Eloquent vs Query Builder – When to Use Which?

Relation, use eloquent relations. Joins. unions, special cases, use query builder.

Just example of a query, where not using direct relations:

$quy = Powner::query()->leftJoin('dc_pets', 'dc_powners.ownerid', '=', 'dc_pets.ownerid')
                ->select('dc_powners.ownerid', 'dc_powners.oname')
                ->selectRaw('count(dc_pets.petid) as countOfPets')
                ->groupby('dc_powners.ownerid')
                ->orderby('dc_powners.oname')
                ->get();

Results basically give:

ownerid, oname, countOfPets

Like:

5|Bob|3
4|Greg|9
2|Rob|1

Eloquent has also all query builder techniques build in.

@griffhayes77 my rule of thumb is, if you can keep the Eloquent, eloquent, you use the query builder, and if it doesn't quite eloquent well then I use a view.

https://tray2.se/posts/use-a-view-instead-of-a-complex-eloquent-query-in-your-laravel-application