Learn Laravel: Best Courses, Books, and Resources for Learning Laravel

Laravel is a programming tool used by web developers who code in PHP. When you learn Laravel, you get shortcuts for common website functions and a built-in MVC framework to keep your projects organized.

It isn’t hard to learn Laravel, especially if you already know how to code in HTML, CSS, and PHP. We’ll cover key resources that will show you how to learn Laravel, including books, courses, and tutorials. Start your Laravel learning journey here.

What Is Laravel?

Laravel is an MVC framework for coding in PHP. You can think of it as a starter kit for building a web app. Because Laravel is a PHP tool, it works on the server side rather than the client side. Laravel is well-known for its easy-to-use security tools and library of templates for responsive websites that look great on computers, phones, and tablets.

Laravel is an open-source tool used for many different kinds of web development, and web developers add new modules all the time. If you decide to learn Laravel, then you should stay up-to-date on Laravel news to learn about new packages as they are created.

What Is Laravel Used For?

Laravel is used to build secure websites quickly with minimal lines of code. PHP web developers also use Laravel to keep their code organized according to the MVC framework, an organization system that separates code into three functional groups: the backend, the front end, and a controller to connect the two.

Major benefits of Laravel are the pre-coded features, code templates that perform a range of different functions. For example, Laravel has a template for user sign-ins that authenticates users, so you don’t have to build it line by line. Here are a few things that make Laravel so useful:

• Responsive front end templates. There is a great library of already-designed templates that you can pick from to get the front end of your website up and running quickly. You can find templates for blog posts, data dashboards, and ecommerce.
• Useful security modules. From authenticating users to storing sensitive data, Laravel has a long list of pre-built security features that will save you from writing lines of code.
• Automated bug testing. Laravel has features that will test each part of your website for bugs. You can debug the whole website at once or look at one section at a time.

How to Learn Laravel: A Step-by-Step Guide

Now that we have reviewed what Laravel is used for and why it is useful, let’s talk about how to learn Laravel step by step. You need some background in a few key programming languages and programming theory before you can make sense of Laravel, so it’s important to follow these steps in order.

Step 1: Become Familiar With HTML, Core PHP, and Advanced PHP

Laravel is a PHP framework, and all coding is done using PHP language. You have to know how to code in PHP in order to learn Laravel. Because PHP is often used with HTML, you also need to learn basic concepts in HTML.

Step 2: Learn What MVC Is and How It Works

Understanding MVC is essential to mastering Laravel because you need to structure your code according to model, view, and controller functions to build a website in Laravel. The MVC framework is a useful programming concept that will improve your coding outside of Laravel too. Learning MVC is good professional development whether or not you end up using Laravel.

Step 3: Work to Understand CRUD

To build a new API or modify an existing API, you need to understand the basic functionality of an API. All applications need the ability to create, read, update, and delete data in order to work. This flow is commonly referred to as CRUD. You will use CRUD to structure all your application-building projects.

Step 4: Learn the Fundamentals of Laravel

Once you’ve learned the building blocks you need to work in Laraval, it’s time to read the official documentation, take a beginners’ course, or work through a tutorial. If you are an experienced programmer, it will be relatively easy to learn the fundamentals of Laravel. If you are a new programmer, this step will take you longer.

Step 5: Build a Project

After getting a firm grasp on the above concepts, it’s time to practice what you’ve learned by building a project. Use Laravel to create a simple project, like an online to-do list or calendar app. Build your first site using different pre-made modules and templates, and modify the code piece by piece to see how things work.

The Best Online Laravel Courses and Training

We’ve assembled a list of the best online courses, books, and tutorials to learn Laravel. The best courses to learn Laravel are updated with current best practices as this tool continues to evolve. Laravel was first launched in 2011, and the most current version is Laravel 9, though Laravel 8 is still used.

Best Online Laravel Courses

With these online Laravel courses, you can dive headfirst into learning Laravel. Each course contains Laravel classes and tutorials so you can learn and practice new techniques. Most of the classes require some background knowledge in PHP, HTML, and object oriented programming.

PHP with Laravel for Beginners – Become a Master in Laravel

• Provider: Udemy
• Cost: $24.99
• Audience: Beginner

You’ll learn the basics from creating a database to customizing views to deploying the project in this online PHP and Laravel course from Udemy. Along the way, you’ll learn how to implement CRUD principles and database relationships.

As you work through topics in routes, controllers, views, blade components, and databases, you’ll build a project and deploy it to a real-world server. Not only is it a great way to learn, but an excellent way to start building a portfolio.

Laravel 8 From Scratch

• Provider: Laracasts
• Cost: $15 per month
• Audience: Beginner

This online course from Laracasts takes you from a review of the MVC framework through eloquent relationships and writing tests for your code. This course includes topics on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in addition to PHP, and familiarity with these languages will help you get the most out of the material.

