Turbocharging Your Next Laravel Build With Handy Packages
Laravel’s elegant out-of-box components streamline crafting full-featured applications with auth, databases and queues minus verbosity seen legacy PHP. However, some missing bits here and there can benefit filling in for specialized needs.
Thankfully, Composer’s expansive Laravel package ecosystem extends nearly any functionality imaginable! The flip side? Finding the right complementary tools becomes tricky with hundred new libraries listed daily.
In this post, I shortlist 5 must-have Laravel packages covering analytics, APIs, forms, caching and admin panels bound to accelerate future projects. Let’s install them one-by-one!
#1: Laravel Analytics for Insights
Understanding visitor behaviors and conversion funnels provides invaluable feedback guiding UX improvements for increased engagement.
While GA works, requiring excess instrumentation bloats pages. Instead, grab seamless analytics with:
Spatie Laravel Analytics
Out-of-the-box, it captures app metrics non-invasively for insights like:
✅ Total Visitor Counts
✅ Top Referral Sources
✅ Page/Event Tracking
✅ Location Demographics
Install using Composer:
bash
composer require spatie/laravel-analytics
Minimal configuration plus built-in Blade components generates detailed reports on demand. Now, ensure your Laravel app never flies data blind again!
#2: Laravel API Resources For Quick APIs
While Laravel handles REST routing gracefully, specialized output manipulation across API channels needs help.
API Resources bakes that first-class support efficiently into models via:
✅ Granular API shaping control
✅ Auto transformations
✅ Response caching
Get started by requiring:
bash
composer require spatie/laravel-api-resource
Augment models with Resource class for config driven conversions to JSON/XML. Frontend ready APIs minus the boilerplate!
#3: Laravel Forms for Smart UIs
Artisan Console drastically simplifies mundane CRUD scaffolding. However, generated views lack finessed interfaces hampering usability.
Laravel Forms delivers dynamic form building without dabbling HTML, CSS or JS complexity:
✅ Bootstrapped Forms
✅ Input Filtering
✅ Data Massaging
✅ Validation Error Catching
Build smarter UIs faster with:
bash
composer require symfony/form laravel-form
Now construct forms in minutes by extending framework classes without wrestling markups. Go create!
#4: Laravel Cache to Boost Speed
As app complexities increase, unoptimized queries and network calls strangle response times discouraging users.
Laravel Cache proactively alleviates such slowdowns by persisting expensive data into speedy stores like memcached minimizing executions:
✅ Key-Value Stores
✅ Database Caching
✅ Composite Layers
Stop worrying about scaling with:
bash
composer require symfony/cache
Wrap slow paths eager loading into caches and watch Laravel fly blazing fast magically!
#5: QuickAdmin for Instant Admins
Dashboard UIs constitute a significant chunk for internal tooling needing lists, forms and graphs. Reinventing each time sucks precious dev time.
QuickAdmin furnishes readymade CMS capabilities for data maintenance eliminating repetitive grunt including:
✅ Menu Builder
✅ CRUD Generators
✅ 20+ Widget Types
✅RBAC Controls
Administrivia your app in minutes using:
bash
composer require laravel-quick-admin
Customize auto-generated modules to onboard clients super quick!
Level Up Your Next Laravel Build!
And there you have it! My recommended Laravel packages guaranteed to accelerate new apps by reinforcing wheels around:
✅ Analytics
✅ APIs
✅ Forms
✅ Caching
✅ Admin CMS
Tons of hidden gems exist crafted by talented community developers to unlock additional productivity so do explore!
I hope these selections help steer your upcoming Laravel buildDS towards success. Share ones I may have missed which become your go-to utilities for every new PHP project! Until next time folks.
