Laravel 7 vs Laravel 8 Dilemma

@codinglara i'm staying with 7 until there's a compelling reason to go to 8. Better to stick with what you already know especially if you are relatively new to Laravel.

TBH I've still got projects in Laravel 6 :P

They have replaced the laravel/ui with jetstream in laravel 8

https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/authentication#authentication-quickstart

Also see discussion here https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/laravel/makeauth-3

Edit, to anyone Landing here changes came after this post, fortify and Breeze is all in the laravel documentation now.

I've been using Bootstrap and SASS for years now

Is it better to just learn and use Tailwind instead?

There is nothing stopping you from using Bootstrap in Laravel 8 (or any version for that matter). The Tailwind and Livewire/Inertia stacks are just preferences and are completely optional, like most other things with Laravel.

I'd recommend using whatever kind of frontend you're comfortable with using. I'd also recommend doing projects in v8 just because you won't have to worry about upgrading your projects later, and also the longer you wait to upgrade the more versions you'll have to upgrade to and the harder it'll probably be to do.

Looks like 6 is the current LTS which I usually follow but L7 has a faster router so that's what I'm using atm for all my projects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laravel

The upgrade guide does cover using bootstrap instead of Tailwind. But actually you can use any CSS I usually write my own. I wish UI would remain default and Jetstream optional.

Ok this is quite depressing, I just started looking into laravel 7.x and started to get a bit "familiar" with it. 8.x is almost starting from scratch, I mean will it be like this every new release?

@akc4 Laravel 7 and 8 are not actually that different, so you're not "starting from scratch". You can always see what's new in 8, or get an upgrade guide by visiting:

• https://laracasts.com/series/whats-new-in-laravel-8
• https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/upgrade

@wilk_randall This jetstream/livewire is disgustingly confusing to me and it comes with new tags.

@akc4 Then don't use it. That's all completely optional. I personally don't plan on using Jetstream in my own projects.

Jetstream is optional and laravel/ui is installable on L8

Taylor claims that less people use laravel/ui than use Livewire

For those that are ok with tailwind but unsure about Livewire or Inertia, you can install jetstream and either just understand that the profile page just 'works' or you can build your own profile page.

The login, reset password and forgot password screens don't use Livewire, they are traditional forms.

Previously you would have had Vue bundled in the app.js whether you wanted to use it or not, now its (optionally) inertia or livewire.

Even the routes syntax changed. I will have to turn my projects up-side down if I want to upgrade to the newer versions of laravel that they put out. I will stick to my old trusty wordpress. :) It must be a nightmare and a half for people running huge projects to upgrade to the new versions of laravel.

laravel/ui is installable on L8..??? are you sure?

Even the routes syntax changed

Nope. Declaring your routes is still done the same. It's Route::get(...) for a GET route just like it was in v7.

I will stick to my old trusty wordpress

That's probably for the best for you, as you clearly don't understand much of Laravel and you don't understand that many things in Laravel are optional and there are usually many ways of doing the same thing.

It must be a nightmare and a half for people running huge projects to upgrade to the new versions of laravel

Not really. It's literally about a 15 minute upgrade if you follow the upgrade guide provided in the documentation. As I stated before, v8 and v7 are really not that different. And if you struggle with reading documentation, you can always use Laravel Shift, which will help automate most of the upgrade process for you.

@wilk_randall I am more disappointed than anything tbh, I started to like Laravel. Don't get me wrong I think Jetstream is really nice I personally don't like that they used tailwind CSS and we have to chose between livewire or inertia scaffoldings and with those comes a bunch of new tags. So now you need to learn tailwind syntax and livewire/inertia. It's discouraging for new comers.

"many things in Laravel are optional and there are usually many ways of doing the same thing."

Basically reinventing the wheel.

The best thing about Laravel is that literally everything is optional. You don't have to use Eloquent, vue, react, livewire, laravel-mix, bootstrap, tailwind, auth system and what not.

Just plain decent PHP But I do recommend to use the brilliant Blade templating system and learn how to use ServiceProviders along with the App\Container intricacies.