Beginning Laravel 9 – From Novice to Professional

• Provider: Udemy
• Cost: $19.99
• Audience: Beginner

This Laravel 9 course is fully updated for the newest version of Laravel. It will take you through installing Laravel, creating controllers, coding custom query builders, and implementing eloquent relationships. Before starting this course you should have a working knowledge of HTML, PHP, and object oriented programming.

Master Laravel 8 for Beginners & Intermediate

• Provider: Udemy
• Cost: $19.99
• Audience: Beginner through Intermediate

With nearly 35 hours of video content, this online Laravel course is a Laravel crash course that will teach you how to build applications in Lavarel. Topics include Visual Studio Code, caching, creating and testing APIs, one-to-one and one-to-many relationships, and authentication. Although Laravel 8 isn’t the most current version, it is similar enough to Laravel 9.

Laravel 8 – Advance Course Build School Management System

• Provider: Udemy
• Cost: $19.99
• Audience: Beginner

This course will take you through three different website projects as you learn Laravel basics. With over 80 hours of video lectures, this is one of the longest courses on our list. You’ll learn how to build a dynamic company website with advanced user management capabilities, including generating ID cards and allowing users to change their passwords.

Best Laravel Ebooks

For learners who prefer to take in new information by reading, here is a list of some of the best Laravel books available in an online format. Some of these resources are step-by-step guides to help you work through specific types of projects, while others are comprehensive references that you will come back to throughout your Laravel career.

Laravel Up & Running: A Framework for Building Modern PHP Apps | Matt Stauffer

This Laravel ebook, from the well-known technology publisher O’Reilly, is a comprehensive guide to the popular PHP framework. This book is intended for experienced PHP programmers who haven’t used Laravel before, but it’s also a great reference for any level Laravel developer. It costs around $30.

Laravel: Learn By Coding | Scott Hughes

This book teaches readers how to use Laravel by walking them step by step through the creation of an app. It covers Laravel Homestead for Windows, the Blade templating language, and seeding databases. This short guide only costs $2.99.

Beginning PHP Laravel | Oluwafemi Alofe

Oluwafemi Alofe teaches beginning Laravel developers the steps to create an inventory app, from authentication to building a Blade template. For $5.99, this Laravel ebook teaches modern coding best practices that are also useful for self-taught intermediate Laravel developers looking to clean up their programming styles. The project code is available on GitHub.

"Career Karma entered my life when I needed it most and quickly helped me match with a bootcamp. Two months after graduating, I found my dream job that aligned with my values and goals in life!"

Venus, Software Engineer at Rockbot

Find Your Bootcamp Match

Best Online Laravel Tutorials and Training Resources

Courses and ebooks aren’t the only Laravel resources out there. Another common category of Laravel learning material is tutorials, either in video or written format. Tutorials take you step-by-step through the process of building an example project to demonstrate the concepts you need to understand in order to build apps and websites using Laravel.

Laravel Tutorial | Laravel News

In the Laravel Tutorial from Laravel News, you’ll learn how to move from idea to functioning application using a link directory as the example project. The tutorial is for Laravel beginners, but it does assume that you are proficient in PHP and have some background in coding.

Laravel Bootcamp | Laravel

Taylor Otwell, the creator of Laravel, created a free online tutorial to show new users how to use Laravel. In this bootcamp, you’ll step through the creation of a microblogging platform, Chirper, that takes inspiration from a famous social media website. You have the option to use either Vue or React to build the front end of your microblog.

Laravel Crash Course | TraversyMedia

This free, two-and-a-half-hour video takes viewers through the process of building a post application using Laravel. This tutorial goes beyond sharing lines of code, it also explains how the pieces of coding in Laravel work and fit together.

Laravel 8 Tutorial | Code Step by Step

Code Step by Step has assembled a playlist of 72 videos to cover just about every topic there is to learn in Laravel. Beginners can follow along with every video in the series, and more advanced programmers can just watch the topics they need.

Laravel Employee Management System Tutorial | Laraveller 

This video tutorial shows viewers how to build an employee management application in Laravel. Over the course of just over five and a half hours, this Laravel resource covers installing Laravell, Bootstrap, and Vue.Js, creating a database schema, and using an admin template.

Laravel Official Documentation | Laravel

The official documentation for Laravel has written resources on installation and basic functions. Each section is broken into clickable sections for quick access to a particular guide.

Should You Learn Laravel?

Laravel is a good framework for PHP coding, and it helps you stick to MVC organization in your code. It’s a popular software for professional web developers, used by companies such as Hello Fresh and Square. Laravel is handy for getting portfolio projects up and running with little turnaround time, and it is an excellent addition to software skills on your resume.

Before you start learning Laravel, make sure you understand CRUD and MVC and can code in HTML and PHP. Once this foundation is built, using Laravel will save you a lot of time when you code an app or website. The next step is to dig into one or more of the resources on our list and learn Laravel.

Learn Laravel FAQ