What is Laravel and Why Learn It in 2026? — Lesson 1
Laravel Lesson 1 — What is Laravel and Why Should You Learn It in 2026?
This is Lesson 1 of the free Laravel from Scratch series. Each lesson drops at 7:30pm. If you are just starting, you are in the right place — no prior PHP or framework experience needed.
Before we write a single line of code
Let me answer the question everyone has at the start: is Laravel still worth learning in 2026?
The short answer is yes. The longer answer involves a number. Laravel powers more than 960,000 websites and holds over 50% of the PHP framework market. It ranks first in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey for the fifth consecutive year. GitHub
Laravel 13 launched on March 17, 2026, with zero breaking changes and a set of features that advance what teams can build and how fast they can build it. GitHub
PHP is the language underneath Laravel, and PHP powers roughly 77% of all websites on the internet — including WordPress, Wikipedia, and a huge proportion of e-commerce platforms. It is not going anywhere. Laravel takes that reach and gives you an elegant, modern framework that makes building web applications fast, enjoyable, and maintainable.
By the end of this lesson series, you will have built and deployed a complete web application with user authentication, a database, and a working admin area. By the end of this first lesson, you will understand exactly what Laravel is, why developers choose it, and what you are signing up to learn.
Let's start from the very beginning.
What is a web application framework?
When someone loads your website, a chain of events happens:
- Their browser sends an HTTP request to your server
- Your server receives it and needs to figure out what to do with it
- Your code runs some logic — maybe checks a database, maybe processes a form
- Your server sends back an HTML response
- The browser renders it as a page
You could write all of that from scratch in raw PHP. People did, for years. It worked, but every project ended up reinventing the same things — routing, database connections, form validation, session handling, user authentication, file uploads.
A web framework is a set of pre-built tools that handles all of that infrastructure for you, so you can focus on the part that is actually different for your application — the business logic.
Laravel is the most popular PHP web framework in 2026. It handles the infrastructure. You write the application.
What does Laravel actually do?
Here is a concrete example. Imagine you want to show a list of blog posts at the URL /blog.
Without a framework, in raw PHP:
php
<?php
// You connect to the database manually
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=myapp', 'root', 'password');
// You write raw SQL
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM posts WHERE published = 1 ORDER BY created_at DESC');
$stmt->execute();
$posts = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
// You mix HTML and PHP together
?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Blog Posts</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Blog Posts</h1>
<?php foreach ($posts as $post): ?>
<article>
<h2><?php echo htmlspecialchars($post['title']); ?></h2>
<p><?php echo htmlspecialchars($post['excerpt']); ?></p>
</article>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</body>
</html>
This works. But every page needs the database connection repeated. There is no routing — you manage URLs by creating new PHP files. There is no protection against SQL injection unless you are careful every single time. Templates mix PHP and HTML making both harder to read.
With Laravel, the same feature:
php
// routes/web.php — one line to define the URL
Route::get('/blog', [PostController::class, 'index']);
// app/Http/Controllers/PostController.php — the logic
public function index()
{
$posts = Post::where('published', true)
->latest()
->get();
return view('blog.index', compact('posts'));
}
blade
{{-- resources/views/blog/index.blade.php — the template --}}
@extends('layouts.app')
@section('content')
<h1>Blog Posts</h1>
@foreach($posts as $post)
<article>
<h2>{{ $post->title }}</h2>
<p>{{ $post->excerpt }}</p>
</article>
@endforeach
@endsection
The code does the same thing. But it is separated into three clear responsibilities — routing, logic, and presentation. The database query is SQL-injection-safe by default. The template is clean and readable. And the Post::where() line works because Laravel's Eloquent ORM knows how to talk to your database based on the model you define once.
This is the value of a framework: it gives you structure and safety for free, so you can move fast.
The MVC pattern — the architecture Laravel uses
Laravel follows the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architectural pattern. This is one of those concepts that sounds complicated until you see it explained simply.
Think of building a restaurant:
- The kitchen (Model) handles the actual food — the data. It knows where things are stored, how to prepare them, and what the rules are about how food should be made.
- The dining room (View) is what customers see — the presentation. Plates, tables, menus. It knows nothing about how the food is cooked.
- The waiter (Controller) is the coordinator. The customer (browser) tells the waiter what they want. The waiter goes to the kitchen, gets the food, and brings it to the dining room.
In Laravel:
Model — a PHP class that represents a database table. Every interaction with that table goes through the model.
php
// app/Models/Post.php
class Post extends Model
{
protected $fillable = ['title', 'content', 'published'];
// A post belongs to a user
public function author()
{
return $this->belongsTo(User::class);
}
// A post can have many comments
public function comments()
{
return $this->hasMany(Comment::class);
}
}
View — a Blade template file that renders HTML. It receives data from the controller and displays it.
blade
{{-- resources/views/posts/show.blade.php --}}
<h1>{{ $post->title }}</h1>
<p>By {{ $post->author->name }}</p>
<div>{{ $post->content }}</div>
<h2>Comments ({{ $post->comments->count() }})</h2>
@foreach($post->comments as $comment)
<p>{{ $comment->body }}</p>
@endforeach
Controller — a PHP class that receives the incoming request, talks to the model, and returns a view.
php
// app/Http/Controllers/PostController.php
class PostController extends Controller
{
public function show(Post $post)
{
// Laravel automatically finds the Post by ID from the URL
// This is called "route model binding" — no manual query needed
return view('posts.show', compact('post'));
}
}
MVC is not a Laravel-specific concept. It appears in Rails, Django, ASP.NET, and most mature web frameworks. Learning it in Laravel means you understand the pattern that powers most of the web's professional applications.
