaScript and Typescript bundling. Bye bye Webpack

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Laravel Nova and esbuild)
Developer Tools
27 27%
73% 73
JS Build Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Web Frameworks
100 100%
0% 0
Productivity
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, esbuild should be more popular than Laravel Nova. It has been mentiond 143 times since March 2021. 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.

Laravel Nova mentions (15)

  • Goravel: A Go framework inspired by Laravel
    Same reason IDEs — when you really know them — allow for quicker development compared to using primitive text editors with a bunch of third-party plugins duck-taped together. When you understand the framework, everything is written to the same standard, behaves in similar ways, and is where you expect it to be. Adding things like background job processing requires changing one line of config. Also, one... - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Laravel Ecosystem in 2024
    Laravel Nova: Laravel Nova is an easy-to-use admin panel for Laravel applications with a clean design. It provides an intuitive UI for managing application data and creating custom dashboards. With Nova, developers can easily build CRUD interfaces, manage relationships, and add custom tools. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Creating a CRM from scratch in wordpress, how hard would it be?
    If you're insistent on php, use Laravel Nova, or better yet, something like Odoo. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Would love some CMS suggestions for an for existing Laravel app
    Laravel ecosystem itself provides you with Nova. It's perfect for. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Am new to PhP and Laravel and my company wants me to code in it.
    But if this is simply "We need a CRUD app", you should look at Laravel Nova to cut down on a lot of work that people have done a million times before. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

esbuild mentions (143)

  • ⚔️ Vite vs. Turbopack in 2025: Which One to Choose?
    Vite (pronounced veet) was created by Evan You (Vue's creator) and launched in 2020. It uses native ES modules in the browser and esbuild for lightning-fast dev servers and Rollup for optimized production builds. - Source: dev.to / 18 days ago
  • Understanding how Vite deals with your node_modules
    Pre-bundle all the dependencies on the "optimization boundary" list into node_modules/.vite/deps/ folder. This step is done by esbuild. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Show HN: Nue – Apps lighter than a React button
    5. Show me metrics: https://esbuild.github.io/ nailed this one. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Extensible WASM Applications with Go
    ESBuild is a bundler. The subtitle on the website is literally “An extremely fast bundler for the web”. To bundle, pass —-bundle flag. https://esbuild.github.io/. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • How I Built a SpeedtestTracker with Raspberry PI and AWS Lambda
    Esbuild for bunding both the client and server separately. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

Laravel Voyager - The missing Laravel admin

Vite - Next Generation Frontend Tooling

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

Webpack - Webpack is a module bundler. Its main purpose is to bundle JavaScript files for usage in a browser, yet it is also capable of transforming, bundling, or packaging just about any resource or asset.

Laravel Kit - Desktop Laravel admin panel app with no configuration needs

rollup.js - Rollup is a module bundler for JavaScript which compiles small pieces of code into a larger piece such as application.