Laravel With React: How to Build Modern Web Applications?

​In 2024, React was the second most popular web framework, with approximately 39.5% of developers using it. This widespread adoption is evident among leading companies across various industries. For instance, Facebook developed React.js and uses it extensively across its platforms, including Instagram.

On the other hand, Laravel is the most used PHP framework by professional developers according to the Stack Overflow 2024 survey, with 8.6% of developers using it. Its robust features, including an elegant syntax, powerful ORM (Eloquent), and a built-in templating engine (Blade), make it a preferred choice for developers building scalable and efficient web applications.

Integrating React.js with Laravel combines the strengths of both technologies, enabling developers to create dynamic, user-friendly interfaces backed by a robust server-side framework. This combination facilitates the development of modern web applications that are both responsive and efficient. In this article, we will explore why Laravel and React.js make a powerful combination for modern web app development. You'll also learn how to integrate them. Let’s dive in.

Using two different frameworks despite the complexity of merging and making them work together is often regarded as a hurdle by developers. However, Laravel with React provides consistency and ease of integration unlocking numerous development possibilities and enabling new features within the web application. This is why React JS is often paired with Laravel to enhance application robustness.

The combination of these frameworks simplifies dynamic and cross-functional development. React’s reusability of UI components improves testing and debugging. Its uni-directional data flow ensures predictable state management, making it easier for developers to track and manage the application.

The performance also remains a driving factor for choosing the combination of Laravel with React. The dynamic and robust nature of React’s front-end capabilities perfectly aligns with the backend efficiency provided by Laravel.

Both frameworks have a huge community of developers and offer them the required support. Furthermore, developers can also contribute to the betterment of both. 

Scalability: As discussed earlier, Scalability remains the most important benefit of using these technologies together. Laravel simplifies performance management with its user-friendly and efficient syntax. Its modular architecture and MVC features ensure seamless development of application backends.

Better User Experience: React’s virtual DOM feature can shorten render times and add to the efficiency of the web application built with Laravel. This duo is most often used for SPAs (Single-Page websites) where Laravel is responsible for handling backend management such as API control & Server side logic while React handles the frontend or user-side logic by providing a dynamic, integrable and scalable UI.

Quick Development: Both frameworks are known for their adaptability with security features.  Laravel can also support a wide range of CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) due to its scalability features

Boosting Data Management & Performance: Laravel and React simplify data management by integrating with various databases while maintaining code clarity and boosting application performance.

SPAs (Single-Page Applications): React and Laravel are popular options for building SPAs, as React’s component-based architecture enhances dynamic rendering. Laravel’s backend support is highly compatible with React JS (Inertia.JS can also be utilized to support React) resulting in highly efficient and performance-centric SPAs.

SaaS: SaaS prioritizes security and performance. React's component-based architecture and reusability simplify debugging and quick fixes, while Laravel provides scalability and secure data management with strong maintainability. Its multi-tenant architecture is particularly beneficial for SaaS applications, efficiently handling large user bases within a single instance.

E-Commerce: As mentioned earlier, React is the perfect choice for building responsive and user-centric UIs. In e-commerce, React can provide seamless UI/UX which can help in incorporating features such as responsive visuals and customization according to the platform’s needs. Laravel complements this by inducing efficiency and performance management in the platform’s back-end.

Content and Project Management Tools: The combination of Laravel and React.js offers a flexible and efficient development environment for building Content and Project Management tools. Laravel efficiently manages data storage, user roles, and permissions, while React.js provides real-time updates and interactive dashboards, ensuring effective content editing and project tracking.

Social Media Platforms: A lot of social media platforms currently utilize React and Laravel as their core programming technologies for a variety of reasons. These could be the need for constant scalability, rapidly changing data along with quick user authentication and Data networks which are efficiently handled and provided by Laravel. It also needs a good UI to pair operations with the end user, which is delivered by React JS. 

1. Installing PHP

• Download the latest PHP binary from the official PHP website.
• Extract the files to a directory, e.g., C:\php.
• Add the PHP directory to your system's PATH environment variable to enable global access.

2. Installing Composer

• Visit the Composer website and download the Composer-Setup.exe file. 
• Run the installer and follow the on-screen instructions. 
• During installation, ensure the installer detects the PHP executable; if not, provide the path manually where you installed the PHP client. 
• After installation, open Command Prompt and type composer to verify the installation.

3. Installing Laravel

Once Composer and PHP are installed, run the following command to install Laravel in collaboration with PHP:  

4. Starting a New Laravel Project

Using IDE or Windows/MAC Terminal, run the following command to start a new Laravel project (Change the ‘example-app’ with the name you want for your project):  

5. React Integration

In order to integrate React with Laravel, the UI component must be included in the Laravel project, run the following command to ensure that it is installed: 

You will also need to install react scaffolding to efficiently integrate react with Laravel (Note: Just add ‘--auth’ after the command to ensure you have authentication features enabled):

React requires Node.js dependencies to be installed and compiled, run the following codes in order:

Finally, your Laravel project is React-enabled, and React components are typically stored in resources/js/components folder of the directory where you have created the project.

Once you have a components file ready, make sure that the app.js file contains the following code as it allows the rendering of React components:

Run the following blade component to ensure that everything is in order and the react component is visible when the project is run: 

If a display is achieved, your project is ready to be worked on!

Laravel’s Eloquent ORM and Blade templating simplify backend operations such as authentication and data management. Additionally, Laravel’s ability to serve as a RESTful API enables React to manage client-side rendering, enhancing application responsiveness. React’s architecture and virtual DOM enable reusable UI components, improving user experience and ensuring smooth data flow between the backend and frontend.

By utilizing the combined strengths of Laravel and React, developers can craft modern, efficient, and scalable web applications that deliver exceptional user experiences and performance paired with flexibility, making it the perfect choice for most web applications.

WAC has expertise in providing React JS & Laravel Development Services to keep your applications efficient, highly functional, and flexible. Get in touch with us to build high-performance web applications tailored to your needs!