The best solution I came up with is using the Laravel File Manager package integrated into TinyMCE. Probably not terribly different than CKEditor but it was the first one I got working the way I wanted. The benefit of the package is that it handles all of the file management/organization.
@sbcman74@DarkRoast thanks! the problem that I have now is that I want to make inline images possible. But when someone uploads an image it has to make an ajax call and give the path back.
But the image has to be related to a post (post_id). And because the post is not being made yet that's not possible. So is it possible to show inline images without making ajax request and only store them when the post is being submitted?
It doesn't appear to be possible using their image uploader. I guess you would need store an array of uploaded images somewhere on the page and submit that along with the post. I think an older version of the editor embedded images with data:base64 but I think that seems to have been removed.