What is Laravel?
Laravel is a free and open-source PHP web framework, created by Taylor Otwell and intended for the development of web applications following the model-view-controller architectural model and based on Symfony. (Wikipedia)
It is robust and easy to understand, it is inspired by several frameworks and reuses existing components from its different frameworks, which makes it easy to create a web application.
Laravel offers a rich feature set that incorporates core features of PHP frameworks like CodeIgniter, Yii, Django, and other programming languages like Ruby on Rails. Laravel has a rich set of features that increase the speed of web development.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a free, open-source and free content management system (CMS). This software written in PHP is based on a MySQL database and is distributed by the WordPress.org foundation.
The functionalities of WordPress allow him to create and manage different types of websites: showcase site, online sales site, application site, blog, portfolio, institutional site, teaching site… (Wikipedia)
WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that is incredibly popular. It makes building a custom website with themes and plugins easy, even for beginners.
It is a powerful tool for web development and offers all the features needed to create a great website. By leveraging the platform, users can quickly and easily customize their websites without needing any prior technical expertise.
WordPress has an intuitive and user-friendly interface that allows even novice developers to design professional-looking sites in no time. With its drag-and-drop functionality using modules such as Elementor, or Divi, users can easily customize their websites by simply selecting from the various available templates, formats, designs, etc., all designed to make it easier than ever. Creating your perfect website.
Laravel vs. WordPress
The real question to ask is: What is your real need?
If you want to develop a simple or complex website, or even a blog, don’t hesitate. The best choice would be WordPress because there’s no point reinventing the re-developing wheel for your needs in Laravel.
Moreover, Laravel is a framework, so it does not include a management interface for your content, if you want to edit your content, you will have to develop your own content management space on your website.
Without forgetting that with WordPress you can create your custom site in terms of design, and you can also develop your own extensions according to your needs on WordPress. As is the case with our new WordPress site, everything is custom developed, and we have even added our extensions.
If you want to develop a web application, or a website with advanced features that is similar to a web application, don’t think twice, and choose Laravel. If you try to do it with WordPress, it won’t be easy.
For example, a few years ago, an agency specializing in WordPress development contacted us to transfer us a crowdfunding project for one of their clients. This client was trying to do with WordPress, and along the way, they and their customer realized that it would be very cumbersome and difficult to manage. So, we took over the project completely in Laravel and everything went well.
The main reason we made this change is that our organizational needs have changed.
3 Reasons to Switch From Laravel to WordPress
Among its needs, we can cite the following:
Accessibility and Responsiveness Time
If you don’t know how to code, you have nothing to do with Laravel, it was developed to create robust web applications. Since we eat and drink code, this has never been a problem in itself.
While WordPress was initially created as a blog engine, then evolved into a content manager to create any type of website.The thing was, when our marketing teams needed to create a new page or feature, it had to be created by one of our in-house Laravel developers.
In itself, this is not a problem, but when wishing to have specific functionalities such as the creation of structured data (snippet) FAQ, an image or video gallery, or even the management of redirections, our development team should also create this custom and add it to the content manager we have created to facilitate the management of the site.
Although we have created our own content manager with Laravel, when new needs to not exist beforehand in this tailor-made content manager, we still have to start a development process.
While with WordPress, several of this kind of extension already exist, we just have to install them, configure them. Now we are ready to take the next step in a few clicks in addition to a few dollars for the chargeable extensions.
Taking the count, it was clearly more efficient to switch to WordPress.
Our Marketing Team
When we started Oshara, we were purely a bespoke web development company, and we didn’t have a marketing department. Later, our team grew and we added marketing services to our offer.
At that time, our internal marketing department had different needs, and they often felt dependent on our developer teams for certain tasks that they could have accomplished more quickly by having better control with another web solution such as WordPress.
SEO
To have a good ranking in search engines, several factors are considered, such as URL, redirections, sitemaps etc…
It is true that we have implemented several of its good practices in our Laravel site over time. Furthermore, it is with our Laravel website that we have been able to position ourselves on the first page of search engines with terms such as “Canada web agency”, “Web marketing agency” and many other very competitive keywords.
However, by default, WordPress has interesting SEO tools like Yoast Seo, or All In One SEO that allow you to do so easily for your SEO in much less time and investment.
Laravel and WordPress Together
It is possible to use Laravel and WordPress together using libraries such as Corcel, Pete, Acorn etc. This is not a simple technique, and can only be done by experienced web developers. This technique adds a layer of configuration to your existing technologies, and you have to ask yourself if it’s worth it.
In our case, it really wasn’t worth it, which is why we decided to separate our website and some of our web applications, which are actually a bit like other sections of our website.
Example our e-learning academic space (https://academy.oshara.ca), or our tools area which contains several tools such as:
- Google preview of page title and description
- Laravel Password Generator
- WordPress password generator and many other tools.
Besides, our tool: WordPress password generator, was developed with Laravel. Of course, we could have chosen to develop the tools area in WordPress (besides, we evaluated this solution as a team, and we had less advantage to doing it on WordPress.)
However, we would never have decided to create the academic area on WordPress because we need to have greater flexibility and functionality, not to mention that Laravel is much more suitable for this kind of project like web application.
Conclusion
In conclusion, both WordPress and Laravel are powerful tools for creating projects, but depending on the project you have in mind, one may be better suited than another.
Both have their strengths and weaknesses that you should consider before making your decision. WordPress is a great option for building websites, while Laravel is perfect for more complex projects that require custom development.
Ultimately, deciding which platform to use depends on your project goals and the resources you have available. Take the time to explore each option, and you will be able to determine which best suits your needs.
If you require any further assistance about this blog post or would like to learn more about WordPress or Laravel, please contact us and one of our experts will be happy to guide you through your web project.
We run the best web agency in Montreal and we have over 10 years of experience under our belt. We can surely help you!
