asset() vs url()

asset() - Generate a URL to an application asset.

url() - Generate a URL to an named route.

the asset() method is used to include CSS/JavaScript/images files, you can use it in this cases

<link href="{{ asset('css/min.css') }}" rel="stylesheet">
<script src="{{ asset('use.typekit.net/zjb5wvv.js') }}"></script>
<img alt="logo" src="{{ asset('images/logo.png') }}">

The files must located in the public folder.

the url() method used to generate an url to a link, {{ url('users', ['page' => 22], $secure = null) }}

@EliasSoares url() is not necessarily an named route.

Both methods are helpers that point to Illuminate\Routing\UrlGenerator class' methods (asset and to), the big differences are:

asset($path, $secure = null)

• asset doesn't accept extra query parameters
• in case of relative URL asset checks for presence of index.php string and removes it because is not needed for assets

url/to($path, $extra = [], $secure = null)

• to does accept extra parameters that are appended as path segments
• to preservers query string

Try this in artisan tinker:

>>> url('relativeurl?existingparam=1',['newparam'=>2])
=> "http://phpdev/subdir/public/relativeurl/2?existingparam=1"

both

• accept absolute path starting with \#, //, http, mailto, tel , for them it only checks for validity

@RachidLaasri Good explanation. Thanks :)