Level 4
Wow, 8 years later and still no reply to this valid question when it's the first result via Google search?
Oct 10, 2015
4
Level 7
Composer vs Laravel Differences when Creating new App
I'm a tester at heart and like to dig deep so I can understand how things work etc...
Any way as a test I did the following:
composer create-project laravel/laravel --prefer-dist app1 -vvv
and
laravel new app2
Then I did a file compare and there were a number of differences I did not expect to see!
When I went looking, I discovered that the Composer version does not include updates to the repo committed from about a month ago.
The other difference is that the phpspec and phpunit command in the vendor\bin folder are .sh files and the Laravel New command produces a php file.
Anyone able to explain the differences?
Oh, and running composer update makes no difference, they are still different! - and yet both labeled v5.1.19 in the composer.lock file.
If you are on Windows, I definitely recommend the "Laravel new" command vs Composer equivalent.
Level 73
@markc They are two completely different things.
The composer create-project is a generic way to create any kind of php project, it could be a Laravel project, a Symfony project, or any other framework or non framework project. It basically just creates the directory and then do a composer require laravel/laravel
The Laravel installer is custom built to install Laravel and do some initial setup to help you get started quicker.
In short, Composer is a package handler for php, and the Laravel installer is exactly that, an installer that will guide you through the most common setup and stack choices.
Level 122
@markc If noone has any idea then there won't be an answer. This isnt an issues list of the repo.
If its still an issue try asking on github.
Level 4
Thanks Tray2. I kind of understand the basic difference between using "composer create-project" and "laravel new" but I'd like to understand, on an even more basic level than the OP, about the practical differences between the two install systems and the impact on the new installation. Various tutorials use either method, but no where have I come across detailed information about the pros or cons of using either method for a newbie, where using "diff" to see for myself is a challenge.
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