To find a solution to your company’s technological needs you might be looking for this question. Although some think it is a trivial decision, the answer is not simple since this decision can mark the development in that area towards a positive or negative side.
The decision is generally based on needs, “we are not going to reinvent the wheel” if what we want is a wheel, in other words, if we have specific needs that must be covered and cannot be covered with the available development standards, we will have to find a solution tailored to our needs.
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Advantages of Custom Development
There are many CMS used today (WordPress, Joomla, Prestashop…) that cover the basic needs of a corporate website or an online store with a fairly affordable cost in development since they are based on already defined structures on which the part is built. However, its scalability and customization capacity are quite unusual, and they adhere to internal structures.
On the other hand, CMS can present a series of risks when they are not managed professionally. Many free plugins can present a vulnerability if we do not have enough knowledge to manage it. In these cases, it is better to have web maintenance with a specialized development company that takes care of these tasks and avoids these types of problems, which in many cases can be large.
Custom solutions solve the scalability problems of an application and access and customization of the code since we have total control of all parts of the application. But keep in mind, that you must get a dedicated server as per your business requirements so that you can get your desired outcome. Security will be more robust since we control the security logic of the application. Application and is not implemented by third parties.
Disadvantages of Custom Development
Like everything else, custom programming has its good points and bad points. We must choose the type of development we need when planning a project, since “you do not have to kill flies with cannon shots” or “empty the sea with glasses.”
Custom development is more expensive in its initial phase and requires more time in its development since it is necessary to specify the need and “build the house from the ground up.” However, once the planning and development stage is crossed, the use and maintenance of these applications are more reduced and flexible, easily scaled,d and integrated with other services and applications.
Frameworks
Many of you may be wondering what is a framework and “why” does this comes from. Frameworks are a set of utilities or modules already programmed based on native programming in technology and “evolve” the base language to make it more operational and modular.
The advantages of developing with Frameworks are that we also have access to all the code and are developed with standards that allow organizing the project and facilitating its future maintenance and scalability.
On the other hand, this code is generated, verified, and updated by an immense community of expert programmers so that security gaps are continually being analyzed and resolved.
Also Read: PHP Framework List: An Ultimate Guide To 102 PHP Frameworks For Web Developers
What is Laravel And What Does It Bring Us?
Here we come to Laravel, the “PHP framework for craftsmen” according to its slogan. Laravel is an open-source PHP framework that tries to take advantage of other Frameworks and develop with the latest PHP versions (among many other things it provides as a framework).
What is Laravel?
The philosophy of Laravel is to develop PHP code elegantly and based on an MVC (Model-View-Controller) model. On its website, we will find extensive and organized documentation that will make developers’ work much easier and more effective. This framework is constantly being maintained and expanded by its developers, ensuring the continuity and security of the framework with regular updates.
How Does It Work?
This section will focus more on the technical section of Laravel and the advantages it brings us when developing web applications. The most notable features that Laravel provides are the following:
Blade: Blade is a template system for creating views in Laravel. This allows us to extend created templates and sections in other views in which we will also have the variables accessible and with the possibility of using PHP code in them; besides, linked to the use of Bootstrap or other HTML frameworks, it will generate optimized results to the different devices (Phones, Tablets, PC’s, etc..).
> If you prefer to use CMS, take a look at the WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento and PrestaShop comparison
Eloquent: Eloquent is the ORM that Laravel includes to handle easily and simply the processes corresponding to the handling of databases in our project. It transforms SQL queries to an MVC system which does not allow for processing SQL queries directly and thus protects us from SQL injection.
Routing: Laravel provides a route organization and management system that comprehensively controls the routes in our system.
Middlewares: They are a kind of controller executed before and after a request to the server, which allows us to insert multiple controls, validations, or processes at these points in the application flow.
Community and documentation: A great highlight of this framework is the great community and documentation that exists, an active community of professionals that provides knowledge and functionalities, in addition to testing new versions and detecting framework failures, which gives the framework security. And a very complete and quality documentation designed for the developers themselves.
How To Use Laravel?
For Laravel to develop this application requires custom programming to develop its functionalities. We are going to try to expose some examples of possible Laravel applications.
The possible applications are all applications developed in PHP, for example, client areas, intranets, web applications with specific functionalities, APIS, and practically any web functionality that requires custom programming.
Why Choose Laravel?
The power of Laravel lies in its integration, scalability, and ease of maintenance compared to other developments in 100% native languages. Therefore, it is one more option to consider when deciding to use this framework in our developments.
Also Read: Laravel Best Security Practices: An Overview
When To Use Laravel?
As we discussed before, the key is the needs so we will choose Laravel for custom developments when:
- CMS does not cover our needs as a web application.
- We need agile and secure custom development with easy scalability and maintenance.
- If in addition to needing a web solution, it has to be integrated with other applications (Google, mailing services, ERP’s, etc.).
At this point, and after all that has been said, we can only reaffirm that Laravel and the development with Frameworks are gaining more and more strength since they offer affordable solutions for small companies without the need to embark on large pharaonic projects.