What comes built into Laravel in 2026
This is where Laravel genuinely stands apart. Here is what you get out of the box, without installing additional packages:
Authentication — login, registration, password reset, email verification, two-factor authentication. One command to scaffold the entire system:
bash
php artisan breeze:install
Database migrations — version control for your database schema. Instead of manually running SQL on your server, you define changes in PHP files and run them with a command:
bash
php artisan migrate
Every team member runs the same migrations. The database schema is tracked in Git. Rolling back a change is one command.
Eloquent ORM — an elegant way to work with your database. Complex queries become readable English:
php
// Get all published posts from this month with more than 10 comments,
// ordered by most comments first, with their authors eagerly loaded
$posts = Post::published()
->thisMonth()
->has('comments', '>', 10)
->with('author')
->orderByDesc('comments_count')
->get();
Blade templating — a clean template engine with layouts, components, and directives:
blade
{{-- Template inheritance — every page extends the main layout --}}
@extends('layouts.app')
@section('title', 'My Blog')
@section('content')
@if($posts->isEmpty())
<p>No posts yet. Check back soon.</p>
@else
@foreach($posts as $post)
<x-post-card :post="$post" />
@endforeach
@endif
@endsection
Queues and background jobs — run time-consuming tasks (sending emails, processing uploads, calling external APIs) in the background so your users do not wait:
php
// This sends the email in the background — the user sees the response instantly
SendWelcomeEmail::dispatch($user)->onQueue('emails');
File storage — a unified API for storing files locally, on S3, or any cloud storage:
php
// Store a file upload — works the same whether saving locally or to S3
$path = $request->file('avatar')->store('avatars', 'public');
Task scheduling — cron jobs in PHP, defined in your application code:
php
// app/Console/Kernel.php — runs every day at 8am
$schedule->command('reports:generate')->dailyAt('08:00');
$schedule->command('sitemap:generate')->daily();
$schedule->command('cache:clear')->weekly();
Artisan CLI — a command-line tool that generates boilerplate, runs migrations, clears caches, and runs your scheduled tasks:
bash
php artisan make:model Post -mcr # Creates: Post model, a database migration, and a resource controller # Three files, one command
Real-time events with Laravel Reverb — WebSocket broadcasting built into the framework. My Robin Quiz application uses real-time events to sync quiz state across players live.
AI SDK (new in Laravel 13) — Laravel 13 works well with AI APIs, chatbots, automation systems, and LLM integrations. Its clean architecture makes AI feature integration easier for developers. Larablocks
What you will build in this series
By the end of this course, you will have built and deployed a complete blog platform with:
- User registration and login (authentication)
- Admin panel to create, edit, and delete posts
- Public blog with categories and comments
- Image upload for post covers
- Contact form with email sending
- SEO-friendly URLs and meta tags
- Deployed to a live server anyone can visit
Every lesson builds on the previous one. We start with installation in Lesson 2.
Is PHP still relevant in 2026?
This question comes up constantly. Let me answer it directly.
PHP runs on approximately 77% of websites with a known server-side language. That number has been consistent for years. WordPress alone — built on PHP — powers over 40% of the entire web. Shopify, Magento, and countless e-commerce platforms use PHP. The majority of content management systems in production use PHP.
Laravel ranks first in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey for the fifth consecutive year. Laravel development in 2026 includes AI tools, performance upgrades, and modern frontend options that keep it competitive with any modern framework. GitHub
More practically: Laravel development jobs exist in significant numbers. Freelance Laravel projects are abundant, particularly in the Indian market and in European agency work. The combination of Laravel on the backend with React or Vue on the frontend is a complete, production-proven stack that companies hire for every day.
PHP is not the trendiest technology in 2026. Neither is it going away. It is a stable, mature language with a rich ecosystem and a massive install base. Laravel makes it genuinely enjoyable to write.
What you need before Lesson 2
Nothing except a computer. In Lesson 2 we install everything from scratch — PHP, Composer, MySQL, and XAMPP for those who prefer a local server setup. If you already have some of these installed, we will check the versions and make sure everything is compatible.
Here is a preview of what Lesson 2 covers:
- Installing XAMPP (includes PHP, Apache, and MySQL in one package)
- Installing Composer (PHP's package manager, like npm for Node.js)
- Creating your first Laravel project
- Understanding what each folder in the project does
If you have any questions before then — or you get stuck at any point in this series — contact me directly. I read every message.
See you tomorrow at 7:30pm for Lesson 2.
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