Laravel has over 1.5 million live websites running on it right now. It holds a 35% market share among PHP frameworks, and according to JetBrains' 2024 survey, 61% of PHP developers use it regularly. But here's the thing that's been eating at me: have we just created the most expensive training wheels in web development history?

The Uncomfortable Truth About Modern Laravel Development

Let me paint you a picture. You walk into a coffee shop in 2024, overhear two developers talking, and one says: "I built this awesome app in Laravel!" The other asks: "Cool, how does the authentication work?" First developer: "Uh, I just ran php artisan make:auth." "What about database queries?" "Well, I use Eloquent, so I just do User::where('email', $email)->first()." "Performance optimization?" "Laravel handles that."

Sound familiar? Because I've been that developer. We all have.

Laravel isn't just a framework anymore. It's become a massive abstraction layer that sits between developers and actual PHP. And while that's made building web apps faster than ever, it's also created an entire generation of "PHP developers" who can't actually write PHP.

The Performance Elephant in the Room

Let's get the obvious criticism out of the way first. Laravel is slow. Not "your grandma's dial-up internet" slow, but measurably, demonstrably slower than raw PHP or lighter frameworks.

A developer on Stack Overflow shared their real-world experience: their Laravel application could only handle 112 requests per second on local testing, with response times averaging 200–400ms. Meanwhile, their production PHP application on the same hardware was handling 1,200 requests per second.

That's not a typo. That's a 10x performance difference.

But here's where it gets interesting. That same developer was comparing a Laravel app with session management, database lookups, and all the bells and whistles against a native PHP app with the same features. The Laravel app had every convenience feature enabled. The native PHP app was hand-optimized for performance.

"But Developer Productivity Though!"

This is where Laravel defenders usually jump in. "Sure, it's slower, but look how fast I can build features!" And you know what? They're absolutely right.

Laravel's Eloquent ORM lets you write User::with('posts')->get() instead of writing complex JOIN statements. Its Blade templating engine handles view logic without mixing PHP and HTML like we're still in 2005. The Artisan command line tool generates boilerplate code faster than I can type this sentence.

Taylor Otwell and the Laravel team have built something that makes PHP development genuinely enjoyable. When WordPress still powers 43% of the web and looks like it was built by someone who learned PHP from a 2003 tutorial, Laravel feels like stepping into the future.

Where the "Training Wheels" Argument Actually Holds Water

But here's my real concern: I've worked with Laravel developers who struggle when they need to step outside the framework's boundaries.

Need to optimize a slow query? "Just throw it in a queue." Database bottleneck? "Laravel Octane will fix it." Memory leaks in long-running processes? "Use Laravel Vapor."

There's always a Laravel solution to a Laravel problem. But what happens when there isn't?

I've seen developers completely stumped by concepts like proper indexing, raw SQL optimization, or even basic object-oriented design patterns because they've never needed to learn them. Laravel's magic methods and facades handle everything behind the scenes.

It's like learning to drive exclusively in a Tesla with autopilot. You'll get where you need to go, but good luck when you need to drive a manual transmission truck.

The Numbers Don't Lie (But They Don't Tell the Whole Story)

Laravel's download count exceeded 50 million in 2024, growing 15–20% year over year. GitHub shows 76.5k stars and 23.9k forks on the main repository. These aren't numbers you get from a framework that developers secretly hate.

But performance benchmarks tell a different story. TechEmpower's framework benchmarks consistently rank Symfony (which Laravel is built on) near the bottom for raw throughput. A simple Laravel application can use 20ms just to reach your controller code, before doing any actual work.

For context, that 20ms overhead could handle hundreds of requests in a properly optimized PHP application.

When Laravel Makes Perfect Sense (And When It Doesn't)

Here's the thing though: most applications don't need to handle hundreds of requests per millisecond. Most applications need to handle dozens of concurrent users, integrate with third-party APIs, manage user authentication, and get shipped before the budget runs out.

Laravel excels at the 90% use case. Building a company dashboard? Perfect. Creating an e-commerce site? Excellent choice. Need to integrate Stripe payments, send emails, and handle user registration? Laravel will have you done by lunch.

But if you're building the next Twitter, TikTok's recommendation engine, or a high-frequency trading platform, Laravel's abstraction layers become expensive baggage.

The Middle Ground That Nobody Talks About

What frustrates me isn't that Laravel exists. It's that we've stopped teaching the fundamentals that make Laravel possible.

Modern bootcamps teach Laravel without teaching SQL. Developers learn Eloquent relationships without understanding database normalization. They use Laravel's queue system without understanding process management or memory allocation.

It's created this weird situation where developers can build functional web applications but can't debug performance issues, optimize database queries, or understand why their application falls over at scale.

The Real Question: Are We Better Developers Because of Laravel?

This is where I'm genuinely conflicted. On one hand, Laravel has democratized web development. Developers who might have struggled with the complexities of raw PHP can now build sophisticated applications. Teams can ship faster, iterate quicker, and spend more time solving business problems instead of fighting with boilerplate code.

On the other hand, we've abstracted away so much of the underlying complexity that many developers never learn how their applications actually work. They become dependent on Laravel's ecosystem for solutions to problems that could be solved more efficiently with a deeper understanding of PHP and web development fundamentals.

A Personal Confession

I'll admit something: I love Laravel. I've built applications with it that would have taken months in raw PHP. The developer experience is genuinely fantastic, and the ecosystem is rich and mature.

But I've also spent nights debugging performance issues that wouldn't have existed in a well-architected PHP application. I've seen projects grind to a halt because the team couldn't optimize beyond Laravel's built-in solutions.

The framework isn't the problem. The problem is when it becomes a crutch instead of a tool.

So, Is Laravel Really "PHP for People Who Can't Write PHP"?

Maybe. But maybe that's exactly what the industry needed.

Not every developer needs to be a systems programming expert. Not every project needs hand-optimized database queries and custom memory management. Sometimes, "good enough" performance with excellent developer productivity is the right trade-off.

Laravel has enabled millions of developers to build web applications who might never have been able to otherwise. It's created an ecosystem where small teams can compete with large corporations, where MVPs can be built in days instead of months.

But it's also created a knowledge gap. And as the web becomes more complex, more real-time, and more performance-critical, that gap is starting to show.

The solution isn't to abandon Laravel. It's to understand what sits beneath it. Learn SQL before you learn Eloquent. Understand HTTP before you rely on middleware. Master PHP fundamentals before you embrace the magic.

Because at the end of the day, Laravel is just PHP. Really, really well-organized PHP with excellent tooling and a fantastic community. But it's still PHP.

And if you can't write PHP, you can't truly master Laravel.

What's your take? Are you a Laravel developer who dove deep into PHP fundamentals, or did you start with the framework and work backwards? Share your journey in the comments.