Laravel 5 Vs Laravel 4 Comparison

by Shishir Dubey May 11, 2019

This blog is going to be a detailed comparison between two essential versions of the Laravel PHP framework named as Laravel 5 Vs Laravel 4. But before we step into it, let’s have a look at some fundamental aspects of the Laravel Framework.

What is PHP Laravel?

The Laravel PHP Framework is one of the most popular as well as widely used open source technology framework for PHP web development. PHP Laravel Framework is mainly intended to develop business web applications by following the MVC architecture (Model-View-Controller) pattern.

Why Laravel is the best framework for PHP Web App Development?

Laravel is the best choice to build PHP based web applications. It is one of the most productive PHP framework hosted on GitHub and Licensed Under MIT License. The main reason is – Laravel framework is clean and fast. It saves a lot of web development time by reducing thousands of lines of code to fewer lines of code.

Is Laravel still relevant?

Are you wondering – “Is Laravel a good framework?” Yes! Even in 2019, Laravel is one of the popular and high rankings PHP framework. Although the first version of PHP Laravel was released in June 2011, it has undergone tremendous evolution since then. The Laravel web framework has come a long way with lots of advantages under its belt in terms of improvising the PHP web app performance optimizing it. Moreover, the recent Laravel versions offer great functionalities.

What are the advantages of Laravel Framework?

Laravel is the best PHP framework to build a web application because it offers a lot of advantages through its multitude of features. This includes an in-built template engine, An ORM System called as Object Relational Mapper, one vast authentication library, some built-in native security features, and more.

What is latest Version of Laravel?

Laravel 5 that came out in February 2015 is the latest version of the Laravel Framework. It is the successor of Laravel 4 which was released in May 2013. Laravel 4 had features like advanced Eloquent ORM and routing to expanded events and many more. But in Laravel 5, we saw an addition of 22 advanced features that made it superior to its predecessor.

So let’s see a detailed and precise comparison of the two Laravel Versions viz. Laravel 4 and 5, and what were the main issues that made it necessary to do Laravel Upgrade 4 to 5.

Laravel 5 Vs Laravel 4: Precise Comparison of Laravel 4 With Laravel 5

Is Laravel Popular?

Yes, it is. Until Laravel 4, we had many features like support for authentication, localization, routing, inversion control, MVC architecture, Command Line Interface, in-built database support for various types of databases, and much more.

To discuss specifically, here are some highlights of Laravel 4 that benefitted Laravel programmers in quite a huge manner.

Decoupled Components

You ask What is Component in Laravel?

They are parts of the Laravel framework that makes certain things happen effectively. Laravel 4 had Decoupled components that were organized separately and decoupled using service locators. That means – the entire source code of the Laravel 4 framework wasn’t stored in a single repository. Instead of that, the entire code is separated into so-called illuminate components which were managed by a Composer.

Creating A Normal Project for your Web App

For creating a Laravel 4 Project,

All you need to do is retrieve the repository named github.com/illuminate/app.git and install the Laravel composer as mentioned above to get all the Laravel dependencies into one single place, i.e. your personal computer.

Moreover, using this method, it is not that difficult to update your Laravel 3 project into Laravel 4 Project.

Laravel 4 Routing using RESTful APIs

Laravel 4 uses the REST APIs where the GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data functionalities are implemented using the HTTP requests. So if you are asking is Laravel RESTful? Yes, it is 100% and uses PHP routing for effective client-server communication.

Better Code Output Through Efficient Testing

With Laravel 4, it was possible to do much better code testing and assure better software quality assurance. Laravel unit testing best practices embedded into the Laravel framework version 4 made web software testing immensely easy.

Moreover, Laravel 4 used static methods to produce clean, and quality assured web app code and in no case project’s testability was sacrificed.

Laravel 4 Container and Bindings

Laravel 4 uses an IoC container which is a convenient method/mechanism to achieve dependency injection easily.

What is IoC container in Laravel?

It is a highly powerful tool that manages class dependencies.

What is PHP Laravel Dependency Injection?

It is a method of removing all the hard-coded class related dependencies.

