Is it worth using Laravel for backend only?

I have a couple of projects that run through a single route/blade view. I use react for the frontend and I use laravel for Ajax calls only. Works like a charm

For never projects I have added inertiajs to the mix, but I assume that would be no go for you

We've used laravel as the backend only service for many projects, there is definitely no reason to not do this in my opinion.

On a few occasions I've started a Lumen project, but in every case I just jump back to Laravel. The few milliseconds you gain from Lumen isn't worth the convenience you get from the full framework in my opinion.

Thanks, @sinnbeck. I don't think inertiajs would be a good fit for me. In my head, I'd have my frontend and backend in two completely separate packages. Where Laravel would return with JSON only and handle all backend logic (emails, notifications, etc). That way if I want to add extra clients (Phone apps, other Web apps) I wouldn't have to do much work on the laravel side to hook them up.

@ricus Do you have any open source projects where I could have a look? That's what I want to have for my projects. I personally don't see any reason against having laravel backend only. It's just that given the lack of learning material around the subject I wasn't sure if I was missing something :-)

Laravel backend with Nova for admin panel, then have a bunch of clients connecting to your api. Works like a charm

@woddell nothing open source no, all work related.

You just have to decide how you want to implemented your API auth but there's many options these days baked in to the framework.

And then like I mentioned in my previous comment we normally go with Laravel Nova for the admin panel since you will most likely need to configure some things.

Hey, If you build something like this and use it in an app for the public, would the laravel backend be separately hosted on a domain like www.mybackend.com where you would send requests using your app with something like curl or would you not use a domain system and approach it in a different method?