Ah and of course Artisan. Or maybe you prefer the WP-CLI and open up your server to billions of attacks ;)

Just my 2c. Please give it anyother shot. In the long run you will be greatful. I know I am!

@extjac Yes.

laravel/ui is installable on L8..?

composer require laravel/ui:^2.4

Which would mean using Tailwind, like the op I don’t want to move away from bootstrap. For similar functionality you’ll have to pay a subscription to Tailwind UI.

Plus if your already productive with bootstrap why change !

So if I want to use the Auth as I did with Ui I can install Jetstream and it will use bootstrap instead of Taiwind ?

I don’t think that’s correct !

seriously there is no reason not to start with 8 for a new project - its really not that different than 7...

@lperry65 yes, exchange styling to bootstrap, custom CSS, or whatever you choose.

Take a look at https://github.com/rogervila/laravel-legacy-ui

Or just use version 3 of Laravel UI, which supports Laravel 8:

https://github.com/laravel/ui/releases/tag/v3.0.0

@akc4

not even remotely close to a nightmare. Even breaking changes are solved very easily and there is an upgrade guide for every version with exact steps.

who said you need to learn inertiajs or livewire ??? If you don't want to then don't. just use livewire without the extra tags. Livewire is blade on steroids. Also nobody says you have to use tailwindcss

Maybe just read again the docs because i think you ve misunderstood a lot of things

@snapey I appreciate your opinion but there's no need to be rude.

Any suggestions or work around idea for this:

Laravel 8: redirectTo() Customize (Login Controller kinda) - https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/laravel/laravel-8-redirectto-customize-login-controller-kinda

Verbatim, here is the L8 "new feature" notes:

"...improvements made in Laravel 7.x by introducing Laravel Jetstream, model factory classes, migration squashing, job batching, improved rate limiting, queue improvements, dynamic Blade components, Tailwind pagination views, time testing helpers, improvements to artisan serve, event listener improvements, and a variety of other bug fixes and usability improvements."

If you dont like Jetstream...dont install Jetsream.

If you like bootstrap, install laravel/ui, then the bootstrap ui preset. (as before with L7)

Not sure what's so confusing for some folks, other then over-complicating something because they refuse to do a little reading. An entire release is no good because you don't understand one (completely optional) new feature? I won't even try...

I just hate seeing the relentless, hard work of some being trashed by lazy and/or misinformed people. If you don't like to read docs, I dont see how y'all made it this far.

Laravel 8 (with or without Jetstream) is a badass release. The job batching alone is insanely helpful...

HUGE thank you to the Laravel team for all the hard work they're constantly doing!!

And the Laravel community for their willingness to help, regardless of the question, and no matter how helpless it may seem to be able to provide answers for some...

If nothing else, this thread is a great example of that fact!

p.s. I happened to go to youtube after writing this comment and this video popped up on my feed. Not sure how good it is..but maybe itll help with the "bootstrap issue" mentioned earlier in this thread... https://youtu.be/lIubE5Aoe9w

If you like bootstrap, install laravel/ui, then the bootstrap ui preset. (as before with L7)

But you can use bootstrap or any css even with jetstream, I am already doing that.

Jetstream does not dictate what JS you use or what css you use.

I am still using Bootstrap, some custom css, and fetch js.

However in version 8 redirect depending on role was missing. I created an issue and @snapey came up with solution:

https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/laravel/version-8-redirects

Update: Today new issue https://github.com/laravel/fortify/issues/31

But a new version will have issues, others and myself inform on Github about such things to get them resolved.

That's great to hear, I was unaware of this @jlrdw. Thanks for sharing.

Though there may be some bugs to fix, I feel like this release has really setup the long-term trajectory for where Laravel is headed for years to come. I can only imagine what will come from having these conventions setup for package writers to build on a solid implementation of teams and user profiles.

Theres also a video on YouTube by Bitfumes, where he shows that you can swap out the entire front end framework (in this case, Inertia and Livewire) by changing one line the config/jetstream file, and it all works flawlessly...i mean come on...Pretty amazing stuff!!