Through IoC containers and bindings as well as using PHP Laravel Dependency injection techniques, you can bind all the components of your project together and resolves all the dependency issues to create a high performing PHP Web Application.

Highly Improved CLI (Command Line Interface) Of Laravel 4 Framework

What is the use of Command Line Interface in PHP Laravel Framework?

Command line Interface is a text-based interface which can operate software as well as a particular operating system While letting the user respond to a visual prompt. This done through typing single command at a time into the CLI and getting a reply in return.

Laravel 4 has highly improvised CLI that makes it easier for Laravel programmers to code PHP Laravel web application and manage it better.

Laravel 4 New Database Features and Functionalities

Another important feature – Laravel 4 permits database seeding. You can produce a sample set of data to test your application or even seed real data also. Do you know what database does Laravel use for database seeding? You can use different types of databases with Laravel – The most common being SQL. Other databases supported by Laravel are PostgreSQL, SQLite, and SQL Server.

Laravel 4 Framework’s Stand Alone Components

One of the most significant update to the Laravel 4 Framework is that it has got its own set of stand-alone components. What that means is that – Laravel uses something named as IlluminateFoundationApplication as an IoC container and eliminates all worries regarding dependencies. Hence, easily use their own custom components without worrying about project related PHP dependencies.

ON THE OTHER HAND, WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF LARAVEL 5, THINGS GOT A LITTLE BETTER, AND LARAVEL PROGRAMMERS AND DEVELOPERS BENEFITTED EVEN TREMENDOUSLY. LET’S SEE HOW.

Laravel 5 Reformed Directory Structure

The Laravel 5 PHP Framework Version has a completely redesigned directory structure in comparison to Laravel 4. It implements PSR-4 Autoloading standard as well as make each class of Laravel Framework Namespaced. The modified Laravel Directory structure accounts for better management of Laravel 5 PHP web application elements.

Also, Environment detection is modified tremendously, and all the complex nested configuration directories are sorted out and re-arranged.

Simplification of Laravel 5 Method Injection

What is method injection in Laravel 5?

The primary definition says that IoC container can override any abstract or concrete methods on managed objects when deployment of Laravel PHP application occurs. The container injects a method such as GETTER method rather than injecting a primitive or reference method such as SETTER Method.

Now, how Laravel 5 Simplifies Method Injection?

Laravel 5 method Injection does not Require Laravel programmers to provide an instance of a class by requesting the IoC container. Instead of that, programmers can directly declare a type hinted class instance in the signature of the controller method along with including multiple parameters. The IoC container will directly handle this.

Laravel 5 Contracts Implementation

What is contract in Laravel?

Laravel Contracts are mainly certain sets of interfaces through which you can avail various functionalities and core services of the Laravel 5 Framework. Laravel 5 automatically detects the implementation of any given individual contracts.

Their main advantage is – Laravel programmers can loosely couple different components of the web framework through the elimination of class dependencies.

Laravel 5 Contracts also facilitate efficient management of various packages and saves a lot of development time and money.

Improved Laravel 5 Route Caching

What is Route Caching in Laravel 5?

Route Caching is simply the routing speed of the external router that is responsible for effective client-server communication for the Laravel PHP web application you are developing. In Laravel 5, the route caching speed is significantly improved through the Artisan’s Route Caching Feature. As a result, PHP developers can build fast working Laravel 5 based PHP applications through accelerating route registration.

Developers and programmer can even turn route caching ON or OFF by typing in certain specific commands. We implement Route Caching at the time of application deployment.

Efficient HTTP Route Middleware of Laravel 5

What is Laravel middleware?

Specifically speaking, Laravel Middleware allows user verification process efficiently. It helps to verify whether the user of your application is authenticated or not. Laravel 5 Middleware includes middleware for user authentication as well as CSRF protection. Through that, Laravel programmers can add extra layers to the HTTP routes by adding specific code to the middleware class.

Laravel 5 Command Objects

Through this feature of Laravel 5 Framework, developers and programmers can convert the business logic of the Laravel Application into command objects where each of those command objects is designed in the form of self-contained code.

