Magento vs. Laravel: What is better for an eCommerce store?
Choosing the best framework for your online store is a tricky task. Many suitable options are available, including Laravel, Magento, Shopify, and Woocommerce. It’s easier to choose between a good and a bad choice for developing eCommerce websites. However, choosing the best of two excellent frameworks for advanced eCommerce solutions is a difficult task.
Magento vs. Laravel is the ultimate dilemma when choosing the best eCommerce framework. At first glance, one may be mistaken to consider Magento will outrun Laravel as it is a dedicated eCommerce development platform. However, one should carefully inspect all the vital features to find the ultimate winner of the Magento vs. Laravel battle.
This article provides valuable insights into which one is more suitable based on one’s business requirements. Before you divulge the details of the two eCommerce solution, here’s a quick outlook:
Comparison Table: Magento vs. Laravel
Let us now have a detailed look at the two frameworks and their differences:
Magento vs. Laravel – An overview of the two frameworks
What is Magento?
Magento is a popular eCommerce platform written in PHP. The Magento platform leverages multiple PHP-based frameworks, including Laminas, Symfony, etc., and has been developed in the PHP language.
More than 200K businesses worldwide trust Magento for their online store. The Magento platform has tons of extensions which are basically software that can be integrated to increase the features and functionalities of the eCommerce stores worldwide.
Initial Release Date: March 31, 2008
Original Author: Magento Inc.
Developer: Magento Inc.
License: OSL v3, AFL v3
Stable Release: 2.4.5 / 2022-08-09
Programming Language: PHP
Pros and Cons of the Magento Platform
What is Laravel?
Developed by Taylor Otwell for web development applications, Laravel is a PHP-based open-source framework. It is largely considered the most popular PHP and reliable framework and comes with several futuristic features, including an innovative template engine, an effective ORM, MVC architecture support, and much more.
Notably, more than 1.3 websites are actively using this fantastic PHP framework on their websites and applications. As per Statista, Laravel holds a whopping 9.45% popularity under the category of most used web frameworks worldwide. A Laravel-certified developer can customize an ecommerce website that suits business needs and offers high performance in less time.
Initial Release Date: June 2011
Original Author: Taylor Otwell
Developer: Taylor Otwell
Repository: Laravel Repository
License: MIT License
Stable release: 9.38.0 / 1 November 2022
Programming language: PHP
Pros and Cons of the Laravel Framework
Magento vs. Laravel – Detailed Comparison
#1. Advanced Features
Magento has multiple advanced features that make it ideal for eCommerce use. For example, the platform comes with customizable data grids in admin, improved checkout, built-in full-page caching, and many more exciting features. Magento also offers custom reporting, facilitating seamless insights into the store’s analytics.
Laravel, on the other hand, provides an eCommerce store with MVC architecture, Object Relational Mapping, a modular library, smooth data migration, and strong security. These features provide for the rapid development of a modern eCommerce store. Notably, most PHP frameworks fails to offer these fantastic features otherwise available with Laravel.
Winner: Laravel leads here
#2. Availability of Developers at a Budget-Friendly Rate
Magento has been in use for quite some time and has a good availability of developers. However, the learning curve of the eCommerce platform is somewhat steep, and thus it becomes tricky to find good and reliable Magento developers.
Laravel was introduced three years after the Magento platform. However, it’s been more than a decade since the introduction of both Magento and Laravel. Additionally, Laravel has a simple learning curve and has been adopted by thousands of developers worldwide. At Laravel Wizard, we have certified Laravel developers available for hire at competitive rates.
Winner: Laravel
#3. Content Management
CMS capabilities play a vital role in simple store management. Let’s scrutinize the Magento vs. Laravel content management system capabilities. Magento as a CMS is superior to the Laravel framework. However, it must be noted that Magento requires some dedicated time and effort to master. Once a person masters them, managing content on the Magento platform becomes a piece of cake.
Laravel can be customized for a simple and easy-to-use CMS interface. However, it comes with additional development costs and time.
Winner: Magento
#4. Code Maintenance
Although both platforms require technical expertise in handling the application’s code, Magento is tougher to manage. Moreover, maintenance is complex with Magento unless you are looking for maintenance from the original developer who created your eCommerce store. A new developer has to invest significant time to modify or upgrade the Magento code.
In contrast, Laravel is much simpler to maintain as it leverages PHP-based syntax combined with ORM-based coding instead of the complex SQL-based scripting method. The result is less time invested in understanding the code for a new developer as the code is well-structured. Furthermore, debugging is much simpler with the added advantage of the MVC architecture.
Winner: Laravel
#5. Popularity by Region
As per the latest research, Laravel leads significantly over Magento. As per Google Trends, the search volume of the Magento software was around 20 worldwide in December 2022. In contrast, Laravel search is fourfold higher and is around 89 in December 2022.
Laravel as a search term also beats Magento in the U.S. and European nations by a margin of nearly 10 (search volume).
Winner: Laravel
#6. Seo Friendly
SEO-friendly websites are ranked higher by the search engine and promote good traffic and conversion. So one must inspect the SEO aspects when analyzing the Magento vs. Laravel features. Magento provides customizable page titles, H1 tags, and content management. It also provides an excellent page loading speed. All these aspects contribute positively towards the SEO friendliness of the developed eCommerce website.
Like Magento, Laravel also provides custom page titles, H1 tags, and good speed performance. Overall, it’s tough competition as both frameworks provide similar SEO-friendly features.
Winner: Magento leads here
#7. Testing Features
Magento facilitates standard testing methods for producing high-quality code that provides seamless functions. However, the eCommerce platform lacks any advanced testing-friendly features otherwise available with the Laravel framework. For example, Laravel comes with real-time tests that smoothly eliminate bugs and code errors. The result is the development of the rugged code right at the first attempt.
Winner: Laravel
Final Takeaways
That was all about the Magento vs. Laravel comparison. Both are decent options for developing a simple-to-use eCommerce website or application. Let’s have a look at the benefits offered by the two.
Magento wins under the following:
- Smooth Content Management
- SEO Capabilities
Laravel emerges as victorious in the following:
- Advanced Features
- Budget-Friendly Developers
- Simple Code Maintenance
- Worldwide Popularity
- Advanced Testing Capabilities
So, at Laravel Wizard, we leverage the framework for developing advanced and futuristic eCommerce web and applications.