Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Webpacker VS Laravel

Compare Webpacker VS Laravel and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Webpacker logo Webpacker

Use Webpack to manage app-like JavaScript modules in Rails - rails/webpacker

Laravel logo Laravel

A PHP Framework For Web Artisans
  • Webpacker Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-27
  • Laravel Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-24

Webpacker features and specs

  • Modern JavaScript Features
    Webpacker allows Rails applications to utilize modern JavaScript features and tools, such as ES6 syntax, JSX, and TypeScript, thereby enhancing the developer experience and code quality.
  • Asset Bundling
    It efficiently bundles multiple JavaScript files into a single package, reducing load times and improving performance by minimizing the number of HTTP requests.
  • Integration with Rails
    As an official Rails library, Webpacker integrates seamlessly with the Rails framework, ensuring that front-end builds are consistent and easier to manage alongside Ruby on Rails projects.
  • Configurable
    Provides a highly configurable environment, allowing developers to customize their JavaScript and asset builds extensively to meet specific project needs.
  • Community Support
    Being part of the Rails ecosystem, Webpacker benefits from an extensive community support, with a wealth of third-party resources, documentation, and plugins available.

Possible disadvantages of Webpacker

  • Complexity
    Webpacker can introduce additional complexity, especially for developers not familiar with JavaScript tooling or the webpack configuration, which can lead to a steeper learning curve.
  • Performance Overhead
    The abstraction and tooling required by Webpacker can add performance overhead during development with slower compilation and building times compared to simpler asset management solutions.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies can become burdensome as Webpacker requires handling both the Ruby Gems and the JavaScript packages through yarn or npm, increasing maintenance efforts.
  • Migration Path
    As newer tools and techniques emerge, moving away from Webpacker could require significant refactoring efforts, especially for applications with extensive custom configurations.
  • Deprecated Status
    Webpacker is no longer the recommended default for new Rails applications starting from Rails 7, which now prefers using esbuild or importmaps, potentially affecting its long-term viability.

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.

Webpacker videos

RailsConf 2020 CE - Webpacker, It-Just-Works, But How? by Justin Gordon

More videos:

  • Review - Should you use React with Webpacker in your Rails project? Rails MVC vs Single Page App (SPA)!

Laravel videos

Laravel in 100 seconds

More videos:

  • Review - Why Laravel is Still Best in 2018

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Webpacker and Laravel)
Web Application Bundler
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
2 2%
98% 98
JS Build Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Web Frameworks
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

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

Webpacker Reviews

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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, they’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, let’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, let’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

Based on our record, Laravel seems to be a lot more popular than Webpacker. While we know about 240 links to Laravel, we've tracked only 17 mentions of Webpacker. 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.

Webpacker mentions (17)

  • React + Ruby on Rails without any gems
    We will use Webpacker or JavaScript compiler and assets management. By following the webpacker installation guide, let’s add Webpacker and React to our application. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Collecting JavaScript code coverage with Capybara in Ruby on Rails application
    For example, there is a Ruby on Rails application that uses Webpacker and has JavaScript files that are covered by the system tests. Capybara is used as the system testing tool. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Asset Pipeline JS Migration
    Using Webpacker in Rails provides several advantages over the traditional asset pipeline. First, Webpacker uses JavaScript modules, which allows for better code organization and improved code reusability. Second, it offers modern frontend build tools, such as Babel and PostCSS, for transforming and compiling assets. Third, it provides faster build times and faster runtime performance through code splitting and... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Thank you Webpacker, Goodbye Webpacker
    This article is replace Webpacker with Simpacker and webpack. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • How to setup ruby on rails + Angular
    In ruby ​​on rails 7 what is the best way to properly install Angular because I can't find any documentation about it. The only tutorial that exists uses webpacker (https://github.com/rails/webpacker) but unfortunately it is no longer supported and no longer up to date in terms of security. Source: over 2 years ago
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Laravel mentions (240)

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What are some alternatives?

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

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.

Django - The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines

Turbolinks - Turbolinks makes navigating your web application faster

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

Yarn - Yarn is a package manager for your code.

CodeIgniter - A Fully Baked PHP Framework