Moreover, the Laravel programmers have the privilege to queue the command objects through which they can asynchronously run the business logic at the background.

Another benefit of the command object is that unit testing becomes a lot easier.

Authentication Services of Laravel 5 PHP Framework

How secure is Laravel in terms of authentication services?

Laravel 5 has in-built authentication services that allow Laravel PHP Programmers to avail many benefits of these ready to use services. Through these Laravel 5 Authentication Services, PHP Laravel Web developers and programmers can avoid authentication boilerplate by providing MVC components like model, view, and controller along with database migration.

Developers can also change the configuration of the above components and implement their desired authentication.

Laravel 5 Has Native Multi File System support

This is another unique feature of the latest version of the Laravel PHP framework. Laravel 5 has native multi-file system support that allows effective file system management through a third party package. This allows automating the underlying operation related to file systems.

Apart from that, Laravel 5 makes it easy for programmers to develop custom web applications either with a local or cloud storage by merely altering the default configurations.

The file storage options can be specified in the config/filesystems.php file.

Event Objects Feature to Take Care of Events

What is the use of events in Laravel?

Events are mainly various actions that occur inside an application including email notifications, user sign in and sign up, CRUD operations, and many more. Also, through Laravel 5 Events you can subscribe and listen to different types of events occurring inside your Laravel PHP web application.

In Laravel 5, programmers do not need to declare application events as strings anymore. Instead, they can work with events objects as well as event handlers. Both of them resides in specific folders and can trigger them directly also.

Queue and Task Scheduling

What is Laravel Queue?

A Laravel Queue is a unified API that is present across a variety of queue backends including a database that allows developers to defer processing time of an extremely time-consuming task.

What is Laravel Scheduler?

Laravel scheduler is a task scheduling component that allows developers to schedule multiple tasks that often executes quite frequently. It consists of a file called Crontab which comprises lists of scripts that helps to run these tasks periodically.

In Laravel 5, we have Queue and task scheduling that allows various operations related to queue functioning and task scheduling. This helps to manage a great variety of tasks very efficiently by creating and executing customized queue related commands. Due to this, Laravel 5 developers do not have to use any third party packages.

Laravel 5 Request Object

What is request in Laravel?

Request in Laravel primarily handles everything related to HTTP requests incoming from the client side. In Laravel 5, the request object helps in the injection of authentication and data validation logics into the requests.

Socialite Feature to Integrate Social Logins

What is Socialite Laravel?

Through Laravel Socialite, you can easily integrate social logins into your Laravel Web app. Laravel socialite is a package primarily developed to abstract away any social authentication complexities and boilerplate code into an expressive interface. Laravel 5 Socialite provides support for Google, Facebook, Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, and Bit bucket. Integrating socialite into your Laravel 5 web app requires the interference of Composer.

What Is Our Final Verdict About Laravel 5 Vs Laravel 4 Comparison?

Laravel 5 is the most productive and efficient successor to Laravel 4. It has a list of many added features and functionalities that makes it easier for Laravel Developers and programmers to build one of the best and highly productive Laravel Web Apps.

Both Laravel 5 and 4 are open source free PHP frameworks that have been around for quite some time. But our preference goes to Laravel 5 as it helps to save a lot of development money as well as time.

There are many PHP frameworks like –

Laravel | CakePHP | Zend | Symfony | CodeIgniter | Falcon |FuelPHP and many more.

But among those, Laravel is one of the most popular PHP frameworks that both entrepreneurs and developers prefer to use due to its ever increasing popularity and demand — all Thanks to its vast lists of features and functionalities. Apart from Laravel, we also have an analysis between Symfony vs Zend framework – so if you want to check it out, go ahead.

Henceforth, we recommend Laravel 5 to anyone who wants to build a PHP centric business web application.

Also, if you have any business requirements regarding Laravel 5 PHP web application development, do let us know by filling the form to your right, and our team will immediately get in touch with you.

Apart from that, please do not forget to leave a comment in the comment section below about your feedback regarding this blog content. Your feedback means a lot to us and will help in bettering the content.